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Down with Romanticism: Part 2

 

"In this EP, the second part of our recital, we give a nod to the eclectic and highly imaginative programming skills of our predecessors, with a special acknowledgement to those unique interdisciplinary cultural institutions – the musical salons – in which a plurality of art forms existed in dialogue with one another. For the generation of the romantics, the concept of the finality of a musical text was understood to some extent within a paradigm of “work as sketch/sketch as work”, and the artists of that era created during a time when the boundaries between the realms of literature, music performance, and theatre were more fluid and flexible."

Clara Schumann, for example, was indeed well known for interspersing short improvised introductions and interludes between pieces on a concert programme. This allowed her to engage creatively with the finished musical text (and with the experience of concert-going at the time), with her improvisations offering a kind of in-the-moment musical commentary on a given work.

In this EP you hear celebrated masterpieces in historical arrangements for cello and piano made by 19th-century cellists Piatti and Hausmann, as well as the gloriously lyrical second movement from the young Clara Wieck’s piano concerto (which is in effect, a piano and cello duo), which according to some is rumored to have been inspired by Clara’s encounter with cellist Theodor Müller in 1835. Speckled throughout are Gili and David's own improvised interludes, a recitation of an excerpt from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur and to cap it off, a rarely heard accompanied melodram by Franz Schubert on poetry by Adolf Pratobevera von Wiesborn.

released October 20, 2023

Recorded at Teldex Studio Berlin, September 18–21, 2021

Produced, recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by Johann Günther

Piano technician: Paul McNulty

Cello by Wencelaus Staudinger 1758 Würzburg generously on loan from Johannes Caspar Walter - Piano by Paul McNulty after Johann Baptiste Streicher Op. 6747

Artwork by Dan Abbott and Daniel Schnatterer


We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts as well as the support of our generous Indiegogo supporters.