The third audite recording of the PianoDuo Takahashi|Lehmann presents transcriptions of pre-existing works as well as new compositions permeated with musical quotes and allusions. Drawing on musical history, existing works are approached in diverse ways, from using almost original material through to dissolving the classical concept of time and epochs.

These two chamber works represent Camille Saint-Saëns’ early perfection and his expressive classical mature style. Brilliance and an unerring sense of form; calm, melancholy resting and energetic gestures; romantic vocal qualities and exquisite compositional art – the contrasts characterising Saint-Saëns’ musical idiom are perfectly realised by the Quartetto di Cremona.

Maureen Forrester was one of the few genuine alto singers during the period after 1945. Encouraged by Bruno Walter, she was one of the most important Mahler interpreters of her time. The recordings released here, for the first time, document her activities in the area of the Lied accompanied by piano to an extent unknown until now, including her collaboration with the legendary accompanist Michael Raucheisen.

A well-regarded composer in his own right, Leopold I transformed the Viennese court into a centre of European culture. The beautiful settings he wrote for the burials of his first two wives, as well as his music for the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, are testament to the Emperor’s musical talent.

Once more, an early and a late work provide insight into Beethoven’s startling development. Both pieces reveal how Beethoven incorporated folk music into his own works – in all other aspects, the styles of these two string quartets could not be more different.

This recording of Georg Muffat's monumental mass alongside church sonatas by his contemporaries creates a vivid impression of the imposing sacred music heard at leading Catholic courts during the High Baroque. The Abbey Church of Muri with its four galleries and its historical Bossart organs proves to be a performance venue with perfect acoustics for these polychoral works.

A rediscovery of a conductor who nowadays is considered an insider’s tip: having fled fascism and Stalinism, Paul Kletzki arrived in Switzerland in 1939 and advanced to become one of the leading conductors after the Second World War. This Lucerne live recording shows Kletzki at the height of his art: exciting interpretations, characterised by expressiveness and a stupendous sense of musical architecture.

Sergei Prokofiev’s two Violin Sonatas, written during the 1940s, embody the deep dichotomy that characterised the composer’s life, feeling and work. The tragic Sonata No. 1 in F minor and the predominantly cheerful Sonata No. 2 in D major appear as two contrasting poles within his oeuvre. Prokofiev’s emotionally intensive melodies also unmistakably emerge in his own arrangement of the Cinq melodies for violin and piano.

The continuation of the complete edition of the works for piano trio: two key works of Beethoven, complemented by the underrated Variations, Op. 44.

Concluding audite’s Schumann edition, this CD combines the first symphony with the late overtures, whose compactness displays the composer’s symphonic mastery.

In Schumann’s œuvre for solo instruments and orchestra, the Konzertstücke complement his solo concertos. Confined to one movement, they are more concentrated, more pointed in their characters and freer in the development of their ideas than their bigger siblings. The covertly multi-movement piece for four horns also harnesses the formal and poetic experience of the Fourth Symphony: Schumann was a composer with open borders.

Schumann’s most underestimated and his most famous concertos: Patricia Kopatchinskaja takes the experimental qualities of the Violin Concerto, a late work, as a guiding principle for her individual interpretation, rising above clichéd Romanticist listening habits. In the Piano Concerto, Denes Varjon also expresses a particular Romantic clarity, characterised by fresh sounds and fluid tempi.

With their Suites for Solo Viola Max Reger, Adolf Busch and Justus Weinreich paid tribute to the special qualities of the instrument as a soloist even before the production of viola repertoire began to flourish in the twentieth century. This CD includes the premiere recording of the Suites by Justus Weinreich: a significant musical discovery.

This recording presents an orchestra steeped in tradition – the Zagreb Soloists performing under their long-standing director, Antonio Janigro. The ensemble’s characteristically pure string sound is created by just twelve musicians. These first releases from the RIAS archive reveal a cross-section of the Zagreb Soloists’ repertoire from their early years with Antonio Janigro as conductor and soloist.

Marc Coppey, winner of the Leipzig Bach Competition, is one of today’s leading cellists. This recording – featuring Marc Coppey in the dual role of artistic director and soloist of the Zagreb Soloists for the first time – presents Haydn’s Cello Concertos, milestones in the history of cello music. The original and free-spirited A major Concerto by C. P. E. Bach makes an ideal companion piece.

