Viola & Piano by Andreas Willwohl & Daniel Heide

Dmitri Shostakovich, Franz Schubert

Andreas Willwohl & Daniel Heide

Viola & Piano

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: CAvi
UPC: 0028948663859
Catnr: AVI 4866385
Release date: 12 July 2024
Buy

1 CD ✓ in stock	€ 19.95	Buy

Label
CAvi

UPC
0028948663859

Catalogue number
AVI 4866385

Release date
12 July 2024

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

LEGACY

One of Schubert's legacies with one of his most beautiful compositions is the Arpeggione Sonata. Schubert took a liking to the bowed guitar, at least for one veritable work: the Sonata in A minor, composed in November 1824. .....

The Arpeggione instrument disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. All these attempts around 1800 to expand the family of string instruments had long been forgotten when Franz Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata was published for the first time 43 years after his death in 1871, immediately with alternative solo parts for violin, viola or violoncello.

Almost all violists and cellists have included Schubert's marvellous Arpeggione Sonata in their repertoire - thus keeping alive the memory of the attempt to make the proverbial 'pearl sounds' accessible for string instruments - for an eternity.Shostakovich's viola sonata conveys a special, gradually dissolving sense of time. It is neither at home today, nor yesterday, nor in the future, but in eternity. The composer himself said almost nothing about the work, except that it was "bright and clear".

He called the first two movements a "novella" and a "scherzo". About the finale, he revealed that it was "an adagio in memory of Beethoven". The Viola Sonata is Shostakovich's last work and, beyond personal consternation, it is an exploration of the last things, as many important composers have done; important references for Shostakovich were, for example, Beethoven's Sonata op. 111 or Mahler's Symphony No. 9 and Das Lied von der Erde.
© 2024 Steffen Georgi

VERMÄCHTNIS

Eines von Schuberts Vermächtnissen mit einer seiner schönsten Kompositionen ist die Arpeggione Sonate. Schubert fand Gefallen an der mit dem Bogen zu streichenden Gitarre, zumindest für ein veritables Werk: die Sonate a-Moll, komponiert im November 1824. …..Das Instrument Arpeggione verschwand so schnell wieder, wie es gekommen war.

Alle diese Versuche um 1800, die Streichinstrumentenfamilie zu vergrößern, waren längst verges-sen, als Franz Schuberts Arpeggione-Sonate 43 Jahre nach seinem Tod, 1871 erstmals gedruckt erschien, sogleich mit Solostimmen alternativ für Violine, Viola oder Violoncello. Fast alle Bratscher und Cellisten, ..haben Schuberts herrliche Arpeggione-Sonate in ihr Repertoire aufgenommen – und halten damit die Erinnerung wach an den Versuch, sprichwörtliche ‚Perlenklänge‘ auch für Streichinstrumente zugänglich zu machen – für eine Ewigkeit.

Die Bratschensonate von Shostakovich transportiert ein besonderes, sich allmählich auflösendes Zeitgefühl. Weder im Heute, noch im Gestern, noch in der Zukunft ist sie zu Hause, sondern in der Ewigkeit. Der Komponist selber sagte fast nichts über das Werk, außer dass es „hell und klar“ sei. Die ersten beiden Sätze nannte er eine „Novelle“ und ein „Scherzo“. Über das Finale verriet er, es sein „ein Adagio zum Gedenken an Beethoven“.

Die Bratschensonate ist Shostakovchs letztes Werk und jenseits von persönlicher Betroffenheit ist sie eine Auseinandersetzung mit den letzten Dingen, wie sie viele bedeutende Komponisten geführt haben; für Shostakovich wichtig als Referenz waren z.B. Beethovens Sonate op. 111 oder Mahlers Symphonie Nr. 9 und Das Lied von der Erde.
© 2024 Steffen Georgi

Artist(s)

Daniel Heide (piano)

Born in Weimar, pianist Daniel Heide is one of the most sought-after vocal accompanists and chamber musicians of his generation. He performs in recital series and festivals all over Europe as well as in Asia: for instance, in the Konzerthäuser in Vienna, Berlin and Dortmund, the London Wigmore Hall, the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg and Hohenems (Austria), the Heidelberg Spring Festival, and the Oxford Lieder Festival.
In addition to his ongoing collaboration with vocalists including Andrè Schuen, Christoph Prégardien, Simone Kermes, Ingeborg Danz, Britta Schwarz, Roman Trekel, and Tobias Berndt, he has also accompanied lieder recitals with renowned singers such as Regula Mühlemann, Fatma Said, Benjamin Appl, Sheva Tehoval, Dietrich Henschel, Dorottya Lang, Patrick Grahl, Katharina Konradi, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Luca Pisaroni, Konstantin Krimmel and Johannes Weisser.
He also loves sharing the stage with actors and narrators including Christian Brückner, Udo Samel, Thomas Thieme, and Hanns Zischler in the genre of melodrama. Daniel Heide had a close collaboration with the late German-Greek mezzo-soprano Stella Doufexis. Their CD Poèmes with songs by Claude Debussy was awarded the German Record Critics’ Prize. As a chamber music partner in duo sonata recitals he has concertized with outstanding soloists including Sabine Meyer, Tabea Zimmermann, Antje Weithaas, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Jens Peter Maintz, and Danjulo Ishizaka.
Daniel Heide is the founder and artistic director of the vocal recital series Der lyrische Salon. Held in Ettersburg Castle near Weimar, the series has existed since 2011 and is one of the few – anywhere in the world – that is devoted exclusively to artsong. In that context he has collaborated with a great number of celebrated soloists of the lied genre in more than 100 recitals at the Castle Ettersburg.
On CAvi-music he recorded with baritone Andrè Schuen songs by Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf, Frank Martin and a Schubert album Wanderer; with Roman Trekel most famous Loewe Ballades, with Stella Doufexis Hamlet Echoes, with Konstantin Krimmel Liszt Songs and the album Liebe with the soprano Katharina Konradi.

