Folk Stories - Songs by Beethoven, Britten, Mahler, Respighi, Sibelius a.o. by Cora Burggraaf / Simon Lepper

Cora Burggraaf / Simon Lepper

Folk Stories - Songs by Beethoven, Britten, Mahler, Respighi, Sibelius a.o.

Price: € 12.95
Format: SACD hybrid
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917234626
Catnr: CC 72346
Release date: 19 October 2012
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Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917234626

Catalogue number
CC 72346

Release date
19 October 2012

"Burggraaf has a dominant voice, warm and expressive"

Luister, 13-5-2013

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Press

About the album

Many classical composers have been inspired by folk texts and folk music. They were caught by the universal character of the folk texts, by the simple, direct and basic expression of collective emotions. Through their classical arrangements these composers have turned the folk songs into ‘art song’ and hence they ended up on the concert platform. But the natural habitat of these texts and melodies is the living room, or the pub. These musicians aspire with this programme to let go of the formalities of the classical concert, and return to the simplicity of the music, the story telling, to the beauty of it, the recogisable, and to the collective experience.

Folkliederen en klassiek prachtig gecombineerd
Veel klassieke componisten zijn geïnspireerd geweest door traditionele teksten en volksmuziek. Ze werden gegrepen door het universele karakter van de teksten, door de simpele, directe en basale expressie van emoties. Met hun klassieke arrangementen hebben deze componisten de volksliederen veranderd in ‘kunst liederen’ en dus kwamen ze op het podium terecht. Maar de natuurlijke omgeving van deze teksten en melodieën blijft de woonkamer, of de kroeg.

Mezzosopraan Cora Burggraaf wordt op dit album begeleid door pianist Simon Lepper. Deze musici streven met deze opname ernaar om de formaliteiten van het klassieke concert los te laten en terug te keren naar de simpliciteit van de muziek, het verhaal, naar de schoonheid ervan, het herkenbare en naar de collectieve ervaring. Volksmuziek kan mensen raken en dat is wat Cora Burggraaf en Simon Lepper uitstekend weten te bereiken met dit album.

Von der Volksmusik inspirierte Lieder.

Volksmusik enthält eine Sehnsucht; sie gibt ein Gefühl von zu Hause sein. Das ist das Gefühl, das die niederländischen Mezzo-Sopranistin Cora Burggraaf und ihre Mitstreiter mit uns teilen möchten. 2009 gewann Burggraaf den 2009/10 ECHO Rising Star Award und ist auf vielen großen Opernbühnen zu erleben, u.a. im Teatro alla Scala in Mailand, der Bayerischen Staatsoper in München und den Salzburger Festspielen.

Artist(s)

Liza Ferschtman

Dutch violinist Liza Ferschtman is known for her passionate performances, interesting programs and communicative qualities on stage. She is equally at home on the concert stage with concertos, chamber music, recitals and solo works. In 2006 she received the highest accolade awarded to a musician in the Netherlands, the Dutch Music Prize.
Born into a family of Russian musicians, Liza Ferschtman was constantly surrounded by music.
One of her earliest major influences was the violinist Philipp Hirschhorn, a close family friend. She received her formal training from Herman Krebbers at the Amsterdam Conservatory, Ida Kavafian at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and David Takeno in London.
In recent years Liza Ferschtman has performed with all significant Dutch Orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw and the Rotterdam Philhamonic. She has been soloist of the Orchestre National de Belgique, European Union Youth Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic, Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, Bremen Philharmonic, Radio Symphony Orchestra of Prague, Malmö Symphony, and Bergen Philharmonic. Conductors she has worked with include Stephan Blunier, Frans Bruggen, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Claus Peter Flor, Neeme Järvi, Yakov Kreizberg, Zdenek Macal, Jun Maerkl, Gianandrea Noseda, Marc Soustrot, Leonard Slatkin, Thomas Sondergard, Karl-Heinz Steffens, Mario Venzago and Jaap van Zweden.
An avid chamber musician, Ms. Ferschtman has collaborated regularly with artists such as Inon Barnatan, Jonathan Biss, Nobuko Imai, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Enrico Pace, Christian Poltera, Lars Anders Tomter and Alisa Weilerstein. In addition to appearances at numerous international Chamber Music festivals, she has performed at venues such as the Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington, Wigmore Hall in London, the Brahms Saal at the Vienna Musikverein, as well the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Liza Ferschtman has been the artistic director of the Delft Chamber Music Festival since 2007, one of the reputable festivals in Europe. During her tenure the festival has become widely known for adventurous programming with dynamic performances by artists from around the globe.
Highlights in the past season were the performance of the complete solo works by Bach in Amsterdam and a concert tour to Budapest, Amsterdam, New York and Montréal with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Playing under the baton of Iván Fischer, Ms. Ferschtman received outstanding reviews for her rendition of Bernstein's "Serenade" with this orchestra.
During the current season Liza Ferschtman is scheduled to make her debuts with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Essen, the Staatskapelle Weimar and the Flanders Symphony Orchestra. She will perform chamber music at the Liederhalle in Stuttgart and the Beethoven Haus in Bonn and will be present in the Netherlands with several recitals.
Ms. Ferschtman's recording of the Beethoven Concerto and Romances was received with great critical acclaim, as well as her other recordings with concertos by Dvorak, Röntgen, solo works by Bach and Ysaye, (STRAD CD choice of the month), and duo works by Beethoven and Schubert. Her next CD will be solo works by Bach, Biber, Bartok and Berio (Challenge Classics).

