Kaspar

The violin, the cello and the piano are blessed with an immense wealth of concertante works from all eras. For the composer Fabian Müller (*1964), it was therefore particularly appealing to write solo concertos for two instruments that tend to be neglected in classical music. The sound of the heckelphone in particular is probably only familiar to a few.

Thomas Albertus Irnberger, violin, and Pavel Kašpar, piano, lead us with this album into the bourgeois salon of the late 19th century – an oasis amid the "good old days" which weren’t, of course, that good to begin with: mired turmoil, social inequalities, and wars as much and more than ever since. The invited audience were to listen to Hungarian dances by Brahms, Kodály or Rachmaninoff, Csárdás’ by Franz Lehár, Miska Hauser or Jeno Hubay, Romances, Fantasies and other melodies by Tchaikovsky, Leopold Auer, Carl Bohm or Joseph Joachim. Some songs from operettas by Lehár, Jeno Huszka, Emmerich Kálmán and Pongrác Kacsóh with the Hungarian soprano Brigitta Simon complete this musical visit to the "Salon de Budapest".

Le 26 mai 1828, Kaspar Hauser fit son apparition sur une place de Nuremberg. Ce jeune homme, qui semblait avoir 16 ou 17 ans, savait à peine marcher. Il n’avait pas cinquante mots en bouche et ne pouvait dire d’où il venait, ni où il allait. On l’aurait dit échappé de la Caverne de Platon. Il demeure à ce jour l’un des plus célèbres « enfants sauvages »…