Michaela Kramer - Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn: Choral Works & Cantatas Duets, Songs, & Piano Works - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Airy, transparent, light as a feather - if any composer's music answers to these attributes, then it is that of Maurice Ravel, including his Piano Trio, even if this work too has it's more serious moments. On it's newest Super Audio album the Vienna Piano Trio brings together this marvelously unique achievement and a very differently gripping trio by Ernest Chausson - a fascinating contrast and one most beautifully celebrated by our Vienna threesome. Chausson composed his trio as an act of defiance. He had abandoned his study of composition without a diploma and had recently retired to the countryside. As if he wanted to show all his critics and especially the jurors of the Prix de Rome what he could do in the Piano Trio an impetuous artist assumes a revolutionary and romantic expressive stance. This begins already in the impassioned first movement, to whose themes he repeatedly returns during the course of the other parts, and reaches it's high point in the great breadth and unforgettable melodiousness of the third movement.

The name of the young Czech virtuoso Michaela Koudelkova should becommitted well to memory. She has far more going for her than justthe names of her teachers (Peter Holtslag, Erik Bosgraaf). She is a winnerof the Tel Aviv Recorder Competition and a finalist of the York Early MusicInternational Young Artists Competition in England, and her solo recitals haveincluded an appearance at the prestigious Oude Muziek Festival in Utrecht.Her Supraphon debut, for which she has chosen masterworks by Handeland Corelli, showcases her uncompromising technique, but above all it showsher supreme musical sensitivity and her interpretive stylishness, includingthe ability to improvise, participating in the recreation of notated works.Of all the sonatas listed on the album, only one is intended for her instrument;the rest were originally for violin or transverse flute. Of course, a characteristicof the baroque era was great freedom in the choice of solo instruments,as is clear from period printed editions, and the recorder was very popularat the time. Besides the most common alto and soprano recorders,the recording also features an instrument with a darker timbre, the voiceflute in D, which was popular in England, and the sixth flute, pitched an octavehigher and often used for music played between acts of Handel's Londonoperas. Besides sonatas by Handel, the soloist has also chosen three sonatasfrom Corelli's Opus 5. Over the centuries, the art of improvisation has beentaught using the passaggi in the slow movements of the twelve violin sonatasin this iconic collection. The last and most famous sonata, InchFolliaInch, is the brilliantand rather experimental climax of the album, combining the creativityof the composer with that of the performers.Lightness, liveliness, spontaneity, bravura, intoxicating richness of sound -Michaela Koudelkova's exciting Handel and Corelli

Michaela Fukacova - Complete Cello & Piano Works [COMPACT DISCS] date 09/16/1993