Daniel Rothe Pallet

360° Hugo Wolf. The title says it all. Daniel Johannsen and Andreas Fröschl present an exquisite selection of art songs from Wolf’s extensive oeuvre. Combined with the sound of the contemporary grand piano by Carl Rönisch (1872), these songs are distilled into a unique, fascinating essence of the art of Lied of the late Romantic period.

The legendary British oboist Leon Goossens inspired all the composers represented on this recording, and all but one of the pieces were written for his oboe, on which he premièred the works by Delius, Bax, Bliss, and Finzi. The piece by Vaughan Williams is arranged for cor anglais, but it was on his own precious instrument that Goossens would première Vaughan Williams’s Oboe Concerto, in 1944. Nicholas Daniel has, with special permission from Goossens’s daughter Jennie, recorded Delius’s Two Interludes on Goossens’s (now 110-year-old) oboe, rather than his own modern oboe, and contributes a fascinating booklet note on the influence and experience of playing this instrument.

The six sonatas for violin and harpsichord obbligato rank amongst the most beautiful chamber music composed by Bach however, they are overshadowed by the solo sonatas. They are performed beautifully here by Daniel Gaede and Raphael Alpermann. The slow movements display a range of moods, from desolate and lonely to radiantly festive. Meanwhile, the fast movements are a mixture of high-spirited instrumental music and contrapuntal mastery. There are canons, fugues, chorale preludes and much more: practically a compendium of options. Daniel Gaede and Raphael Alpermann guide us through this treasure trove of curiosities with virtuosity and sensitivity.

During his short life Don Banks (1923–80) enjoyed a reputation as the leading modernist among Australian composers. Studies with Mátyás Seiber, Milton Babbitt and, especially, Luigi Dallapiccola helped refine his serial technique, but his music never retreated into academic abstraction, as this recital of chamber and vocal works demonstrates: it retained a keen sense of drama, an ear for atmosphere, a rather angular lyricism and, occasionally, a touch of humour.

Storytelling and making – craft and narrative, and the ways in which they are both enabled and complicated by the presence of music – lie at the heart of Matthew Kaner’s compositional world, as revealed on this debut album devoted to his work.

The young, already internationally successful Austrian baritone and ensemble member of the Munich Gärtnerplatztheater Daniel Gutmann presents songs by Robert Schumann based on poems by Heinrich Heine with Maximilian Kromer, piano, on this CD. In addition to Schumann's most popular song cycle, "Dichterliebe" Op. 48, from which the title of this album, "Tränenflut", is taken, this recording also finds the "Liederkreis" Op. 24 with it's nine songs enter this compilation. In addition, Gutmann and Kromer interpret with "Belshazzar", Op. 57, and "Die zwei Grenadiere", Op. 49/1, Schumann's settings of two of the German poet's best-known ballads.