Gerhard Wisnievski

,,Weihnacht mit Bach" - so hat Jacobi-Organist Gerhard Löffler sein MDG-Debüt betitelt. ,,Und mit Arp Schnitger" mag man hinzufügen, denn Schnitgers meisterhaftes Orgelwerk in der Hamburger St. Jacobi-Kirche ist nicht nur das größte Instrument des norddeutschen Orgelbauers, dessen Todestag sich dieses Jahr zum 300. Male jährt; mit dem wohl bedeutendsten original erhaltenen Pfeifenbestand des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts prägt es ganz erheblich Musik und Interpretation. Im prachtvollen dreidimensionalen Klanggewand auf Super Audio CD eingefangen, ist Festtagsstimmung rund ums Jahr garantiert.

The perfect case of a pianist who sounds completely relaxed in the studio and, because of that, manages to balance assertiveness and poetry in ideal proportions. Gerhard Oppitz is a penetrating Brahmsian, bracing in the youthful works, quietly confiding in the later ones.

The perfect case of a pianist who sounds completely relaxed in the studio and, because of that, manages to balance assertiveness and poetry in ideal proportions. Gerhard Oppitz is a penetrating Brahmsian, bracing in the youthful works, quietly confiding in the later ones.

The perfect case of a pianist who sounds completely relaxed in the studio and, because of that, manages to balance assertiveness and poetry in ideal proportions. Gerhard Oppitz is a penetrating Brahmsian, bracing in the youthful works, quietly confiding in the later ones.

The perfect case of a pianist who sounds completely relaxed in the studio and, because of that, manages to balance assertiveness and poetry in ideal proportions. Gerhard Oppitz is a penetrating Brahmsian, bracing in the youthful works, quietly confiding in the later ones.

The perfect case of a pianist who sounds completely relaxed in the studio and, because of that, manages to balance assertiveness and poetry in ideal proportions. Gerhard Oppitz is a penetrating Brahmsian, bracing in the youthful works, quietly confiding in the later ones.

One can occasionally puzzle over why some music of high quality is hardly noticed in musical life, only finding its way into the repertoire with difficulty, if at all, and this is case of the works of Roberto Gerhard. The works recorded here were all composed during the 1960s. In them, one recognises a musical handwriting with roots in the classics of modernism; it succeeds in forming the kind of synthesis, so pronouncedly realised by Stravinsky, of methods schooled by Schönberg with concertante elements and a rhythmical and sonorous sententiousness. “Dodecaphonic, but human and even a bit divine” – as Frank Harders-Wuthenow entitled an essay dedicated to Gerhard.

In the vinyl era, domestic Schoeck boomlets happened at intervals of a decade or more, while CD days have seen a few reissues and fewer notable new recordings. The simultaneous appearance of the Elegie and Notturno (ECM 2061) the ripest of Schoeck’s song cycles with Chris Walton’s eminently Read more Othmar Schoeck: Life and Works (University of Rochester Press, 2009), raises the possibility of the composer becoming a vibrant presence. Good luck. The current production illustrates why viable work too often gets lost in the shuffle.