Meret Lüthi, Les Passions de l’Âme – Biber: The Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:08:38 minutes | 2,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR Klassik
After having been involved with the instrumental ensemble music of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber for many years, the Ensemble for Early Music Les Passions de l’Âme, together with its artistic director Meret Lüthi, also turned to his opus Magnum in a marathon of three concerts,…
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Els Biesemans, Meret Lüthi – Sterkel: Sonatas for Fortepiano and Violin (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:17 minutes | 1,31 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ramée
At a time when Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven dominated musical life in Vienna, Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel (1750-1817) was active at the court of Mainz as a highly respected and acclaimed pianist and composer. In 1768, he received the minor orders and a post as organist and in 1774 he was ordained priest. His first compositions were written at this time: sonatas for piano, violin and cello, arias, and symphonies. At that time he met the Bohemian horn virtuoso Giovanni Punto (born Johann Wenzel Stich) who took some of his early works to Paris. His eight symphonies enjoyed triumphant success at the famous concert series of the “Concert Spirituel” in Paris, were performed some fifty-two times, and Sterkel rose to the rank of the most frequently played composer in Paris from 1777 to 1779. After numerous trips to Italy, Sterkel returned to Mainz in 1782 and devoted himself to composition without interruption from that time onwards. In addition, he confirmed his reputation as a pianist through his intense activity as a soloist and a chamber musician. The works recorded here come from this period of Sterkel’s creative career.
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Meret Lüthi, Sonoko Asabuki, Alexandre Foster, Leonardo Miucci – The Young Beethoven (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:54 minutes | 1,52 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Dynamic
At the age of 13 Beethoven was already hailed as the new Mozart and many of his early works, especially in the chamber music genre, were influenced by Mozart’s model, like the Three Quartets for Piano and Strings WoO 36, composed in 1785 and published posthumously in November 1828. These three chamber works are directly modeled on three of the six violin sonatas that Mozart published in 1781: KV 296, 379 and 380. One of young Beethoven’s patrons was Johann Gottfried Mastiaux , whose children played violin, viola, cello and the piano. Although there is no concrete evidence for it, Beethoven’s association with the Mastiaux family could have inspired him to write for such an instrumental ensemble; it is unlikely that Beethoven was yet aware of the first example of this genre, Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G minor, KV 478, which was finished only on 16 October 1785 in Vienna, thus not in time for Beethoven to have become acquainted with it in Bonn. Therefore, it is possible that WoO 36 – and not KV 478 – was in fact the first example of the piano quartet in chamber music literature. Despite these circumstances and the composer’s youth, the WoO 36 piano quartets represent an important artistic pinnacle in which the seeds of Beethoven’s genius that would proliferate during his maturity were already evident. This album features the first recording on historical instruments of the Piano Quartets WoO 36 (Bonn, 1785) played by Leonardo Miucci (historical piano), Meret Lüthi, Sonoko Asabuki, and Alexandre Foster.
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