Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 19 KV 459 Concerto For Flute & Harp KV 299 Andante For Flute KV 315 Horn Concerto No. 1 KV 412 514 Orf Radio Symphonieorchester Wien, Howard Griffiths & Thomas Zehetma

Sony Classical is delighted to bring you the latest album from the sensational pianist, Oliver Schnyder, featuring a selection of Ludwig van Beethoven’s greatest works including his complete piano concertos and selected overtures. Dubbed the “piano poet” and with over 12,000 fans on Facebook alone, Schynder’s aesthetic approach is compared with that of the great pianists Kempff, Schnabel, Fischer and Barenboim. Ludwig van Beethoven stands for independence of mind, for revolutionary ideas, for music that reaches far beyond his own time.

There is hardly a better way to approach Ludwig van Beethoven than through his piano concertos. Beethoven’s own instrument was the piano, and in his improvisations – which made him the darling of the Viennese salons – he merged virtuosity and unbridled expression. The piano concertos give a clear idea of these performances. At the same time, they are prime examples of Beethoven’s ability to create large orchestral works with seemingly endless arcs of tension.

The poet of the piano, the Paganini of the piano – to this day Fryderyk Chopin (1810–1849) is known by these monikers, indeed in his own time his talent was considered to be comparable only to Mozart’s.

Athanor. A mysterious name to designate, in alchemy, the long-combustion furnace that produces the philosopher’s stone. This matrix, which symbolises the quest of one who seeks to the Absolute, is a metaphor of Liszt’s approach.

For the fourth volume in this collection dedicated to Mozart concertos by the younger generation of performers, the Orpheum Foundation and Alpha Classics present the Concertos nos. 23 and 24 (K488 & 491) performed by the British pianist Julian Trevelyan, who was awarded three prizes at the Géza Anda Competition in Zurich in 2021 and, at the age of sixteen, became the youngest-ever prizewinner at the Marguerite Long Competition in Paris in 2015. ‘Mozart’s music is full of life, humour and enjoyment. My life wouldn’t feel fulfilled if I didn’t have his music’, says the young musician, who is accompanied here by one of the most eminent Mozartian maestros, Christian Zacharias, conducting the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The Orpheum Foundation, which has been supporting young musicians for more than thirty years, has joined forces with Alpha Classics for a complete series of recordings devoted to Mozart's solo concertos. The best soloists of the young generation have been selected under the artistic direction of Howard Griffiths, a renowned Mozart conductor, who considers that playing his music is like "looking in a mirror: you can hear if everything is right, musicality, intonation, rhythm, phrasing"… These albums will immortalize this unforgiving challenge and reveal the great virtuosos of tomorrow. Performing concertos for violin, bassoon and piano, with Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, are Ziyu He, Theo Plath and Mélodie Zhao.

A concert by Martha Argerich is always sensational, sometimes grandiose, and occasionally the audience experiences a truly stellar event. Going through the archives of Bavarian Broadcasting, the feeling was unanimous, and many “ear witnesses” themselves remembered the concerts: on these evenings Argerich was in top form, collaborated with two congenial conductors, inspired the orchestra and drew inspiration from it. In short: these live recordings should, indeed must be heard! Especially with this artist, the medium of live recording is especially valuable. Before an audience in the sold-out hall, there developed a knack for communication and spontaneous music-making with a downright personal appeal to the listener.

A concert by Martha Argerich is always sensational, sometimes grandiose, and occasionally the audience experiences a truly stellar event. Going through the archives of Bavarian Broadcasting, the feeling was unanimous, and many “ear witnesses” themselves remembered the concerts: on these evenings Argerich was in top form, collaborated with two congenial conductors, inspired the orchestra and drew inspiration from it. In short: these live recordings should, indeed must be heard! Especially with this artist, the medium of live recording is especially valuable. Before an audience in the sold-out hall, there developed a knack for communication and spontaneous music-making with a downright personal appeal to the listener.

In 1914, Franz Schmidt staged his opera Notre Dame at the Vienna State Opera to great acclaim. Immediately afterwards, he was looking for material for a new opera when he came across the novel Fredigundis by Felix Dahn, which is loosely based on historical events from the 6th century. Schmidt worked on the project from 1916 to 1921, with the premiere taking place in Berlin in December 1922. Schmidt’s music for Fredigundis marks the end of a development that runs through the so-called ‘Classic-Romantic’ period.

As a young boy he was trained by his mother to play piano but later decided to exchange the instrument for the violin. In 1928, convinced by Bronisław Huberman (a friend of the family), Szeryng went to Berlin to study under Karl Flesch. His debut concert took place in Warsaw in 1933 when he performed Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major with Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Bruno Walter. In the same year he played in Bucharest, Vienna, and Paris, achieving acclaim both from the audience and the critics. In the years 1933-1939 the artist continued to learn violin under Jacques Thibaud and Gabriel Bouillon and studied composition under Nadia Boulanger.