Raphael Quartet

Raphael Wressnig was 28 at the time of this recording but is already considered one of Europe's top jazz organists. On this CD, Wressnig plays the usual assortment of blues and soul-jazz grooves but also stretches his instrument by playing some music that borders on the avant-garde, some funk, a second-line New Orleans parade rhythm groove, a soulful country ballad, and even hints of hip-hop. Two songs are performed solely by Wressnig's Organic Trio, a unit that had been together for six years by 2008, featuring the fine guitarist Georg Jantscher and drummer Lukas Knofler. Three numbers add either tenor saxophonist Craig Handy or Christian Bachner, two others have the team of trumpeter Eric Bloom and tenorman Sax Gordon, and the remaining two find percussionist Luis Ribeiro making the group a quartet.

The music of 1920s Berlin was a reaction to the city’s conflicted political atmosphere. A new breed of composer emerged, eschewing the old and embracing a heady mix of cabaret, 12-tone serialism, and New York jazz. With dramatist Bertolt Brecht as their muse, they wrote startlingly original, often beautiful, music with bold, anarchic messages. The rich, seductive voice of Marion Rampal and her incredible group of musicians give vibrant life to the best, from Hanns Eisler’s defiantly anti-Fascist Nein and Kurt Weill’s tribute to Rosa Luxemburg, Ballad of the Drowned Girl, to Hindemith’s riotous demolition of an overture by Wagner, Hitler’s favourite composer.

Dvorák’s chamber music is one of the most popular parts of his repertoire and contains some classics of the genre. Thoroughly Romantic, endlessly imaginative and imbued with Slavonic fire, the String Quintet and String Sextet are elegantly performed by the virtuoso musicians of The Raphael Ensemble.

Though a pupil of the great orchestrator Rimsky-Korsakov, and in turn a teacher to the likes of Rachmaninov, Glière, and Scriabin, Anton Arensky himself is a composer often forgotten when contemplating the Russian greats. Productive in many genres, it is perhaps in his chamber music that this unduly neglected composer truly shines. His writing has much of the same textural sophistication and melodic beauty as his close friend, Tchaikovsky. In fact, the theme on which the Second Quartet's Variations are based is drawn from a Tchaikovsky quartet. Performing Arensky's First and Second string quartets, along with the Piano Quintet, is the Ying Quartet. This ensemble's playing is characterized by a surprisingly precise, consistent uniformity of sound and exactness of articulation, making it seem as if a single instrument were playing as opposed to four independent parts. All aspects of their technical execution are polished and refined, which only enhances their equally enjoyable musical effusiveness, rich, deep tone, and understanding of Arensky's scores that casts them in the best possible light.