Chamber Music

Paul Dessau composed more than 450 works from all the genres, but scarcely a single one of them continues to meet with recognition and representation in today's concert world. The musicians of the Ensemble Avantgarde decided to change this with an impressive overview of the chamber oeuvre of this composer. The young Dessau celebrated great successes with his Concertino in the unusual instrumentation for solo violin with flute, clarinet, and horn already in 1925 and even won a composition prize for it. Dessau himself actually wanted to become a violinist, and Gewandhaus concertmaster Andreas Seidel masters with bravura what at times is a wildly virtuosic solo part.

This collection of chamber works by French female composers helps to consolidate our understanding of how important these musicians were to French culture during the period 1860-1960. Some of these names will be more familiar to the public than others, Germaine Tailleferre being perhaps the best known, mostly for her membership of Les Six. Others ought to be far more renowned than they are now.

Georg Philipp Telemann - Musica Alta Ripa - Concertos and Chamber Music
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 1,55 GB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: MDG "Gold" # 309 1582-2 | Country/Year: Germany 2009, 5xCD
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

…Celebrated German label MDG have assembled a fine and varied chamber music programme of four movement concertos and sonatas plus an overture which shows off the composer in some of his finest and most varied colours and textures. Listeners unfamiliar with Telemann can comfort themselves as each and every one of the works contained here has expressive charm in abundance and sustained musical interest. No bland and plodding keyboard continuo here. (…) Telemann’s strength and depth in these chamber compositions is never in doubt and with consistently fine playing from the Ensemble Musica Alta Ripa this is certainly a worthy release.

Chamber music by Taneyev, Arensky, Shostakovich and Catoire. Chances are the you have heard of the first two composers. But have you ever heard any of their chamber music? And Catoire? Well, this self-taught composer has been a well-hidden treasure whose small out-put is rarely performed.
Russian born violinist Boris Tsoukkerman introduced Catoire's interesting chamber music to some of his Dutch colleagues. As a result several recordings were made to share their enthusiasm about this repertoire with a wider audience. At the time none other that Tchaikovsky admonished Catoire to continue composing. And later on both Arensky and Taneyev advised him on his work. And Rachmaninorr too liked Catoire's music

Landscapes, whether real or imagined have been a recurring theme in the chamber music of Judith Bingham, performed here by the internationally renowned Chamber Domaine and the supremely talented Korean soprano Yeree Suh.