In 1922 Maurice Ravel heard the young Hungarian violin virtuoso and niece of Joseph Joachim, Jelly D'Aranyi, in concert in London. Following the performance, Ravel spent the remainder of the evening requesting D'Aranyi to play numerous gypsy tunes on her violin, probing her on the technical limits of the instrument. The result of this encounter is Ravel's virtuoso classic 'Tzigane?. Written origin…

Par BRUCH MAX. Thanks to the premiere performance by Joseph Joachim and to the release of the printed edition in 1868, Max Bruch's Violin Concerto #1 zipped onto the road to success and has never left it since. Yet from the preface of the 'BreitkopfUrtext' edition,one can infer how things looked like behind the dazzling facade. After the world premiere, the composer struggled for the definitive fo…

Dvorák's 'String Quintet in G major? op. 77, had five movements when it was premiered on 18 March 1876. Its second movement was the 'Intermezzo? from his 'String Quartet in E minor? (1870). Later Dvorák removed this movement from the quintet, expanded it, and published it as a separate 'Notturno? for string orchestra op. 40. The 'Intermezzo? is included in its original version in the appendix of t…

Par RAVEL MAURICE. Maurice Ravel broke new personal ground with his only piano trio, yet in a stroke of genius he created a work of the early 20th century that is outstanding in many respects and a key work of this genre. As one of his most rhythmically daring pieces, the four-movement trio fascinates with its asymmetrical rhythmic division and polymetrics, with Ravel possibly drawing on impressio…

Version Hellmann/Glöckner. Par BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN. This is a revised edition of Diethard Hellmann’s reconstruction of the St. Mark Passion of 1723 based on parodies. It contains a new foreword by Andreas Glöckner which deals with the present state of research on the Passion. The edition now includes all 16 chorales which have been handed down and which appear in facsimile in this edition. This …

Par BARTOK BELA. Bartók' s 'Romanian Christmas Songs' are based on folk melodies that originated in a pagan celebration of the winter solstice, and which he felt gave ' the impression of a fiery, war-like type of song, rather than a pious and religious one”. Nevertheless, he chose 20 melodies from this collection of ' colinde” and published them under the title of ' Christmas Songs”. In the first …

Lied- und Tanzvariationen. Par SWEELINCK JAN PIETERSZOON. Following the successful new edition of Scheidt's Tabulatura nova, Harald Vogel now releases his second major project for Breitkopf & Härtel, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck's 'Complete Keyboard Works'. Assisting the leading interpreter of 16th- and 17th-century organ music is Pieter Dirksen, the Dutch harpsichordist and Sweelinck scholar. Togeth…

Version Hellmann/Glöckner. Par BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN. This is a revised edition of Diethard Hellmann’s reconstruction of the St. Mark Passion of 1723 based on parodies. It contains a new foreword by Andreas Glöckner which deals with the present state of research on the Passion. The edition now includes all 16 chorales which have been handed down and which appear in facsimile in this edition. This …

Par RAVEL MAURICE. Maurice Ravel broke new personal ground with his only piano trio, yet in a stroke of genius he created a work of the early 20th century that is outstanding in many respects and a key work of this genre. As one of his most rhythmically daring pieces, the four-movement trio fascinates with its asymmetrical rhythmic division and polymetrics, with Ravel possibly drawing on impressio…