Ulrike Malotta - Jan Hus - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The piano music of the Czech-born composer Antoine Reicha (1770-1836) - friend of Haydn and Beethoven, teacher of Berlioz, Liszt and Franck - has only recently begun to be discovered. He was an important influence on composers of the next generation but until recent years his piano works remained almost completely unknown. Encompassing Baroque practices, as well as looking forward to the twentieth century, they are full of harmonic and other surprises that show this liveliest of musical minds at work. In this fifth volume of his survey of Reicha's piano music Henrik Lowenmark demonstrates the breadth of Reicha's quixotic imagination, with three variation sets and a number of smaller character pieces.

Joseph Haas wrote a relatively large number of works for women's choirs, showing his preference for women's voices. This gives a cross-section of the work in this field. It ranges from folk song cycles to InchhymnsInch to cheerfulness to cantatas in praise of music and nature. The Munich women's choir under the direction of Katrin Wende-Ehmer together with the pianist Susanne Jutz-Miltschitzky interprets these works with the appropriate diversity of expression. The works for women's choir by Joseph Haas range from the oratorio InchDas Lebensbuch GottesInch op. 87 to the folk song arrangements of the Liederreigen op. 89 and include 10 works with opus numbers. This is relatively large and shows the composer's interest in the female voices. He didn't just think of secular women's choirs, but also of singing in nunneries with their school facilities. Singing in a choir became more and more important to him as his life progressed. The meaning of the words and their expression in the music was the goal of his composition. The works included on this album as world premiere recordings are either arrangements of folk songs or melodic in folk song style, as is typical of Joseph Haas

Onslow / Trio Bamberg - Piano Trios [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/31/2006