Eiger Trio - Schumann, Juon, Francaix & Amberg: Marchenerzahlungen - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, whose honorary conductor Dmitrij Kitajenko since 2009 has been associated with the conductor in a co-operation of more than 30 years, producing excellent album recordings. With this orchestra, OehmsClassics released the Second Symphony by Jean Sibelius in June 2018, which was named the best recording in the category of symphonic music at the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) in 2019. Now, the album presents Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh by Rimsky-Korsakov, and The Enchanted Lake by Anatoly Lyadov. The Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne is one of Germany's leading orchestras and can look back on a great tradition. Since 1986 the ensemble's home has been at the Kölner Philharmonie, where it presents about 50 concerts annually, simultaneously giving over 160 performances a year at the Cologne Opera. Since the season 2015/2016 François-Xavier Roth is new Gürzenich-Kapellmeister (Chief Conductor) and General Music Director of the City of Cologne.

While most listeners to 20th-century music and piano masterpieces will have recordings of Messiaen's two major cycles in their collection, the rest of his piano music often tends to fly under the radar. Yet Messiaen wrote piano music throughout his life, and among his most characteristic early works is the set of eight Preludes, with their playful evocations of wind and air and dreams and light. The piano writing may owe much to Debussy's example, but it's clear that the 20-year-old composer was already well on it's way to developing unique aspects of his language the blue harmonies, the repetitions and the patient ascensions towards a state of ecstasy that make him among the most imitated of last century's composers. From the middle period of Messiaen's protean career, the Quatre études de rythme exercised lasting influence over the most brilliant composers of the avant-garde generation including Boulez and Stockhausen, though their application of the principles of 'total serialism' is much less dry and more vivid than countless later imitators. Ciro Longobardi's album concludes with perhaps the composer's single most technically challenging piano work, La fauvette des jardins. This half-hour portrait of the reed-warbler stands as an appendix to the Catalogue d'oiseaux, rarely encountered but a feat of coruscating virtuosity to set alongside the Transcendental Etudes of Liszt and the studies of Alkan and Godowsky. The Italian pianist Ciro Longobardi proved his mettle in Messiaen with a glowingly received album of the Catalogue d'oiseaux for Piano

Violina Petrychenko decided to put together a program that would combine the musical traditions of Western Europe and Ukraine. The first part presents two composers, whose work is rooted in the classical traditions Levko Revutsky and Viktor Kosenko. The remaining three, Kolessa as well as Igor and Juri Shamo, strove to draw on a greater number of folkloristic motifs. It was the piece Carpathian Fantasy by Juri Schamo, which gave her the idea to this program, because the work itself stands for the combination of musical traditions.