Florian Ferrier

With their project ‘The Duplex Coupler Grand Piano’, Florian Uhlig and David Stromberg breathe new life into a forgotten concept. The composer Emánuel Moór, whose works combine wonderful melodies and surprising harmonic twists, developed the ‘Duplex Coupler Piano’ that incorporated a double keyboard. With keys coupled at the octave, this enabled works to achieve special shades of sound. The unique instrument is featured in this recording by David Stromberg and Florian Uhlig of cello sonatas by Moór, Dohnányi and Richard Strauss.

The first true complete recording of Robert Schumann’s works for piano solo on 17 albums (in 15 volumes), played by Florian Uhlig, seeks for the first time to offer imaginative compilations on album (e.g. “Robert Schumann and the Sonata”, “The Young Piano Virtuoso”, “Schumann in Vienna”, “Schumann and Counterpoint”, “Variations”) containing all original works for pianoforte written between 1830 (Abegg Variations op. 1) and 1854 (Ghost Variations) according to the newest critical editions and/or first editions. Several of these albums include premiere recordings. The booklets by Joachim Draheim, who discovered and/or edited a number of the works, shed light on the biographical and musicological background to the works thus coupled.

Music is an amplifier for emotions, no matter whether joy, grief, happiness or enthusiasm. Music has a kind of magical power, which can lift all these feelings to an “divine” level. For a moment it feels as if we were more than ‘just’ human. This special power of music hides in every single moment and every little episode of our lives. By definition an episode is an event within a larger event, and that is exactly what this album is about. These small, perhaps irrelevant episodes are what ultimately shape us the most. It‘s time to leave life behind, to sink in thoughts to feel alive.

The sea as a heartrending separator of lovers, as dream of an exotic ideal, as expression of an indistinct nostalgia and of strivings toward heavenward flights, or simply as the subject of the most resplendent sound paintings; in natural element garb, changeable and multifarious, the sea in French musical impressionism enjoys an ever renewed position.

The great “composer of the millennium” Johann Sebastian Bach stands like a solitary rock in the landscape of music history. There is less talk about where he came from and what influenced him stylistically. Chorwerk Ruhr embarked on a search for clues with highly interesting results: the young Johann Sebastian also listened to and studied works that were already around 100 years old. In any case, during his later years as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, he ensured that the collection of motets Florilegium selectissimarum Cantionum was purchased anew – it was used so frequently in lessons under his aegis that the music material was completely worn out. The collection by the early Baroque master and school cantor Erhard Bodenschatz, first published in 1603, illustrates the then new compositional technique of the Baroque in a clearly comprehensible way in songs mostly by German or Italian masters.

Florian Krumpöck, the Austrian pianist, conductor and festival director, has chosen Frédéric Chopin's famous Piano Ballads Nos. 1-4 as well as his 2nd Piano Sonata for his first recording. And as a result, Krumpöck creates a very unique sound world that shows how strongly Chopin's melodies are influenced by Italian opera, and especially by bel canto. Nevertheless, the accompanying voices are never neglected: they comment on, counteract, and support the "vocal lines." Two different pianos were deliberately used: a full, overtone-rich Bösendorfer Imperial for the Prélude and the Ballades, a clearer, more "modern" Bösendorfer 280 for the 2nd Piano Sonata.