Bursting Over Bremen

On her debut album for Berlin Classics, Sarah Christian performs no less a work than Tchaikovsky’s warhorse, his Violin Concerto, ably supported by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Jéremie Rhorer. For full measure, she plays Tchaikovsky’s Sextet Souvenir de Florence. This is repertoire radiant with positive energy and feelings of happiness, which are not always to be found in Tchaikovsky’s music. Sarah Christian is able to do more here than show off her brilliant technical skills; her love of chamber music can be clearly heard and clearly felt.

Picaresque Of Bremen, led by Tochizawa Jun, were formed in the early 1980's in Morioka City in Iwate and they performed mainly in the Iwate prefecture…

“The Beethoven concerto is a piece of overwhelming power,” says violinist Vilde Frang. “It is somehow more than music – the dimension of it feels almost cosmic. The force of this concerto takes me by surprise, over and over again.” Frang juxtaposes Beethoven’s epic, lyrical work with Stravinsky’s compact violin concerto, which pays spiky tribute to 18th century models. The conductor is Pekka Kuusisto, himself an adventurous violinist, in his role as Artistic Best Friend of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. “It was the chamber musical qualities of the Beethoven concerto that provided the key for me,” says Frang.

Reinhard Keiser’s Kleine theatralische Musik contains arrangements of instrumental versions of opera numbers composed for Hamburg and performed there. With the greatest probability this work involves a collection of »theater music« compiled by the composer from his operas written prior to 1718. This work is complemented by further instrumental music as well as cantatas and arias by Keiser. The program covers a spectrum including Keiser’s initial years in Hamburg, the period of his greatest success in the second decade of the eighteenth century, and his difficult traveling years following 1719.

Conductor Tarmo Peltokoski, signed to the Deutsche Grammophon label at age 23 and promised to be the next phenomenon from Finland, impresses with his debut album offering fresh performances of three familiar Mozart symphonies. Some young conductors burn out, but one may hope it doesn't happen to Peltokoski, who shows impressive control over the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in these recordings. The sheer intensity of these readings also may bring the notion of burnout to mind. Other conductors have taken Mozart symphonies at a quick clip, but Peltokoski is close to the fast end of the spectrum, and he takes care to shape intermediate phrases to push the motion forward.

Conductor Tarmo Peltokoski, signed to the Deutsche Grammophon label at age 23 and promised to be the next phenomenon from Finland, impresses with his debut album offering fresh performances of three familiar Mozart symphonies. Some young conductors burn out, but one may hope it doesn't happen to Peltokoski, who shows impressive control over the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in these recordings. The sheer intensity of these readings also may bring the notion of burnout to mind. Other conductors have taken Mozart symphonies at a quick clip, but Peltokoski is close to the fast end of the spectrum, and he takes care to shape intermediate phrases to push the motion forward.

The tragic fate of composer Oskar Böhme long went unresearched. His music suffered a similar fate. On his new album “Oskar Böhme – Trumpet Concerto & Pieces” the trumpeter Matthias Höfs is joined by The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in a performance of his most ambitious works that aims to win a hearing both for his striking and sensitive music and for the story of his life. The album will be released by Berlin Classics on September 30.

The Boreas Quartett Bremen and soprano Dorothee Mields bring a little-known musical manuscript of the renaissance to life and present a series of premiere recordings. The Basevi Codex, a collection of Franco-Flemish chansons, motets and mass settings, was produced during the early sixteenth century in the famous music scribing workshop of Pierre Alamire. Faithfully following renaissance performance practice, which allowed great freedom in its musical realisations, the recorder consort and Dorothee Mields interpret selected pieces from the codex, with voice or purely instrumental, and, depending on the character of the piece, also with improvised virtuoso ornamentation. This creates a colourful picture of the music as it was sung and played at the Burgundian-Dutch court of Princess Margaret of Austria in Mechelen.