Gernsheim / Gernsheim-Duo / Gann - Verborgene Schatze - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

As Warning prepares to Rituals of Shame - their first new music in twenty years, vocalist/guitarist Patrick Walker is self-effacing about what led to this moment. Over the last two decades he continued to write and music, satisfied that he had achieved what he set out to do with Warning. In those intervening years, interest in Warning swelled, organically gathering an ardent fanbase. In particular, the 2006 album, Watching from a Distance, has gained a cult following. After successfully demoing the five songs, Walker retreated to a remote house on a hill outside Florence, Italy, to refine the lyrics. Recording took place at The Arch Studio, a 140-year-old former church in Southport, UK. Chris Fullard (Idles, Sunn O))), Ulver) handled the recording and mixing.

The rediscovery of the works of German composer Friedrich Gernsheim continues with this collection, the third from CPO focusing on his considerable output which spotlights his violin concertos featuring the noted chamber violinist Linus Roth with the Hamburg Symphony conducted by Johannes Zurl. Gersheim's long life improbably encompassed meeting Liszt, Brahms and Saint-Saëns and extended into World War I when he spent the last years of his life in Berlin. Due to his Jewish ancestry, Gernsheim's music was effectively banned and removed from German music libraries during WWII further burying legacy, a slight that is being slowly corrected with releases such as this. Gernsheim's unique contribution is the sustained beauty and expressiveness of his melodies, informed by the Brahms and Schumann influences yet wholly his own.

Geister Duo take their name from Robert Schumann's last piano work, the Geistervariationen, whose theme Brahms, a close friend of the Schumanns, used to compose his own Variations Op.23 for piano four hands. This recording proposes a bridge between these two composers. The record is rounded out with Dvorák's Bohemian Forests (Aus Dem Böhmerwalde). A relatively unknown work, it is for the duo, a masterpieces full of folk inspiration and rich in a variety of colors of the twilight of the 19th century.