In their fifth volume of the Complete Beethoven Chamber Music for Strings, the Quartetto di Cremona – currently Italy’s most exciting string quartet – present an enraptured late work, the Quartet Op. 132 with the great Adagio “thanksgiving”, alongside Beethoven’s only String Quintet, Op. 29.

This live recording from 1954 of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Gioconda de Vito and the RIAS Symphony Orchestra under Georg Ludwig Jochum is of particular documentary value as the Italian violinist made no studio recording of the work. Alongside music by Vitali and Brahms, her Beethoven interpretation comes to life thanks to her soulful, romantic tone.

Five intensive and virtuoso works by five composers of the 20th century. In their respective aesthetics, each composer shares the ability to use forms and models of music history as inspiration for his own modern musical language. Existentially, they shared a common fate: all were persecuted by the National Socialists. Some were murdered in concentration camps and others fled to continue their lives in exile.

The fifth and final volume of audite’s complete recording of Edvard Grieg’s orchestral works reveals a less familiar side of the Norwegian national composer: as arranger of his own lyrical and patriotic songs, surrounded by elegiac and dance-like melodies.

Christmas carols for the drawing room: in the 1950s, RIAS produced Christmas carols with artists such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Rita Streich, Erna Berger and Elisabeth Grümmer. Without the slightest whiff of sentimentality, the performers transform these Christmas miniatures into small gems.

Two pearls of pianism: Annie Fischer in a sensitive, chamber-like and exceptionally poetic reading of the Schumann Piano Concerto – one of her favourite pieces. Leon Fleisher, a few months before he was to lose the use of his right hand (recovering it only in old age), with Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto in an inspirationally bright and crystal clear tone.

The concept of the stimulating contrast between early and later trios is being continued in the second part of the complete edition of Beethoven‘s Piano Trios: the early Trio, Op. 1 No. 2 and the Trio, Op. 70 No. 1 composed 13 years later convey an impression of Ludwig van Beet­hoven‘s widely differing compositional concepts and bear witness to the inexhaustible variety of his musical ideas.

A female cellist on stage in front of a big symphony orchestra – a rare sight during the first half of the twentieth century. Zara Nelsova, however, marked the beginning of a new era: she became a pivotal figure in the history of playing the cello. The RIAS recordings, made between 1956 and 1965, complement her discography substantially and include works which she never recorded for a commercial label.

The five String Trios are masterpieces of the young Ludwig van Beethoven as he travels towards the string quartet: however, many musicians and scholars have preferred the mature Trios Op. 9 to the subsequent String Quartets Op. 18. With their new double CD, the Thibaud Trio provide an opportunity to rediscover these milestones in the history of the string trio.

Extraordinary artists in extraordinary recordings on an extraordinary format: these are the criteria for audite’s LP releases. Hot off the press is Furtwängler’s last performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, now also available on premium 180g vinyl (DMM).

Prokofiev, the temperamental St Petersburg firebrand, and Schubert, the quiet revolutionary from Vienna – an intelligent and exciting combination. The pianist Elisso Bolkvadze, an UNESCO Artist for Peace and a superstar in her native Georgia, presents Prokofiev’s Second Piano Sonata and Schubert’s Impromptus D 899 in glowing and lyrical interpretations.

Franziska Pietsch and Detlev Eisinger make their audite debut with chamber works by Edvard Grieg. The three Violin Sonatas represent half his œuvre in this field, epitomising central stages in his artistic development: his emancipation from the inspirational proximity to Schumann, references to Norwegian folk music, and his expansive use of themes and time. Grieg rated these three sonatas amongst his best works.

Martin Neu brings works by Correa de Arauxo, Coelho and Xaraba to life in their Spanish homeland at the organ of San Hipólito in Córdoba. The sound of the organ unfolds transparently within the church interior; noble, warm prinicipals and flute stops as well as a variety of characteristic reed stops lend great sonic dignity to the instrument. Together with the antiphonal choral sound of the ensemble officium, the recording reveals the multi-facetted elegance of this musical epoch.

