Winterberg - Lieder - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

For his new album, Ludwig Güttler has put together what he considers the most beautiful and contemplative Christmas songs. The great trumpet player reminisces about Christmas in his homeland, the Ore Mountains in Saxony, Germany. InchChristmas in the Ore Mountains is something very special. Due to the mining tradition, it is a celebration of light. If you imagine how a miner, centuries ago, got up early in the morning when it was still dark and attended the morning service, then went down the shaft and came home from work when it was already dark, then, like this worker, you develop a longing for the light. Today it is hard to understand, when we illuminate everything around us with electric light - and too often we overshoot the mark, if we think of the global problem of light pollution. I associate the Christmas of my childhood with a reality shining through with light and thoughts like What do I give to whom? And even more what do I get? When I was five, my grandmother gave me an accordion. A treasure, packed in a simple cardboard box. In terms of my being and continuing to practice on the instrument, it's contents were the most lasting gift I ever received.Inch Sächsische Weihnacht (InchSaxon ChristmasInch) contains 36 tracks and two encores, carefully collected from Güttler's concert program of recent years. It is all previously unreleased material by the great trumpeter, recorded together with his brass ensemble in various churches in Saxony, including the Frauenkirche in Dresden, the Marienkirche in Pirna and the church in Polditz.

Schubert / Kierner / Rot - Winterreise [COMPACT DISCS] date 07/10/2015

The tale of Hans Winterberg (1901-91) is a strange one. A survivor of the Terezín concentration camp, where he had been interned as a Czech Jew, he settled in Munich after the War as a German citizen, and his music enjoyed a number of broadcasts - but with his death his estate disappeared into a legal limbo, emerging only in 2015. This first album of his piano music reveals an unusual and individual voice, an idiosyncratic blend of Janácek, Ravel, Schoenberg and other mid-twentieth-century masters, animated by a hard-edged, freewheeling energy and grim humour reminiscent of his close contemporary, Nikos Skalkottas. Brigitte Helbig, who grew up in Munich and also studied there, is one of Germany's livelier young pianists, with a respectable track record in the performance of new music.