Ernst Vschubert

CPO have scored again with this splendid disc of symphonies by the heretofore unsung Friedrich Ernst Fesca. This is lively, buoyant playing of music that should most certainly be heard in the concert hall. A contemporary of Beethoven and a harbinger of Brahms, Fesca was known primarily as a violinist. This excellent performance by Frank Beermann and the Berlin Radiophilharmonie proves that he was a composer of considerable merit.

Ernst Mielck - Dramatic Overture / Macbeth Overture / Finnish Suite / Altböhmisches Weihnachtslied / Altgermanisches Julfest
Juha Kotilainen / Helsinki University Symphony Orchestra / Mikk Murdvee
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 271 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Toccata Classics TOCC 0174 | Country/Year: UK 2013
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic

"…Mielck composed all his works in the short span of four years. His catalogue includes a large number of works in the field of chamber music, including a string quintet and a string quartet. He also composed a symphony (1897), two overtures, a concert piece for piano and orchestra as well as one for violin and orchestra, the Finnish Suite, and two major vocal works in the German language…"

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1812–65) was one of the leading musicians of his day, a friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and for Joseph Joachim ‘the greatest violinist I ever heard’. This is the fourth CD in a series of seven which will present all his compositions for the first time. It contains some of his most important compositions: an early Concertino with a melancholy slow movement and charming waltz finale; the fiendishly difficult Concerto that had a deep influence not only on Liszt’s Piano Sonata but also on concertos by Brahms and Sibelius; and the late String Quartet, with echoes of Beethoven and Mendelssohn and an inwardness, charm and energy all of its own.

Violinist and director Johann Ernst Hartmann is mainly known to posterity for his Danish Singspiel though he actually wrote far more instrumental music than songs. A disastrous fire in the Christianborg Palace in 1794 destroyed a large number of his manuscripts so it’s uncertain quite how many symphonies and other concerted music he did write – only one Symphony ever made it to publication, the First, which was published by Hummel in Amsterdam in 1770.

29 October 1923 was a date steeped in history. In the middle of a year of political and economic crises, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde" (Berlin Radio Hour) from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. Radio offered entirely new possibilities for the production and reception of music. The two compositions on this CD not only benefited from these developments but also played an active role in shaping them.

Soprano Diana Damrau, dazzling in the operas of Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi and Richard Strauss, also has operetta in her blood. With this album she tours three capital cities of operetta – Vienna, Berlin and Paris – and covers nearly seven decades of musical history. En route she relishes the romance, wit and melodies of numbers by such composers Johann Strauss II, Franz Lehár, Emmerich Kálmán, Robert Stolz, Paul Abraham, André Messager, Henri Christiné, Oscar Straus and Francis Lopez. Her star guest is tenor Jonas Kaufmann and conducting the Münchner Rundfunkorchester is Ernst Theis, as expert in operetta as he is in symphonic repertoire. “For me, operetta is the most all-embracing genre of music theatre,” says Damrau, “Its indulgence, its yearning, its joyousness and its comedy all touch the heart and show the positive side of life … It rarely fails to work its magic on audiences.”

At a time when Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and others were making significant contributions to the modern string quartet, Wolf harked back to an older form of composition, emulating the Northern and Central German quadro, a trio sonata with an additional melody part. The three quartets of the op. 3 series are the pinnacle of Wolf’s quartet oeuvre.

Today it is the Passions of J.S Bach which are most commonly known. The Passion Oratorio by J.S Bach’s nephew, godson and pupil Johann Ernst Bach is lesser known. On this Capriccio re-release his Passion Oratorio is performed alongside an Ode on the 77th Psalm for tenor, chorus and orchestra and a Motet for solo voices, four-part chorus, strings and continuo.