Oleg Karnauh

Here presenting his debut album, Oleg Shebeta-Dragan came to international attention in the spring of 2022 as winner of the clarinet category at the Carl Nielsen International Competition in Odense, where he also claimed the Special Prize of the Odense Symphony Orchestra and the Junior Jury Prize. For his debut recording, Oleg Shebeta-Dragan is once again joined by the Odense Symphony for works by Busoni, Milhaud and Françaix, along with Nielsen's dynamic, intense, unpredictable and emotionally charged Clarinet Concerto.

Although each significant players in the Russian School of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the piano concertos of Pavel Pabst, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Scriabin have been largely neglected by comparison to the other titanic piano concertos to come from the likes of Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff. Unlike their contemporaries, each of these three composers wrote but one piano concerto and in one way or another were writing outside of their comfort zone. Rimsky-Korsakov, for example, was a fine orchestrator, but had little experience writing for the piano. By contrast, Scriabin was a brilliant pianist and writer for his instrument, but his concerto represents his first attempt at writing an orchestral work.

Emil von Sauer's piano works mark the twilight of an era in which the composer pianist was still in fashion. Sauer, Godowsky, Hofmann, Rachmaninoff, Rosenthal, Busoni and Paderewski were just a few of the reigning titans who frequently played their own compositions on the concert stage. The music of most of these composers has unfortunately fallen out of vogue today. However, turn of the century audiences enthusiastically applauded, demanded even, these works, if not during the actual programmed recital then afterwards as encores. Sauer was born in Hamburg. He studied with Nicholas Rubinstein in Moscow and for two years with Liszt in Weimar.

Emil von Sauer's piano works mark the twilight of an era in which the composer-pianist was still in fashion. Sauer, Godowsky, Rachmaninoff, Busoni and Paderewski were just a few of the reigning titans who frequently played their own compositions on the concert stage. The music of most of these composers has unfortunately fallen out of vogue today. However, turn of the century audiences enthusiastically applauded, demanded even, these works, if not during the actual programmed recital then afterwards as encores. Sauer was born in Hamburg and died in Vienna. His first piano lessons were from his mother.

The fourth New Series album from the St Petersburg-based composer Alexander Knaifel may be his most wide-ranging to date, voyaging from the sacred to the secular and back again via several inspired detours. It includes two Prayers to the Holy Spirit, movingly performed by the Lege Artis Choir. Tatiana Melentieva sings Bliss, based on Alexander Pushkin’s poem, and the great Russian poet is cross-referenced with St Ephraim the Syrian in O Lord of All My Life (A Poem and a Prayer) sung by Piotr Migunov.

The first half of the 19th century witnessed the blossoming of the Russian seven-string guitar (tuned D G B d g b d'). During that time, an exquisite repertoire for the instrument was created, which departs significantly from the Western European guitar tradition. This compact disc is the world's pioneer recording of selections from that repetoire on original instruments. The performance is historically informed and based on a careful study of Russian 19th century guitar techniques. The pieces included represent the individual styles of eleven composers - ranging from "giants" such as Sychra and Vysotsky to less prolific ones like Alferiev and Palevich, of whom we have only a handful of pieces. This recording displays the variety, elegance and wit of the Russian guitar tradition as well as its technical and musical specifity.

August Winding was the son of a musical clergyman whose great interest was in collecting folk-songs. He was his son's first music teacher. Later, he studied in Hamburg, Vienna and Paris where he became acquainted with Chopin and Kalkbrenner. The composer Carl Reinecke, who was court composer in Copenhagen in 1846-48, also taught Winding. He was very close to Niels W. Gade and also studied with him. He established himself as a formidable pianist especially in the works of Mozart and Beethoven. He taught at the Conservatory in Copenhagen and through his marriage to Clara, the daughter of J.P.E. Hartmann, he became a member of this musical family. In fact, the other composer on this CD, Emil Hartmann was his brother-in-law.

Ukrainian pianist Oleg Poliansky joins Volker Hartung and the Cologne New Philharmonic Orchestra in performing cherished orchestral works by Dvorak, including the dramatic Piano Concerto in G Minor, Op. 33, B. 63, in addition to the exuberant Slavonic Dances.