Physikalisches Spielbuch fr Die Jugend

Pianist Georges Pludermacher is recognized for his wide repertory, having emphasized adventurous contemporary works at a time when that was uncommon. He is equally active as a solo pianist, a performer of concertos, and a chamber music player. Pludermacher was born on July 26, 1944, in Guéret, in occupied France. He took up the piano at three, and at 11, he enrolled at the Paris Conservatory. In the summers, he took courses with Géza Anda in Lucerne, Switzerland, and when he completed his studies at the Conservatory at 19, he took the school's first prizes in piano, chamber music, and accompaniment. His career has incorporated all three of these specialties.

As composer, pianist and educationalist, the Prussian Philipp Scharwenka (1847–1917) was one of most highly respected musicians of his day, although his star faded soon after his death. His music – more conservative and classical in orientation than that of his pianist-composer brother, Xaver – sits somewhere between Chopin and Brahms, with echoes of Schubert and Schumann. This first installment of a survey of his piano music is intended to put these immediately attractive works before the public once again – for the first time in over a century. They are played here by the Portuguese pianist-composer Luís Pipa, professor of piano and chamber music at the University of Minho, near Porto, following up on his well-received Toccata Classics album of music by his compatriot José Vianna da Motta.

This mini-series takes place between 1933 and 1939 in a small German town and basically tells the stories of three families (local Nazi leader, Social-democratic musician and Jewish merchant). The film shows very vivid how the political developments, home evenings and Hitler youth infiltration insidiously affect the lives of all. Values and attitudes change through seduction and reprisals. Children and youth are shown as perpetrators and victims at the same time.

This mini-series takes place between 1933 and 1939 in a small German town and basically tells the stories of three families (local Nazi leader, Social-democratic musician and Jewish merchant). The film shows very vivid how the political developments, home evenings and Hitler youth infiltration insidiously affect the lives of all. Values and attitudes change through seduction and reprisals. Children and youth are shown as perpetrators and victims at the same time.

''What has not been tried over the years in order to twin over children and young people to classical music? There is a veritable market devoted to attracting and luring the young. Pianist Corinna Simon always found one aspect of this endeavor rather strange: Why on earth expose small children at the outset to large-scale works, why expect them to sit still through the entire overture to Mozart s Magic Flute? We ve all been there. However, there is actually a wealth of small-scale gems, specially crafted for children s ears and hands, whose format will not overwhelm or wear out the young listeners.

The piercing intelligence and dry registered ardour of Peter Schreier's particular qualities as a Lieder singer are ideally suited to the impulsive, dramatic, often melancholy spirit of Schumann's idiom, which itself found fullest expression in the songs that he wrote throughout his life and which this set so usefully surveys, from the total identification of the Romantic artist with his life and loves in the Liederkreis Op.24 to elliptical and ruminative settings of Lenau, the last work that Schumann composed in Dresden before his move to Düsseldorf, now less well-known than they should be but touched by circumstantial tragedy: Lenau's death was announced on the day of the first performance. The composer felt 'as if I were a tolling-bell all unawares and later wrote to his publisher, urging a speedy release of the cycle: 'I should be pleased if you would help me create a modest monument to the great but unfortunate poet'.