April 15, 2007 - CD of the Week

From the liner notes

…Joachim had repeatedly urged Brahms to compose a violin concerto for him. However, he made it clear that he did not wish the work to be written in the style

of the Romantic virtuoso concertos: it was to be a symphonic concerto to continue in the line of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto…

The Double Concerto contains a good many musical references to the friendship between Joachim and Brahms. Thus it contains a number of allusions to the Violin Concerto in A minor by Giovanni Battista Viotti: this was one of Joachim’s favourite showpieces, of which Brahms was also very fond. But there is more. The thematic material of the first movement is based on the f.a.e motif… “Frei, aber einsam” (= free, but lonely): the motto for the friendship between Brahms and Joachim, two great masters who were connected by their capricious approach to life.

Ronald Vermeulen.

English translation: Fiona J. Stroker-Gale

Julia Fischer

Julia Fischer was born in Munich in 1983, of German-Slovak parents, and began her musical training at just four years old. At nine, she began receiving lessons from the renowned violin teacher Ana Chumachenco. In 2006, she was appointed professor at the “Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst” in Frankfurt am Main.

In 2004, her first CD was released by PentaTone - the label for which Julia Fischer

records exclusively - entitled Russian Violin Concertos with the Russian National Orchestra (under Yakov Kreizberg), which was awarded the Echo Klassik 2005. Her last recording Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto - was released in November 2006, with the same orchestra and conductor.

www.juliafischer.com

Daniel Müller-Schott

Daniel Müller-Schott studied under Walter Nothas, Heinrich Schiff and Steven Isserlis. At the age of 15 he won international acclaim by taking first prize at Moscow’s International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians.

www.daniel-mueller-schott.com

Yakov Kreizberg

The Russian-born American conductor Yakov Kreizberg currently holds the posts of Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Kreizberg was born in St Petersburg and studied conducting privately with Ilya A. Musin, (the renowned Professor of Conducting at

the St. Petersburg Conservatory), before emigrating to the United States in 1976.

www.yakovkreizberg.com

Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra Amsterdam

With 130 musicians the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra is the largest orchestral

 organization in the Netherlands. Founded in 1986 as a merger of the Amsterdam

Philharmonic, the Utrecht Symphony and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. From the start Hartmut Haenchen has been chief conductor.

www.orkest.nl

PentaTone Music B.V. was founded in 2001 by three former executives of Philips Classics (one of the classical music labels of Universal) together with Polyhymnia International (the former recording center of Philips Classics).

PentaTone plans to create a new classical catalogue superbly recorded (by Polyhymnia International) starting with the most famous works, performed by top classical artists such as: Kent Nagano, Yakov Kreizberg, Mikhail Pletnev, Alexander Vedernikov, Sir Neville Marriner, Paavo Järvi, Pepe Romero, Julia Fischer, Vesko Eschkenazy, Mari Kodama, The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, The Russian National Orchestra, The Wiener Symphoniker,the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Bolshoi Opera and many others.

http://www.pentatonemusic.com/