Alex Cattoni

"The greatest song cycle ever written." - Glenn Gould is very unequivocal in his judgement of Paul Hindemith's Das Marienleben, based on a collection of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. The notorious bourgeois terror, then only 27 years old, shows a very different, internalised side here. "There is something in these songs that forces and fascinates the listener beyond all habits of conventional song manner," wrote a reviewer in 1923, and to this day there is nothing to add. Yvonne Friedli and Constantin Alex make it palpable in their sensitive interpretation.

Even though musicians may come from divergent places, it is amazing to find that many have the same proclivities when it comes to musical tendencies and taste. The relationship between Detroit born baritone saxophonist and bass clarinetist Alex Harding and Romanian pianist Lucian Ban is one example, in this case two musician from such different places, coalesce around the power of the blues. Their new recording, Dark Blue, is a testament to their musical and brotherly bond.

Combining the Sensational Alex Harvey Band's third and fourth albums, The Impossible Dream and Tomorrow Belongs To Me, offers perhaps the archetypal vision of Alex Harvey, as his long-nurtured alter-ego, the comic book hero Vambo, finally burst out of imagination to take on a life of his own on stages across the world. Yet what would become the group's most successful albums also stand as their patchiest.

"David Pohle created his Zwolf Liebesgesange in the early seventeenth century, crucially advancing the emerging genre of the German song. The settings of the 26-year-old Pohle are valuable testimonials to the development of this genre. The poems by Paul Fleming, on which these settings are based, bear autobiographical features, mirrored by David Pohle in his compositions by the use of two equal voices. In a varied manner, the music and text tell of love, loss and pain, of happiness, determination and abstinence. Audite presents this premiere recording with a top-class cast of soloists and instrumentalists.