"...The definitive set is complete." Gramophone

The PianoDuo Takahashi|Lehmann combines intellectual programming with passionate expressivity. Original and adaptation – the lines are blurred: in his Concerto for Two Pianos, Stravinsky has the performers appear both as virtuoso soloists and representatives of an imagined orchestra. The composer’s arrangement of Le Sacre for four hands is a masterpiece in its own right. Herrmann’s Hausmusik turns the relationship between original and arrangement completely upside down, whilst the music which drove Nancarrow to compose for player pianos has been retranslated for four hands by Mikhashoff.

This CD, presenting Géza Anda’s Telefunken recordings of 1950 and 1951, re-mastered for the first time, closes the last major gap in the discography of the Swiss-Hungarian pianist. In works by Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Schumann, Anda accomplished the transition from brilliant virtuoso to sophisticated musician.

It is not a well-known fact that the Amadeus Quartet also championed the music of their contemporaries. For the radio, they recorded string quartets written by the major English composers of their time, Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett. The Hungarian composer Mátyás Seiber introduced the Amadeus Quartet to the works of his fellow countryman Béla Bartók. By recording Henry Purcell’s string fantasias, they followed references between Britten and the cradle of English chamber music.

An early and a late string quartet by Ludwig van Beethoven: during the intervening twenty-six years, the composer had turned the traditional understanding of music on its head. In the fourth volume of their recording series of the complete Beethoven String Quartets, the Quartetto di Cremona demonstrate not only the stylistic quantum leap, but also Beethoven’s enormous demands on the musicians’ concentration and technique: a chamber music event.

Pierre Fournier was praised as an “aristocrat of cello playing”: his soulful, singing tone, his uncomplicated elegance and his refined sound can now be heard in these Lucerne live recordings, released for the first time. A particularly noteworthy discovery from the archives: Fournier’s encounter with the great Dvořák conductor István Kertész, whose untimely death had prevented him from recording the composer’s Cello Concerto in the studio.

This edition impressively shows the position to which the Hungarian violinist Johanna Martzy is entitled in the history of twentieth-century violin playing, despite the brevity of her career. Her name has become a legend amongst experts, and her recordings are rare collector's items. Alongside the radio production of Dvorák's Violin Concerto, the chamber recordings prove that Johanna Martzy was still at the height of her powers at the end of her career.

The first volume of the complete works for piano trio by Beethoven presents the astonishing development and spectrum of the genre with his first (Op. 1,1 of 1795) and last (Op. 97 of 1814) trios.

Furtwängler’s last Ninth: Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony more than one hundred times. Three months before his death in 1954, he gave his last performance in Lucerne which is now newly re-mastered. Together with the superb Philharmonia Orchestra and a stellar cast of soloists, Furtwängler accentuates the visionary character of the monumental score in his passionate interpretation.

The LP Edvard Grieg: Symphonic Works Vol. II presents more highlights from audite’s complete edition of Grieg’s symphonic works on 180g vinyl: his second Peer Gynt suite from the incidental music to Henrik Ibsen’s drama Peer Gynt, the story of the “Nordic Faust” which inspired Grieg to compose a sonic panorama of the Norwegian character; the Funeral March in Memory of Rikard Nordraak which Grieg wrote after the death of his close friend; the famous suite From Holberg's Time, a homage to Ludvig Holberg, the caustic "Molière of the North"; and Klokkeklang - an almost impressionist study documenting a surprisingly visionary trait of the otherwise rather conservative composer. Each LP purchase includes a voucher for a free mp3 and HD stereo download of these works.

The début album of the PianoDuo Takahashi|Lehmann marks the beginning of the cooperation between the brilliant duo and audite. This and the following album, scheduled for release in spring 2015, explore the multifaceted cosmos of transcriptions for piano duet. In Part I, the musicians focus on three orchestral and ensemble masterpieces, arranged for piano duet by their own composers: Beethoven’s Great Fugue, Schumann’s Second Symphony and Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony. The virtuoso pianists combine their passionate expressivity with an intellectual programmatic conception. Their equally intelligent and touching playing makes even seemingly abstract works accessible to the listener.

Furtwängler’s last Ninth: Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony more than one hundred times. Three months before his death in 1954, he gave his last performance in Lucerne which is now newly re-mastered. Together with the superb Philharmonia Orchestra and a stellar cast of soloists, Furtwängler accentuates the visionary character of the monumental score in his passionate interpretation.