From manuscript to invention - A dialogue between romantic heritage & contemporary creation by Giulio Padoin

Various composers

Giulio Padoin | Gabriele Lucherini

From manuscript to invention - A dialogue between romantic heritage & contemporary creation

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917200690
Catnr: CC 720069
Release date: 28 August 2026
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1 CD	€ 19.95	Preorder

Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917200690

Catalogue number
CC 720069

Release date
28 August 2026

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

From Manuscript to Invention is a deeply imaginative musical journey that bridges past and present, reviving forgotten Romantic voices while transforming them through contemporary creativity. At its heart stands Emilie Mayer - one of the most prolific yet historically overlooked female composers of the 19th century - whose remarkable career defied the conventions of her time. Alongside the music of Ferdinand Ries, a close associate of Beethoven, the album brings rare manuscript sources to life. Several works are presented here in world premiere recordings, offering listeners a first encounter with music long hidden from the repertoire. By returning to Mayer’s original Duet in F Major and Ries’s Cello Sonata, the performers reveal a rich sound world shaped by expressive freedom, historical performance practice, and the intimate, improvisatory spirit of 19th-century salon culture.

At the same time, the album becomes an act of creation in its own right: newly composed works inspired by these historical materials unfold alongside them, blurring the line between interpretation and invention. Through this dialogue, the performers not only reawaken the art of musical spontaneity - ornamentation, rubato, and improvisation - but also restore Mayer’s voice to its rightful place within the Romantic canon. The result is an evocative exploration of continuity and renewal, where rediscovery becomes both an act of justice and a catalyst for new artistic expression.

Artist(s)

Giulio Padoin

Giulio Padoin graduated with highest honors at the A. Steffani Conservatory in Castelfranco Veneto (Italy) under the guidance of Walter Vestidello. He attended several international cello masterclasses with Enrico Bronzi and Christian Poltéra. He specialized in early music performance with Marco Testori at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, where he obtained the Master of Arts in baroque cello, and with Christophe Coin at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, where he obtained the Master of Arts in music pedagogy. Also in Basel, he completed a Master of Arts in historical improvisation with Nicola Cumer and Dirk Börner. Since 2023 he has been playing as principal cello with Il Giardino Armonico and Los Elementos Ensemble (Alberto Miguélez Rouco) and works with several...

Since 2023 he has been playing as principal cello with Il Giardino Armonico and Los Elementos Ensemble (Alberto Miguélez Rouco) and works with several groups and orchestras such as Accademia Bizantina, Café Zimmermann, Le Concert d’Astrée (Emmanuele Haïm), Il Pomo d’Oro, Abchordis Ensemble (Andrea Buccarella), Ensemble Estrovagante (Riccardo Doni), Concerto Scirocco (Giulia Genini), Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Capriccio Barockorchester, I Tempi Kammerorchester. With these ensembles he has been playing in important festivals and music halls all over the world.

In 2021, together with the fortepianist Gabriele Lucherini (Ricerche Parallele duo), he received an Extraordinary Award for his “outstanding individual performance” at the “Beethoven in seiner Zeit” competition. With the same duo, in 2022, he is the winner of the “International Van Wassenaer Competition 2022” (organised by the “Utrecht Early Music Festival”), also receiving the Audience Award.

Since 2025, he has been teaching Baroque Cello and Chamber Music for Strings at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan.

His research for new authors and unreleased music led him to publish a critical edition of a manuscript by Giacomo Facco, with the Spanish label “Música Hispana” (Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales, Madrid), featuring unpublished music for two cellos composed by the Paduan musician during his time in Madrid.

He plays an early 18th century cello from North-Italy.

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Gabriele Lucherini (fortepiano)

Composer(s)

Ferdinand Ries

The life and work of Ferdinand Ries was inextricably bound up with that of his friend and teacher Beethoven. Just like Beethoven, he was born in Bonn. His father, the violinist Franz Anton Ries, was a friend of Beethoven and also his violin teacher.
Ries first studied piano and violin with his father and subsequently he studied briefly with Peter von Winter in Munich. Then he settled in Vienna, where he recieved piano lessons from Beethoven and studied theory and composition with Albrechtsberger. He established himself as publisher of the music of Beethoven and supported him as copyist and secretary. In 1809, he left Vienna for a series of concert tours in Germany, Russia, Scandinavia and eventually London, where he spent 11 years, until 1824. From 1825 onwards, he directed the Niederrheinische Musikfest during several seasons. Ries died in Frankfurt.
Ferdinand Ries composed operas and no less than 60 songs, and his choral works inlcude a cantata and two oratorios. The orchestral music of Ries includes seven numbered symphonies and five overtures, two on works by Schiller, as well as eight piano concertos, amongst others 'Abschieds-Concert von England' (No. 7) and ‘Gruss an den Rhein’ (No. 8). Amongst his chamber works are pieces for ensembles of various sizes, from septet to octet, to five trios for piano, violin and cello, with alternative instrumentation for flute or clarinet instead of violin. The majority of his oeuvre has been overshadowed by that of Beethoven, just like that of other contemporaries.

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