Marc Friedrich

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche est un philologue, philosophe, poète, pianiste et compositeur allemand, né le 15 octobre 1844 à Röcken, en Prusse, et mort le 25 août 1900 à Weimar, en Allemagne. …

The large repertoire of works for the viola is due primarily to the efforts of German composers from the Romantic period. Hummel and Weber, for example, reserved for the viola a special place in their compositions, and Schumann dedicated the four pieces of his Marchenbilder to this instrument. Also worthy of mention are Max Bruch's double concerto and his Pieces for clarinet, viola and piano. Brahms himself authorized the transcription for viola of his two clarinet sonatas.

Following on from and designed along the same lines as the Guide to Period Instruments, this boxed set includes an exhaustive introductory text as well as a great quantity of music excerpts on the set’s eight CDs. These extracts have been taken from the extensive repertoire recorded by Ricercar over many years, with excerpts from recordings kindly provided by our colleagues from Harmonia Mundi, Gimell, Accent, Alpha and Sony supplementing our programme where necessary. The Lutheran repertoire of the Renaissance has remained for all intents and purposes unrecorded up until now; the tracks illustrating this repertoire together with other excerpts have been recorded specially for this compilation by Vox Luminis.

Today, the five-string cello is treated as an exotic and rarely-played cousin of the standard cello. However, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was simply one of the many instruments used in the family of bass violins, and was particularly important for virtuosic sonatas and solos.