Hanssler

Beni Araki began her studies as a harpsichordist at the “Toho-Gakuen” in Tokyo.

The last few missing symphonies of Haydn were recorded this spring - now our complete recording of all of Haydn's symphonies is finished! The release of all volumes 1-35 Haydn - The complete Symphonies on Hänssler Classic will be in 2024. "Heidelberg Haydn is a paragon of dynamism, freshness, wildness, humour, and a richness of surprise. I am delighted that the journey continues, and that the cycle is completed. My musical encounters with the Heidelberg Symphony Orchestra have always been journeys to happiness. Idealism, the love of music, and technical perfection combine here with the will to create something very special, and it all fits perfectly into the symphonic world of Joseph Haydn. Full of anticipation, I look forward to the future!" (Johannes Klumpp)

Pianist Ksenia Nosikova has been praised as “First rate” (Fono Forum), “Full of dramatic intensity” (International Piano), “Subtle and expressive” (Journal L’Alsace), “Impressive musicianship, musically very poetic” (Boston Globe), and “Refined sensibility and exquisite pianism” (New York Concert Reviews).

The night has always been a time of enchantment; it embodies the uncanny, but also the romantic side of human existence. For her new Hänssler release Jenny Lin has selected a program of night pieces that speak to both the sensual and more complex psychological aspects of nocturnal experiences – from Debussy’s "Clair de lune" to Arthur Lourié‘s "A Phoenix Park Nocturne" to Liszt's "Liebestraum" she evokes sounds, dancing, romance, far from everyday experiences, whispering of things hidden from the light of day.

World premiere recording of the Piano Concerto and Symphony No. 1 by the Finnish composer Helvi Leiviskä. Oliver Triendl has brought the works out of oblivion and made them known to a broad public.

Credo - a profession of faith, belief, confidence and trust in a time that is challenging for all of us. Faith in the power of music, in art and in the ability to rise up and persevere. These duet recordings were created with these thoughts in mind, making their way through Handel's opera and oratorio duets, right up to the final creative phase of his life.

A narrative unfolds in seven stages which reflects Walter Benjamin's flight in suggestive images in which dream sequences and reality interweave. Benjamin's encounters with Hannah Arendt, Bertolt Brecht, Gershom Scholem and Asya Lacis - the woman who tried to persuade him for many years to embrace historical materialism - became the cornerstones of this rhetorical arc. "These stages", says Ruzicka, "may represent a unique life story in the 20th century, whereby in view of the devastation of that century, it is inevitable that the wounds that are thought to have healed are made to bleed again".

MADE IN EUROPE – a tantalisingly simple title for this CD – so consequently all the more profound and unifying the selected pieces from a diverse and traditional European song heritage.

The two piano concertos by Johannes Brahms occupy an uncontested place in the pantheon of the greatest works of this genre. At the same time they play a unique role in the development of the concerto form in the 19th century, particularly in view of their uneven history of reception. When the young Brahms started out searching the limelight in the early 1850s with his first major composition he was facing a musical world torn apart by ideological wars about questions of form, harmony, and the role of programme music.

The Finnish pianist, composer, and piano teacher Ilmari Hannikainen (1892 - 1955) wrote over one hundred solo songs. As a child, he accompanied his mother, the singer Alfhild "Alli" Hannikainen (1967 - 1949), on the piano. His own songs bear dedications to her and to many other well-known Finnish singers of the time, some of whom he also performed with. As late as the 1950s, he recorded several songs for Finnish Radio, but unfortunately, only a few of the recordings have survived.