Digital synlighed. Målbart afkast.

Harald Wanger : Festgabe zum 70. Geburtstag

Otto Nicolai: Messe D-Dur und A-cappella-Werke

The name Otto Nicolai is most closely associated with his opera The Merry Wives of Windsor. Less well known, on the other hand, is his extensive output of sacred music, which inlcudes a cappella works and choral works with orchestra. As Mendelssohn's successor as artistic director of the Berlin Cathedral, with the Mass in D major Nicolai composed a sacred work well worth discovering. It is an important contribution to church music of the 19th century. In addition to this festive mass with orchestral accompaniment, the chamber choir CONSONO under Harald Jers also presents several other choral works which with their varied scorings, some a cappella, some withinstrumental accompaniment, show the diversity of Nicolai's sacred compositions.

Albert Becker: Bleibe, Abend will es werden

Albert Becker belongs, with his a cappella choral music, to the traditional line of composers including Mendelssohn and his own contemporary Rheinberger. Expansive use of double choirs and effective combinations of sound with well-judged musical rhetoric clearly point back to classical vocal polyphony and the vocal music of the baroque age as models. After his studies Becker worked, with short interruptions, as a music teacher at various private institutions in Berlin, where Jean Sibelius was among his pupils. In the early 1890s he took over the renowned Berlin Cathedral Choir, and it was only the personal intervention of the Emperor Wilhelm II which prevented hisintended move to Leipzig as Thomaskantor. The prize-winning chamber choir CONSONO, under the direction of Harald Jers, gives extremely fine interpretations of these choral works, some of which are here recorded for the first time.

Calmus Ensemble - Elke Heidenreich: Nachtgedanken

The Calmus Ensemble and Elke Heidenreich became acquainted during an engagement on a cruise ship, and the idea of collaborating on a musical-literary project was born. The “Nachtgedanken” [Nocturnal Thoughts] deal with the thoughts that sometimes unbidden take possession of our minds during the night, be they more or less beautiful, stimulating or frightening, funny or sad. Music alternates with the spoken word. In addition to her own writings, Elke Heidenreich reads texts by Erich Kästner, Ludwig Tieck, Marcel Proust and others. The musical contributions consist almost entirely of music that was composed or arranged for the Calmus Ensemble: Harald Banter composed jazzballads on poems by Charles Baudelaire and set Christian Morgenstern’s Galgenlieder to music. Sebastian Krause, who sings altus in the Calmus Ensemble, arranged several well-known chansons by Georg Kreisler for the ensemble. The result is a wonderful production, suitable for reveries and pleasure, pondering over and hearing again and again not only on mellow summer evenings.