Teuer

After the dearth of major festivals in the middle of the weeks following Trinity Sunday, the end of the Lutheran church year sees two important ones, the feast of St. Michael and All Angels and Reformation Day. Both fall on fixed dates, so that their position in relation to the numbered Sundays after Trinity varies from year to year. Reformation Day celebrates Martin Luther’s historic nailing of his 95 Theses to the door of the church of Wittenberg Castle, and it is observed on the anniversary of the event, 31 October (except in a few places which chose to do so on the Sunday following that date).

Pianist Malcolm Martineau is the brilliant initiator of this new one-of-a-kind series on Linn. The Brahms Songbook has set the unprecedented goal to record Brahms’s lieder by complete opus number. In this second instalment, Malcolm is joined by star mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly and bass-baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann in five sets that were composed and published over a period of thirty years: Op. 72, Op. 105, Op. 43, Op. 48 and Op. 57. In a time when the middle-class was growing, song-writing was both lucrative and pleasurable, offering a myriad of ways to explore perennially popular topics like unrequited love. Yet, in the lieder recorded here Brahms immerses us in a heightened emotional world, distant from the drawing rooms and concert halls of the bourgeoisie.

Pianist Malcolm Martineau is the brilliant initiator of this new one-of-a-kind series on Linn. The Brahms Songbook has set the unprecedented goal to record Brahms's lieder by complete opus number. In this second instalment, Malcolm is joined by star mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly and bass-baritone Hanno Muller-Brachmann in five sets that were composed and published over a period of thirty years: Op. 72, Op. 105, Op. 43, Op. 48 and Op. 57. In a time when the middle-class was growing, song-writing was both lucrative and pleasurable, offering a myriad of ways to explore perennially popular topics like unrequited love. Yet, in the lieder recorded here Brahms immerses us in a heightened emotional world, distant from the drawing rooms and concert halls of the bourgeoisie.

During the eighteenth century an oratorio was the dramatic setting of an action that was mostly of sacred character and was represented by several persons as well as by a choir and an orchestra. Various plot elements – even dramatic ones – determined the character of the particular composition. This also applies to the present Christmas Oratorio, which was pieced together in this form not by Telemann himself but for this new pre- sentation as a so-called pasticcio, a form that enjoyed popularity already in the eighteenth century.

Das Kleine Konzert is an international constituted Baroque orchestra, which is closely associated in its work with the Rheinische Kantorei. Hermann Max's elaborate representation of the Affekte including operatic dramatic effects requires a close cooperation with the instrumentalists. Since 1980 the Rheinische Kantorei has had its own baroque orchestra, Das Kleine Konzert. The name is modelled on that of ‘Das Große Konzert’ orchestra, which was foundedc in Leipzig in 1746 and was for a long time directed by Johann Adam Hiller before becoming, towards the end of the 18th century, the Gewandhaus Orchestra.

Johannes Brahms wrote well over 300 lieder, including his arrangements of German folk songs, partsongs and choral lieder. Considering how long he carried a song around in his head before writing and publishing the final version, this is an astonishing amount. This 2-CD-set presents a selection from Brahms huge lied repertoire, which not only gives an impression of his importance to music history up to the present day and what a perfect lied composer he was, but also reveals what a cheerful, young-at-heart and humorous person he must have been. The selection of songs and duets is arranged chronologically (1853-1896) and includes all phases of his life in which the lied played a central role, thus allowing the development of the German-language song in the time after Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann to be clearly traced. The pianist Jan Schultsz plays on a wonderful original J.B. Streicher fortepiano from 1871, a model on which Brahms also preferred to play. The singers are Rachel Harnisch (soprano), Marina Viotti (mezzo-soprano) and Yannick Debus (baritone) - young singers who have already celebrated successes in concert and in major opera houses.

New recording of Christoph Spering's highly acclaimed Bach recordings. An album filled to the brim with important sacred works by Johann Sebastian Bach such as "Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan", "Das neugeborne Kindelein", "Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele" and many more!

Die Aufnahmen von Bach-Kantaten mit Christoph Spering und seinen Ensembles Chorus Musicus Köln und Das Neue Orchester für Deutsche Harmonia Mundi erhielten weltweit sehr gute Besprechungen.