This release features the four works for cello and piano of Carl Reinecke. The earliest was written when the composer was 31; the last when he was 73. Collectively they provide snapshots of Reinecke’s artistic development. Cellist Martin Rummel and pianist Roland Krüger garnered great reviews for their release of Joseph Merk’s cello works. This […]
Chamber music
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Friedrich Gernsheim string quartet cycle off to a solid start
The musical influences of Friedrich Gernshiem are easy to hear; Robert Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Johannes Brahms. The latter is perhaps the strongest. Gernsheim was a friend and colleague of the famous composer. Like Brahms, Gernsheim only wrote a handful of string quartets. The Diogenes Quartett launches a traversal of those five works with this […]
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Jana Semerádová in fine form with Richter and Stamitz
I think the title of this release is just a little misleading. “Franz Xaver Richter, Johann Stamitz: Flute Concertos & Trios” suggests (to me) an album of two composers in equal measure. Not so. This release has one flute concerto by Stamitz. The other five selections are all Richter. It’s still a program of six […]
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Georgy Catoire & Ignaz Friedman quintets – alike yet different
Russian composer Georgy Catoire remains relatively unknown. His self-effacing nature kept his music out of the spotlight, and himself out of the company of other composers. The 1914 Piano Quintet in G minor shows the effect of that isolation. While it’s a late-Romantic work, it’s also a forward-looking one. Catoire methodically lays out his themes and develops […]
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Joseph Bodin de Boismortier Chamber Music all business
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that music is a business — even classical music. It’s something Joseph Bodin de Boismortier always remembered. And it made him wealthy. Boismortier was active in the early 1700s and a contemporary of Rameau. He was one of the first composers to be successful without a patron. Louis XV granted […]
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Share the joy of classical music: WTJU Classical Marathon airs Dec 9 – 15
Share the joy of WTJU Classical – December 9 – 15 We need your help to raise $40,000 and keep WTJU going strong! Diverse and wide-ranging as they are, the wonderful classical music pieces you enjoy on WTJU have common themes that echo through each performance. Themes that celebrate excellence and creativity… evoke the deepest emotions… and […]
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Mieczyslaw Weinberg Works for Violin & Piano works for me
Ewelina Nowicka is a composer as well as a violinist. I think it’s that additional talent that makes this recording special. Nowicka and pianist Milena Antoniewicz perform three early postwar works by Mieczyslaw Weinberg. Weinberg was one of the composers endangered by the Zhdanov Doctrine (along with his good friend Dmitri Shostakovich). He managed to […]
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British Cello Works – quality chamber music by women
When I present classical music on the radio, I never identify a composer by race or sex. I think it creates the impression that these are subsets of the main group of composers. There are composers, and there are women composers. Almost as good, but not quite. I don’t think that’s true, and (apparently), neither […]
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Josef Labor Piano Quintets late-Romantic gems
Josef Labor wasn’t one to be hampered by disability — although it could inspire him. Labor lost his sight in childhood but went on to become a respected organist, pianist, teacher, and composer. He was also the first composer-pianist Paul Wittgenstein commissioned to write a left-hand concerto. (Wittgenstein lost his right arm in WWI.) Labor […]