Little Tobias Lilja

Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758), born 308 years ago today, was the son of a violinist in the Royal Opera Orchestra in Stockholm, and was employed there in the same capacity as his father. After a year or so, he was allowed to travel to complete his studies. He played in Handel's opera orchestra in London, earning the nickname 'the Swedish virtuoso' and worked for the Duke of Newcastle, before being summoned back to Stockholm, where he was swiftly promoted to vice concertmaster and later, in 1727, to concertmaster.

Tobias Hume (c.1570-1645) was a professional soldier and a ‘gentleman’ (read amateur) composer, and virtuoso of the bass viol. His Musicall Humors (1605), a large collection of solo pieces, is the first publication devoted to the lyra viol, a style of playing that treated the instrument polyphonically, like a lute. Hume reveals himself as a distinct, even eccentric, personality, and an inventive composer, expanding the viol’s normal range with such unusual devices as col legno (‘Drum this with the backe of your Bow’). Jordi Savall’s cultivated, elegant style is very appropriate for much of the music; occasionally he adopts a more earthy manner to great effect – for example in A Souldiers Resolution, with its trumpet and drum imitations.

Following his Alpha recording of sonatas by Prokofiev, Ravel and Strauss, the violinist Tobias Feldmann now turns to the concerto form, performing the two major works of the Finnish repertoire for the instrument: the violin concertos of Jean Sibelius and Einojuhani Rautavaara. Premiered in Helsinki in 1904, the Sibelius Concerto proved to be exceptionally difficult technically for the soloist. Sibelius revised his score, but subsequently composed for violin and orchestra only in shorter forms, the serenade and the humoresque. It was not until nearly seventy years later that a Finnish composer wrote another large-scale work for violin and orchestra, with the Concerto of Rautavaara, which in all respects equals the degree of virtuosity demanded by the earlier work.

Gioachino Rossini was summoned to Paris in 1824 to breathe new life into its opera culture, and one of his most exciting innovations in this period was the creation of an entirely new genre of opera comedy. The risqué tale of Le Comte Ory had its origins in vaudeville theatre and is based on the story of a villainous Count who attempts the seduction of Countess Adele as she awaits the return of her husband from the Crusades. Le Comte Ory is the last of Rossini s comic operas, making full use of the libretto s farcical disguises and humor in one of his most colorfully orchestrated scores. This production, staged by Linda Mallik, features the Malmo Opera Orchestra and Chorus with world renowned soloists Leonardo Ferrando as Count Ory and Erika Miklosa as Countess Adele.

Violinist Inna Kogan and pianist Tobías Bigger bring us an exquisite program of music starting with the very famous “Old Vienna” in the Jascha Heifetz arrangement for violin and piano. “Lakodalmas OP.21b”, the Hungarian wedding dance by Leo Weiner and three “Spanish Dances” by Moritz Moszkowski follows in this program of really rare pieces. Not to miss the wonderful “Sonata Op.21” by Nikolai Medtner and the iconic “Cherry Ripe” by Cyril Scott.

Violinist Inna Kogan and pianist Tobías Bigger bring us an exquisite program of music starting with the very famous “Old Vienna” in the Jascha Heifetz arrangement for violin and piano. “Lakodalmas OP.21b”, the Hungarian wedding dance by Leo Weiner and three “Spanish Dances” by Moritz Moszkowski follows in this program of really rare pieces. Not to miss the wonderful “Sonata Op.21” by Nikolai Medtner and the iconic “Cherry Ripe” by Cyril Scott.

Along with Handel's Messiah, which was greatly admired by Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), the oratorio The Creation is one of the few works of this genre written before 1800 that from the outset has enjoyed uninterrupted popularity with audiences and choirs alike. In this timeless classic dating from 1798, Haydn creates a musical world with such a variety of different expressive means that its radiant charisma is irresistible.

In celebration of the 150th Anniversary this Album focus on still less-known but exceptional sensitive and impressive Choral Symphonic and Orchestra songs by Max Reger. With these works, Reger entirely adhered to the trend of the time; the large-scale idea, which would have had no place in the operas of the period, is transferred to the concert hall, so to speak, and is as far removed from the "simple" orchestral song as some of Mahler's Rückert-Lieder. The Hebbel Requiem, Op. 144b includes audible parallels with Johannes Brahms‘s German Requiem and was Reger’s memorial for the German soldiers killed in the war.

„Women who compose independently are rare in the music world. As abundant as the literary world is with female talent, the musical scene has few to champion, and among these few, Emilie Mayer is at the top. Her prolific output resembles a wellspring. She transforms every sensation, every feeling and every emotion to music.“ Elisabeth Sangalli-Marr (c. 1828–1901) described Emilie Mayer’s unique position in the music world of the time with these words in a Biographische Skizze (biographical sketch) published in 1877. Indeed, no other composer of her generation was so unimpressed by patriarchal gender conceit and rigid role attributions as „Europe’s greatest female composer“ (as Emilie Mayer is described in the subtitle of a recently published biography).