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Cora Burggraaf

The Dutch mezzo soprano Cora Burggraaf graduated with distiction at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague in 2002. She pursued her vocal studies in London at the Royal College of Music and the National Opera Studio. She also studies with Margreet Honig.
She has been the recipient of many prizes including the 2009/2010 ECHO Rising Star Award, the 2006 Elizabeth Everts Prize, the second prize in the International Vocalist Competition Den Bosch 2004, the 2003 Maggie Teyte Prize and the Miriam Licette Scholarship. Her studies in London were funded by the Dutch Fonds voor de Podiumkunsten and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.
In opera, Burggraaf has appeared at the Salzburg Festival, the Royal Opera House in London (for which she was awarded ‘Most Promising Newcomer of the Year’ by The Observer), San Francisco Opera, Welsh National Opera, The Netherlands Opera, Garsington Opera, Opéra de Bordeaux and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, BBC Proms and the Gergiev Festival. Further engagements include her debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich and return to the Salzburg Festival and The Netherlands Opera.
She recently made her acting debut when she appeared with Theatre Artemis, and in the solo performance Ophelia with OT Theater Rotterdam. In this show she combined songs of Strauss and Chausson with spoken words by the eminent Dutch writer Bernlef.
She has worked with celebrated conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Emmanuelle Haïm, Marc Minkowski, Seiji Osawa, Jaap van Zweden, HK Gruber, Steuart Bedford, Phillippe Herreweghe, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Frans Brüggen, Neeme Järvi and Peter Eötvös.
Cora Burggraaf is a noted recitalist and appeared in major concert halls such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall London, and the Frick Collection New York. On her ECHO Rising Star tour she has performed at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie in Cologne, Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, in Brussels, Salzburg, Stockholm and Athens.

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Simon Lepper

Simon read music at King’s College, Cambridge. He is a professor of piano accompaniment and a vocal repertoire coach at the Royal College of Music, London where he also co-ordinates the piano accompaniment course. He is an official accompanist for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. Performance highlights have included an invitation from the Wigmore Hall, London to present a three concert project on the songs of Joseph Marx; a recital tour with Stéphane Degout which included the Ravinia and Edinburgh festivals; his debut at Carnegie Hall, New York with mezzo Karen Cargill and at the Frick Collection with Christopher Purves; performances of the Schubert song cycles with Mark Padmore including at the Schubertiade, Hohenhems and recitals with Angelika...

Performance highlights have included an invitation from the Wigmore Hall, London to present a three concert project on the songs of Joseph Marx; a recital tour with Stéphane Degout which included the Ravinia and Edinburgh festivals; his debut at Carnegie Hall, New York with mezzo Karen Cargill and at the Frick Collection with Christopher Purves; performances of the Schubert song cycles with Mark Padmore including at the Schubertiade, Hohenhems and recitals with Angelika Kirchschlager at La Monnaie, Brussels and at the Wigmore Hall where appearances have included recitals with Christopher Maltman, Elizabeth Watts, Stephan Loges, Sophie Bevan, Sally Matthews and Lawrence Zazzo.

Vocal recordings include Warlock Songs with Andrew Kennedy, two volumes of Debussy Songs and a Strauss disc with Gillian Keith (Champs Hill Records, CHRCD018) and a disc of Mahler songs with Karen Cargill, as well as a song recital disc with Dame Felicity Palmer, and the complete songs of Jonathan Dove with Kitty Whately (Nights Not Spent Alone, also on Champs Hill Records, CHRCD125).

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Floris Mijnders

Composer(s)

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include nine symphonies, five piano concertos, one violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. Together with Mozart and Haydn, he was part of the First Viennese School. Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn, and gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost totally deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life.

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Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten is one most important British composers from the second half of the twentieth century. Remarkably, he focused on opera, a dying genre, at least in its current form. Britten's contributions however, among which Peter Grimes, The Rape of Lucretia, Gloriana, The Turn of the Screw, and Death in Venice, managed to remain core repertoire for opera companies to this day. Many of these productions included a role for his artistic partner and life companion Peter Pears. Britten also wrote a number of lieder for this tenor, among which his Serenade for tenor, horn and string orchestra. Yet, Britten excelled in many more genres. He wasn't even 20 years old when he composed his brilliant Phantasy for hobo quartet and his friendship with...

Benjamin Britten is one most important British composers from the second half of the twentieth century. Remarkably, he focused on opera, a dying genre, at least in its current form. Britten's contributions however, among which Peter Grimes, The Rape of Lucretia, Gloriana, The Turn of the Screw, and Death in Venice, managed to remain core repertoire for opera companies to this day. Many of these productions included a role for his artistic partner and life companion Peter Pears. Britten also wrote a number of lieder for this tenor, among which his Serenade for tenor, horn and string orchestra. Yet, Britten excelled in many more genres. He wasn't even 20 years old when he composed his brilliant Phantasy for hobo quartet and his friendship with the legendary cellist Rostropovich led to a Cello sonata, three Suites for cello solo and a Symphony for Cello and orchestra in the 1960s.

