Two great artists, pianist András Schiff and composer/clarinettist Jörg Widmann, join forces for the first time on record, performing Brahms’s late masterpieces, the clarinet sonatas op. 120, written in 1894. In between the sonatas Schiff plays Widmann’s evocative Intermezzi for piano. As Jörg Widmann explains in a programme note, these are works inspired by his friendship with András Schiff and by a shared love of Brahms, to whom they pay tribute. The album was recorded at Neumarkt’s Historischer Reitstadel.

Beethoven is everywhere - especially in Vienna. He composed all of his masterpieces here, 1 opera, 5 piano concertos, 9 symphonies, 32 piano sonatas, and much more and thereby cemented Vienna’s position as the musical centre of Europe. Today, Beethoven is the most frequently played composer in the world and his Ninth Symphony is the most frequently performed work worldwide. He led music of the Viennese Classical era to its highest degree of development and paved the way toward Romanticism in music.

For his 250th birthday, Bösendorfer honours this great composer with a Limited Edition Grand Piano.

This album is a magical realm of sound colours. With the two Frenchmen Francois Couperin and Olivier Messiaen, Louisa Imorde has chosen composers for whom the very qualities of colour in music were important. One of the most exciting piano albums of recent months.

No less than 85 minutes of pure beauty on one CD. You just can't get enough of it. (opusklassik.nl / Aart van der Wal)

"What Swiss pianist Melodie Zhao and Howard Griffiths present here is sensationally good. Spirited, virtuosic, exceedingly vividly articulated, they serve up these concertos often misunderstood as inconsequential early works." (Fono Forum 04/ 2021)

Martin Helmchen receives outstanding reviews shortly after the release of the first double album in his complete recording of Schubert’s piano sonatas

Carlo Grante, piano

Marialy Pacheco, piano
Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn
Gordon Hamilton, conductor

1st Prize
 A brand-new Bösendorfer Grand Upright 120 Silent Edition
 2nd Prize
 €2,000 – donated by the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
 3rd Prize
 €1,000 – donated by the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
 Special Prizes
 €700 each for particularly outstanding performances in the preliminary round of the competition – donated by the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna

The editorial value of this complete recording of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's piano works is inestimable: on a total of twelve CDs, Ana-Marija Markovina has recorded everything that was available, beginning with works from her childhood and youth and ending with revised versions of a whole series of pieces. (Michael Wersin, Rondo - Das Klassik & -Jazz Magazin, 29.01.2022)