Benjamin Frith - Moeran: Rhapsodies Nos. 1-3 in the Mountain - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Vyacheslav Artyomov is considered by many to be Russia's greatest living composer. After the fall of the Soviet regime his music has travelled the world to great acclaim. It is deep, ultimately spiritual and brilliantly crafted, with influences from the Russian symphonic tradition colored by Mahler, Scriabin, Honegger and Messiaen to name a few - but melded into a unique voice. The Requiem, together with his massive Symphony cycles, was the work which brought enormous acclaim to Artyomov both in Russia and in the USA. It was the first Requiem to be written by a Russian and the first to be performed in the former USSR. Dedicated 'to the Martyrs of Long-Suffering Russia' it is a true masterpiece in which several parts of the mass are given treatments very different from the 'norm'. Exciting, moving and bristling with power and passion, this is a Requiem to stand alongside the established great Requiems of the past. The performers are those who gave the Moscow premiere, and give a stunning performance.

The composers whose music is featured on the present album lived and worked in Czechoslovakia between the two world wars, and their fates were afflicted by the monstrous Nazi regime. Viktor Ullmann, who before WWII held the post of Kapellmeister at the New German Theatre, wrote Quartet No. 3 while he was detained at the Theresienstadt ghetto-camp. Hans Krása completed the Theme and Variations in 1936, yet he only saw it performed in Theresienstadt, along with his children's opera Brundibár. Erwin Schulhoff's Five Pieces reveal his zest for rhythm and dance, as well as his evidently having been inspired by the music of the Viennese salons, Italy and Spain. Pavel Haas's Quartet No. 2, dating from 1925, serves as vivid proof of the claim that the composer was the most gifted pupil of Leoš Janácek. In October 1944, Haas, Ullmann and Krása were among the thousands of Theresienstadt prisoners transported to Auschwitz, where they would be murdered in the gas chambers. The Bennewitz Quartet launched their international career following their victories at the prestigious competition in Osaka (2005) and the Prémio Paolo Borciani in Italy (2008). Ever since they have regularly performed at the world's most prominent venues and festivals. The music of the Theresienstadt composers has found in them splendid performers.

Richard Strauss was appointed co-director of the Vienna State Opera in 1919 and soon set about composing a new ballet for the refurbished historic Redoutensaal in the city. At carnival in February 1923 the work was unveiled - a delectable series of eight arrangements of music by François Couperin called Tanzsuite. For the Divertimento, an orchestral suite that includes characteristic Straussian orchestration, and which was written many years later, Strauss rearranged six movements from the earlier work and added two further dances. About Jun MärklJun Märklis a highly respected interpreter of core Germanic repertoire and has become known for his refined and idiomatic explorations of the French Impressionists. His long-standing relationships with the state operas of Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Semperoper Dresden and the Metropolitan Opera have been complemented by his music directorships of the Orchestre National de Lyon and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra. Among the more than 50 albums Märkl has recorded are the complete Schumann symphonies with the NHK Symphony Orchestra; Mendelssohn and Wagner with the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra; and a highly acclaimed Debussy series with the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is currently working on a cycle of works by Saint-Saëns, R. Strauss and Hosokawa.