Natalia Nikolai - Heart - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

?The pieces on this CD belong to three different categories. First, we have some masterpieces of the repertoire for violin (from Mozart to Mendelssohn, from Brahms and Tchaikovsky to Dvorák) to which Kreisler knew how to give a special splendor all pieces that require a perfect balance between technical mastery and sensitivity. What follows is a selection of Kreisler's thirty or so original compositions for violin and piano, largely inspired by the salon music genre, including the trilogy of Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen with the very famous Liebesleid. Finally, we hear here pieces Inchà la manière deInch, so called pastiches, written by the same Kreisler, but inspired by composers of the past (Wilhelm Friedemann Bach or Louis Couperin, the grandfather of the famous François, but also Tartini and Vivaldi) to whom he curiously attributed them. The story of these pieces is unique intended as encores at the end of the concert, Kreisler composed them himself, taking inspiration from some Baroque composers whose scores he supposedly found in a French monastery. He put them on the program under their names, convinced that the audience's interest would be greater if they were attributed to already known and respected authors. However, when musicologists could find no further traces of these pieces, in 1935 he was almost forced to admit the hoax and defend himself with the terse statement Inchthe name changes, the value remainsInch.

Natalia Margarit - Scenes & Arias [COMPACT DISCS] date 05/27/2003

The French composer Olivier Messiaen was one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He prepared the way for surrealism in the 1950s and opened up musical language to non-European influences extending far beyond Debussy. Messiaen even used birdsong in order to create music of 'fairy-like splendor.' Susanne Kessel combines piano compositions of Messiaen with American composer Leon Milo's Soundscapes on this CD. As in a kind of audio-book, Messiaen's piano works and real sounds from his life are combined in Leon Milo's Soundscapes to form impressive sound collages. They allow a rapprochement with the Messiaen phenomenon that is as sensual as it is true-to-life, without in any way detracting from his mystery.