Wooden Tomasz Stańko Quintet

Franz Liszt’s art songs form a fascinating repertoire. His lieder served as a vehicle for his own artistic and aesthetic development, but also as inspiration for his contemporaries, who soon followed in his footsteps in composing songs for voice and orchestra.

This album features pieces for solo cello, displaying the extraordinary technical and tone colour possibilities of this instrument. The album is also a musical journey through a century of Polish chamber music composed for this instrument by outstanding artists.

Wooden Shjips, long-time leaders of the contemporary psychedelic movement, expand their sound with V. The quartet of Omar Ahsanuddin, Dusty Jermier, Nash Whalen and Ripley Johnson augment their already rich sound with laid back, classic summer songs. The songs were written during the summer of 2017 by singer and guitarist Ripley Johnson as an antidote to the pervasive anxiety both political and natural. As Ripley tells it, “We had huge forest fires just outside of Portland and there was intense haze and layers of ash in the city. I was sitting on my porch every evening, watching ash fall down like snow, the sky looking like it was on fire. It was an apocalyptic feeling. Summer in Portland is usually really chill and beautiful, and we were working on a ‘summer record,’ but the outside world kept intruding on my headspace.” V., a graphic representation of the Peace sign, seemed apt to an album focused on the power of peace, beauty and resistance. The music is a balm against the noise and negativity.

Two world premiere recordings on the new album «Swiss Treasures» by the Portugal-based Art’Ventus Quintet: The Wind Quintet by Peter Mieg (1906-1990) from 1970 and «Adagio und Scherzino» (1963) by Paul Huber (1918-2001). In addition, there is the Quintet op. 84 by Paul Juon (1872-1940) and the highly original Divertimento for Wind Quintet op. 69 (1977) by the Graubünden composer Gion Antoni Derungs (1935-2012).

"Georges Onslow is best known for a body of chamber music that follows the musical lineage of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. A master of the quintet medium, Onslow offered variations of ensemble to players, the two presented here being cast for string quartet and double bass. The tempestuous Quintet No. 23 in A minor is charged with almost ceaseless nervous energy and Schubertian lyricism; the mature Quintet No. 31 in A major is both subtle and elegant, with a brilliant assemblage of details such as walking bass and violin-cello duets."

Lively and colourful period-instrument accounts of pioneering works in the genre that later gave us masterpieces by Schubert, Schumann and Brahms.