Wolfgang Lenze

Anna Prohaska asked Wolfgang Katschner and the Lautten Compagney at the outset of the coronavirus crisis whether they shouldn’t spontaneously organize a musical get-together in this period. This has now resulted in #ERLÖSUNG/REDEMPTION, a sequence of music selected solely from Bach cantatas, compiled in keeping with the aforenamed conceptual association. We see the motto ERLÖSUNG/REDEMPTION as having multiple meanings, for instance: can music give us consolation in times of sickness and crisis; can it open up emotional and contemplative spaces for us; is it redemptive for us as musicians to be the “Instruments” in engendering music and therefore spirituality… ? Besides Anna as soloist and three other singers, we cast a larger group of musicians – around twenty instrumentalists – which stands for the lautten compagney and communes in accompanying the arias Anna sings, hence also initiating a statement or a kind of living sign of a collective such as the ensemble normally represents.

On "Lockdown Releases" you follow the path of Wolfgang Lackerschmid's creative and varied musical history from the late seventies till 2020. All these tracks were either digitally remastered, finally completed or even recorded during the lockdown in spring 2020.

In 1964 Deutsche Oper Berlin still had no General Music Director. But Artistic Director Gustav Rudolf Sellner made a virtue out a necessity and – in addition to the permanent conductor Heinrich Hollreiser and the regular guest conductor Karl Böhm – brought in further conductors from home and abroad for individual productions. For “Don Carlos” he invited Wolfgang Sawallisch, who since 1957 had been making a name for himself at the Bayreuth Festival, above all with “Tannhäuser” and the “Flying Dutchman” and since 1960 had been acting General Music Director in Hamburg. He had at his disposal an ensemble of outstanding soloists. In addition to Josef Greindl and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, they included James King in the title role, Pilar Lorengar, Martti Talvela, Patricia Johnson and Lisa Otto as the Voice from Heaven.

Arthaus presents a rare document of an early nineties operatic highlight: the Japanese premiere of Wolfgang Sawallisch’s last production at the Bavarian State Opera. The Company’s tour of Nagoya and Tokyo in autumn 1992 under director and principal conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch was a particularly important event. Sawallisch was celebrating both the twenty-fifth anniversary of his first appearance as visiting guest conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and his departure, after twenty-one years, from his two principal posts with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Sawallisch - an acclaimed interpreter of the music of Richard Strauss - chose Die Frau ohne Schatten to commemorate these anniversaries.

Originally released on vinyl in 1979, Ballads For Two finds both musicians at the top of their game. Recorded on the 8th and 9th January 1979 in Stuttgart, Germany, this original vinyl release was not widely distributed. Now available for the first time on CD, the combination of Wolfgang's originals & well chosen covers is stunning. Baker's trumpet is emotive and telepathic with Wolfgang's vibes. Two bonus tracks are added from the original recording session. Chet plays a beautiful muted trumpet on the alternate take of Why Shouldn’t You Cry. Both musicians really stretch out on Double O, a Lackerschmid original. A Four Star review from Downbeat noted, "Ballads For Two arrives as an unexpected treat, defying Baker's detractors and placing him with success in unfamiliar surroundings." Highlights are Blue Bossa & Waltz For Susan.

This is a 2004 production of a Handel rarity performed at the beautiful setting of the Schlosstheater Potsdam under the direction of Axel Köhler. Handel's five act opera Teseo was premièred in 1713 at the Queen's Theatre in London. After flopping with his previous work Il pastor fido Handel reverted to the format of his big success Rinaldo and again created an opera with a heroic subject, sophisticated stagecraft and a big orchestra. Teseo has many qualities of the French tragédie lyrique style, such as the five-act structure, big arias in the middle of scenes (meaning that characters do not have to leave the stage after their arias), a secondary romantic couple, many short arias and recitatives and many accompanied recitatives. In 1947 the opera was rediscovered and staged for the first time after Handel's death at the Göttinger Händelfestpiele.

Although Korngold’s ‘complete works for violin and piano’ make up a reasonably full disc, it is only fair to point out that the Violin Sonata is the single work that is not an arrangement from one of his other pieces. Yet this Sonata, written at the age of 15 for Carl Flesch and Artur Schnabel no less, is a fine example of his early style, with its echoes of Zemlinsky and early Schoenberg. The young Dutch violinist Sonja van Beek and German pianist Andreas Frölich negotiate its challenges with ease: as in Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata, the pianist has as tough a role as the melody instrument. Much Ado about Nothing is one of several arrangements of a suite of four movements derived from incidental music to Shakespeare’s play written in 1918, performed here with affection and a silken suavity. The remainder of the repertoire is made up of arrangements of Korngold lollipops, hit numbers from his operas, such as the unforgettable ‘Marietta’s Lied’ from Die tote Stadt, arranged by the composer as salon pieces and popularised by Kreisler and his ilk. Here, the almost vocal qualities of van Beek’s tone come into their own. An essential disc for the Korngold addict.