Ensemble Kopernikus - Chamber Music 1 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Vienna at the turn of the 20th century was a at the cutting edge of artistic and musical creativity. The Vienna Secessionist movement, led by Gustav Klimt had, in equal measure, shocked and fascinated the art world. Composers such as Schoenberg, Berg and Webern (the Second Viennese School) had burnished their romantic credentials, and launched a brave new 12 tone musical world that confounded and perplexed the public. This was a city with a sizeable and flourishing Jewish artistic community. Not just Schoenberg, but Mahler and Zemlinsky, and of course the wunderkind that was Eric Wolfgang Korngold. The transition from the late romantic world to modernism in Vienna created some extraordinary art and music, and the composers on this album were at the centre of this extraordinary firmament. This album brings together some of the composers of this age, including lesser-known names such as Josephine Winter, who was murdered by the Nazis in 1943, and Alfred Grünfeld, whose Klein Serenade is a real ear-worm of a tune. The Adagio from Mahler's Symphony No.10 in an arrangement for chamber orchestra forms the centrepiece of this delightful orchestral lieder recital from soprano Chen Reiss with the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich conducted by Daniel Grossmann.

Pendrecki / Machowska / Rozmyslowicz / Kalinowski - Chamber Works 1 [COMPACT DISCS] date 09/09/2014

The English composer Steve Elcock spent years writing music without ever expecting it to be heard based in rural France, he worked as a translator, composing 'for the drawer.' A recent Toccata Classics recording of his Third Symphony and other orchestral pieces revealed him to be a major symphonic voice. The works on this first album of his chamber music show the same long-term control of harmonic tension, occasionally leavened by a mischievous sense of humor. The Clarinet Sextet and The Shed Dances are immediately appealing in their melodiousness and harmonic language, whereas the darkly aggressive String Trio No. 1 foreshadows the Third Symphony with it's stark juxtaposition of contrasts, and An Outstretched Hand offers a disturbing comment on our troubled 21st century condition. The Veles Ensemble is a string trio based in London, it's repertoire both exploring rarely heard masterpieces and bringing the classics to life. A special interest of the ensemble is in promoting new compositions and contemporary music.