less

Andreas Willwohl (viola)

Andreas Willwohl is one of the leading violists of his generation. He trained with Professor Alfred Lipka at the Universities of Musik “Franz Liszt“ in Weimar, and “Hanns Eisler“ in Berlin; he also received valuable artistic counsel from renowned musicians including Wilfried Strehle, Norbert Brainin, Eberhard Feltz, Kim Kashkashian, and the members of the Alban Berg Quartet.
He was a prizewinner at the Concours International de Bordeaux (2002) and at the Salzburg Mozarteum Summer Academy, and was awarded study grants by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Foundation in Berlin.
As a viola virtuoso and chamber music partner, Andreas Willwohl has appeared at a number of international festivals including Salzburg, Schubertiade, Schleswig-Holstein and Bogotá; he played with colleagues including Johannes Moser, Julian Steckel, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Isang Enders, Marc-André Hamelin, Lauma Skride and Daniel Heide.
As a soloist he has concertized with the Berlin RSO, Korean Chamber Orchestra, the Brandenburg Symphony, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, the Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin, and the Metamorphosen Chamber Philharmonic (Berlin), collaborating with conductors of the likes of Marek Janowski, Patrick Lange, Christoph Poppen, Matthias Foremny, Conrad van Alphen, and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, and appearing in venues including the Berlin Philharmonie, Seoul Arts Center, Toppan Hall in Tokyo, the Auditorium in Dijon, and Metz Congress Hall. A great number of broadcast recordings and CD releases on the Pentatone and Audite labels offer further proof of his versatile talent.
In 2011, Andreas Willwohl was appointed viola professor at Nuremberg University of Music; he imparts masterclasses in Europe and Asia on a regular basis. He has been a member of the Mandelring Quartet since 2015, and in 2012 he founded the Ceres Ensemble.
After one of his appearances at the Berlin Philharmonie, a critic wrote: “Not since the Alban Berg Quartet’s Thomas Kakuska have I found the performance of a violist in a chamber music ensemble so utterly convincing.” Andreas Willwohl plays an instrument by Stefan Peter Greiner with a bow by Dominique Peccatte.

less

Composer(s)

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. Schubert already died before his 32nd birthday, but was extremely prolific during his lifetime. His output consists of over six hundred secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of chamber and piano music. Appreciation of his music while he was alive was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and other 19th-century composers discovered and championed his works. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of the late Classical and early Romantic eras and is one of the most frequently performed composers of the early nineteenth century.
It was in the genre of the Lied that Schubert made his most indelible mark. Prior to Schubert's influence, Lieder tended toward a strophic, syllabic treatment of text, evoking the folksong qualities engendered by the stirrings of Romantic nationalism. Schubert expanded the potentialities of the genre like no other composer before.

less

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich was a Russian pianist and composer of the Soviet period. He is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century.
Shostakovich achieved fame in the Soviet Union under the patronage of Soviet chief of staff Mikhail Tukhachevsky, but later had a complex and difficult relationship with the government. Nevertheless, he received accolades and state awards and served in the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (1947–1962) and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (from 1962 until his death).
A polystylist, Shostakovich developed a hybrid voice, combining a variety of different musical techniques into his works. His music is characterized by sharp contrasts, elements of the grotesque, and ambivalent tonality; the composer was also heavily influenced by the neo-classical style pioneered by Igor Stravinsky, and (especially in his symphonies) by the late Romanticism associated with Gustav Mahler.
Shostakovich's orchestral works include 15 symphonies and six concerti. His chamber output includes 15 string quartets, a piano quintet, two piano trios, and two pieces for string octet. His solo piano works include two sonatas, an early set of preludes, and a later set of 24 preludes and fugues. Other works include three operas, several song cycles, ballets, and a substantial quantity of film music; especially well known is The Second Waltz, Op. 99, music to the film The First Echelon (1955–1956), as well as the suites of music composed for The Gadfly.

less