Handboek Welzijn op Recept

According to certain scientists, it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to become a proficient player of any instrument. The estimate is as difficult to prove as it is to disprove; however, undeniably, virtuosity cannot be achieved in any field without thousands of hours of exercise.

Handel is best known to the wider public for his large-scale choral and orchestral works, but his organ music is equally precious.

Handel is best known to the wider public for his large-scale choral and orchestral works, but his organ music is equally precious. It was the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels who, diverting him from a career in the law, spotted his exceptional abilities on the instrument. By the age of seventeen, Handel was already the resident organist at the Domkirche in Halle, and he was later to defeat Domenico Scarlatti in a contest of virtuosity during his time in Rome.Martin Haselböck and the Orchester Wiener Akademie have recorded the Organ Concertos, Op. 4 and Op. 7 in the prestigious Vienna Musikverein, world-famous for its acoustics. Haselböck plays on the hall’s imposing Rieger organ in what is one of its very first recordings. Inaugurated in 2011, it is the fourth organ in the Musikverein since the hall opened in 1870. With its considerable dimensions – much larger than the organs Handel used to play on – the instrument offers a tonal palette rich in contrasts.

Symphonic in scale and ambition, the incidental music to Shakespeare’s play The Tempest was among the last orchestral works Sibelius composed before entering the mysterious "silence of Järvenpää" that lasted until his death. Commissioned by leading Danish theatre producer Johannes Poulsen in 1925, the wide expressive demands of the play saw Sibelius calling on large musical forces. From the terrifying tone picture of the opening shipwreck via ethereal songs, boisterous character portraits and remarkable evocations of nature, Sibelius took full advantage of being set free to convert the themes of Shakespeare’s magical world into his own unique sound.

The internationally renowned pianist Yulianna Avdeeva presents Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues Op. 87, one of the most important works in the piano repertoire. This monumental cycle harks back to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and is considered one of the most demanding works for piano ever written. Avdeeva joins an elite group of pianists who have undertaken the challenge of performing the complete opus, which is rarely heard in its entirety. To complement this iconic work, Avdeeva also presents the completion of an alternative Prelude and Fugue in C-Sharp Minor, discovered by leading Shostakovich expert Olga Digonskaya and completed by composer and Shostakovich biographer Krzysztof Meyer.

I am very pleased and excited to be announcing my next album release, scheduled for December 11, 2020 on Orchid Creative, distributed by Naxos worldwide! It’s a recording of the Diabelli Variations, op. 120 by Beethoven, one of his greatest masterworks, written at the same time as his Missa Solemnis and 9th Symphony. Recorded in Bonn, Germany at the Beethoven Haus auditorium just next to the house where Beethoven was born 250 years ago, and with the support of the Beethoven Haus museum and archives, which hold the original Diabelli Variations manuscript (which I had the honor to consult). Over the next few weeks I will share more about this amazing adventure. Thank you to all who have made it possible! Audio produced by Sebastian Kienel. Photo of the album cover overlooking the mighty Rhein River by Céline Oms to whom this album is lovingly dedicated. It is produced by the International Beethoven Project in celebration of the composer’s 250th birthday.

Following Andrea Coen’s 2010 recording (94021) Brilliant Classics is the only label with two complete versions of Giustini’s sonatas on the market, showing its commitment to significant but under-recorded turning points in musical history. Lodovico Giustini (1685-1743) seldom left his native Pistoia, where he worked as organist of the Congregazione dello Spirito Santo.

‘The burly Aussie tenor is now even more identified with this ill-fated protagonist than Peter Pears, the first Grimes. And everywhere Skelton has sung the part, whether at English National Opera, the Proms, the Edinburgh festival or now on this international tour of a concert staging mounted by the Bergen Philharmonic, the conductor has been Edward Gardner. Theirs is one of the great musical partnerships, and they continue to find compelling new depths in this tragic masterpiece.’ – Richard Morrison – The Times.