Gustav Mahler - Robert Schumann - Wilhelm Kielwasser

Wanderer

Christoph Prégardien / Ensemble Kontraste

Label: Challenge Classics
Format: SACD hybrid
Barcode: 0608917251821

Catalog number: CC 72518
Releasedate: 27-09-11

The famous tenor Christoph Prégardien regularly works together with ensembleKONTRASTE. On this new cd “Wanderer” are songs by Schumann, Killmayr & Mahler, arranged for chamber ensemble by Marcus Reißenberger. Well-known works have a whole new and fresh glow this way and the superb musicians of the ensemble together with the intensity of the excellent voice of Prégardien makes this a classical wanna-have!

Part of the 'Aangenaam Klassiek' campaign
Worldfamous musician works regularly with EnsembleKontraste
“Die schöne Müllerin” a earlier cd with Christoph Prégardien was awarded the Midem ‘Record of the Year’ 2009 at MIDEM, the world’s largest music industry trade fair
The duo Christoph Prégardien/Michael Gees also received the MIDEM ‘Vocal Recitals’ Award 2009
Another cd with Prégardien with Challenge and very likely to be a 'winner' again
Well-known pieces in a different light: a wanna-have this album!

Not even our contemporary inclination towards ‘authenticity’ and ‘loyalty to the composer’s intentions’ has been able to stop the trend of adapting scores for a different instrumentation than what the composer originally had in mind. The rapidly growing number of smallish ensembles with combinations of instruments for which very little music is available has even proved to be an added incentive in this direction, leading towards a new development within classical music. Not infrequently, a particular interest is shown in lieder which were originally written for solo voice with piano accompaniment. Sometimes the composers themselves put a small instrumental ensemble or even a complete symphony orchestra in the place of the original piano part, but it is not unusual for others to undertake this task.

One of the composers who adapted a piano score for a complete orchestra was Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), and the orchestration for his Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer, written in 1883-1885) followed the piano version so quickly that the very first performance in 1886 immediately featured the orchestra. In 1920, Arnold Schoenberg created a new version for flute, clarinet, harmonium, piano, string quintet and percussion, and this instrumentation was taken by the ensemble KONTRASTE as the starting point for a project called Wanderer, in collaboration with the tenor Christoph Prégardien. It revolves around Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen as well as sixteen lieder by Robert Schumann, which were arranged for this project by Marcus Reiβenberger. The idea was to retain the liveliness heard in the piano accompaniment while at the same time creating an instrumental colour palette that far surpassed it. A sort of intermezzo is formed by four lieder by contemporary composer Wilhelm Killmayer, who wrote his own instrumentation to fit in with the idiom used in the lieder of Mahler and Schumann. (from the linernotes written by Paul Korenhof)