Britten never became Master of the Queen's Music, yet he surely had feeling for public sentiments. For example, as a pacifist, he taught his people about world peace through his War Requiem from 1962. Britten was an excellent interpreter of his own work, just like Bartók and Stravinsky. Many of his recordings have been matched, but never exceeded.

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Gustav Mahler

During his own time, Gustav Mahler was considered as one of the major conductors of Europe, but nowadays he is considered to a major composer who bridged the Late Romantic period to the modern age. Few composers are so connected with the symphonic repertory as Gustav Mahler. Composing symphonies was his 'core business': in every aspect he developed the symphony towards, and sometimes even over, its absolute limits. Almost all of Mahler's symphonies are lenghty, demand a large orchestra and are particularly great in their expressive qualities. With rustic and mythical atmospheres (the start of the First Symphony), daunting chaos (the end of his Sixth), grand visions (end of his Second), cheerful melodies (opening Fourth), romantic melancholy (the famous adagio of...

During his own time, Gustav Mahler was considered as one of the major conductors of Europe, but nowadays he is considered to a major composer who bridged the Late Romantic period to the modern age.

Few composers are so connected with the symphonic repertory as Gustav Mahler. Composing symphonies was his "core business": in every aspect he developed the symphony towards, and sometimes even over, its absolute limits. Almost all of Mahler's symphonies are lenghty, demand a large orchestra and are particularly great in their expressive qualities. With rustic and mythical atmospheres (the start of the First Symphony), daunting chaos (the end of his Sixth), grand visions (end of his Second), cheerful melodies (opening Fourth), romantic melancholy (the famous adagio of his Fifth), evocations of nature (his Third), megalomanic eruptions in the orchestra (his Eighth), and the clamant atonality of his unfinished Tenth, Mahler's musical palette seemed inexhaustible.

His symphonies are captivating, but some could find it a bit 'over the top' at times. For those, his orchestral songs could undoubtedly show there is an incredibly subtle and refined side to his compositional style as well.

In the Netherlands, Mahler is particularly popular due to its close bond with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, which was already established during his lifetime!

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Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Within his meticulous structures is embedded, however, a highly romantic nature.

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Béla Bartók

Next to Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók was a third seminal innovator of European art music at the start of the twentieth century. Bartók, too, sought a way out of the deadlock of tonal music around 1900, and he found it in folk music. Initially, he tied in with the nationalistic tradition of Franz Liszt with his tone poem Kossuth, but eventually he found his own voice with the rediscovery of the music of Hungarian peasants. Together with Zoltán Kodály he was one of the first to apply the results of folkloric research into his own compositions. One major difference between him and composers of the 19th century, was that Bartók did not adjust to the system of tonality, but created his own musical idiom from folk music. Because of this, his composition style was flexible to other musical trends, without having to violate his own view points. For example, his two Violin sonates come close to Schoenberg's free expressionism, and after 1926 his music started to show neoclassicistic tendencies, comparable to Stravinsky's music. Bartók was not just interested in Hungarian folk music, but could appreciate musical folklore from all of the Balkan, Turkey and North-Africa as well.

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Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) was the composer who gave Finland its own sound, right when this nation was struggling to detach itself from Russia. Sibelius wrote several impressive symphonic poems - among which Finlandia, Lemminkäinen-suite, Oceaniden, Tapiola - for he took inspiration from the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. He was just as original as a symphonist: his Seven Symphonies are just as much answers to the question how the genre should develop after Tchaikovsky's death.

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) was the composer who gave Finland its own sound, right when this nation was struggling to detach itself from Russia. Sibelius wrote several impressive symphonic poems - among which Finlandia, Lemminkäinen-suite, Oceaniden, Tapiola - for he took inspiration from the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. He was just as original as a symphonist: his Seven Symphonies are just as much answers to the question how the genre should develop after Tchaikovsky's death.

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Ottorino Respighi

Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer from the first half of 20th Century. After his studies in Bologna (violin, viola and composition) he moved to St. Petersburg where played for several years for the Imperial Opera. There he also met Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who became his mentor in composition and orchestration. From 1903 until 1908 he played viola in the Mugellini quintet in Bologna. In 1908, he stayed in Berlin for a short period to study under Max Bruch. In 1913, he became a teacher himself at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, of which he became its director in 1924. Two years later, he already left the position to be able to dedicate himself completely to composing. While Respighi did compose nine operas, he is mostly known for his instrumental works. In particular his orchestral triptych of symphonic poems, Fontane di Roma, Pini di Roma and Feste Romane (also known as the Roman Trilogy) became quite famous. His style was a continuation of the French impressionism, and of Rimsky-Korsakov's technique. He also applied early composition techniques by applying melodies from early lute music (Antiche arie e danze per liuto) or harpsichordpieces from the Baroque era (Gli uccelli).

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