For the third time, the Albert Moeschinger Foundation and Edition Müller & Schade have released a recording of works by the Swiss composer. The recording of a concert at the Bern Conservatory contains compositions from three creative periods: the Nine bagatelles for piano from 1931 - Moeschinger was still working as a pianist at the time, songs from 1950/51, from the period when he began to explore the twelve-tone technique, and the Miracles de l'enfance from 1961, a sophisticated chamber music work by the sixty-four-year-old.

Moeschinger, born in Basel in 1897, studied piano and composition in Bern, Leipzig and Munich after completing a bank apprenticeship. After years of traveling as a salon musician, he was appointed piano and theory teacher at the Bern Conservatory. From 1948 onwards, he devoted himself entirely to his compositions in Saas-Fee, lived in Ascona from 1956 and spent the rest of his life in Thun.

A friend of the composer, Hans Oesch, professor of musicology at the University of Basel, recognized in Moeschinger's main works a "tendency towards the brooding and contemplative" and, in contrast, "humorous and bucolic and cheerful" elements.

Simon Bucher brings this interplay into the Nine bagatelles for piano MWV 395. In the Chansonnier pour Mariette MWV 153 recalls the composer's encounter with the singer Mariette Schüpfer at the Basel Carnival in Valais. The intense relationship is reflected in settings of poems by Dante, Goethe, Alfred Tennyson, Trakl, Gabriele D'Annunzio and Eugen Roth, which are a delightful experience in the lively interpretation of contralto Barbara Magdalena Erni.

The chamber cantata Miracles de l'enfance MWV 97 for voice, five woodwinds, harp, percussion and double bass after poems by French and Belgian war children, texts which Moeschinger published in a work entitled The magic of childhood The onomatopoeic passages are full of profound sadness. It is exemplified by Barbara Magdalena Erni and above all by the director of the entire project, Helene Ringgenberg.

Who the Microcosm Béla Bartók in the familiar Boosey & Hawkes format will be surprised to hold the new (and first) Urtext edition from Wiener Urtext Edition in their hands. The six slim volumes I to VI have become three extensive volumes. This division, with two volumes per volume, apparently corresponds to Bartók's original intention, but he was unable to push it through against the publishers Boosey & Hawkes.

However, there are other reasons why the three volumes are so large: Each volume is preceded by a foreword by the editors Michael Kube and Jochen Reutter, which deals in great detail with the history of the origins, the sources and other backgrounds of the Microcosm deals with. This is followed by the composer's foreword.

The musical text itself is spacious and very clearly laid out, and is also livened up with insights into Bartók's own handwriting. His notes on the individual pieces follow, as do comprehensive and very readable notes on interpretation from the pen of Peter Roggenkamp. Extensive critical notes are of course included, as well as some previously unpublished pieces and the special versions for Bartók's son Péter.

So if you want to gain a deeper insight into the Microcosm will be well served here, and at a moderate price to boot. To what extent this new edition will promote the dissemination of the work for practical teaching is another question. There are other pieces by Bartók (such as the collection For children) have always fallen on more willing ears. The Microcosm is not primarily a piano school, but above all a compendium of Bartók's compositional art.

Béla Bartók, Mikrokosmos in three volumes, Urtext edited by Michael Kube and Jochen Reutter, fingerings by the composer; Vol. 1 (Vol 1 & 2), UT 50411, € 24.50; Vol. 2 (Vol 3 & 4), UT 50412, € 27.50; Vol. 3 (Vol 5 & 6), UT 50413, € 27.50; Wiener Urtext Edition, Schott/Universal Edition 2016

Well-known horn works published by Henle and Bärenreiter in recent years, Mozart's Horn Concertos (HN 701-4, BA 5311-13) and the Horn Quintet (HN 826) as well as Beethoven's Sextet op. 81b (HN 955) and Brahms' Horn Trio (BA 9435), have already been reviewed here (SMZ 6/2004, S. 40; SMZ 4/2011, S. 38; SMZ 9/2013, S. 20). The editorial line is now being continued by Henle with the publication of two short compositions. Both are also suitable for teaching advanced pupils:

In Glasunow's Rêverie reflects the composer's love of the French horn, which he learned to play alongside the piano, violin and cello and even played in the student orchestra. The work, written in 1890 and only published by Mélodie in Rêverie is preceded by two further compositions for horn and strings: Idyll op.14,1 and the 2. Serenade op. 11, composed in 1884.

Alexander Glasunow, Rêverie op. 24 for horn and piano, edited by Dominik Rahmer, HN 1285, € 7.50, G. Henle, Munich 2015

The Wind Quintet op. 43 by Carl Nielsen shows the composer to be a master in the treatment of wind instruments: each player is given his own brilliant cadenza. Nielsen later wrote concertos for the flute and clarinet, but unfortunately he did not write a solo concerto for us horn players. The newly published Canto serioso was commissioned as an audition piece for a 4th horn position to be filled at the Royal Theater in Copenhagen at the time. Nielsen's later rewriting for cello proves that it was not just an occasional work.

Carl Nielsen, Canto serioso for horn and piano, Urtext edited by Dominik Rahmer, HN 586, € 9.00, G. Henle, Munich 2014

In the series published by Doblinger Diletto Musicaleare the Six small pieces for three horn players by Franz Alexander Pössinger (1767-1827). The short, entertaining compositions are suitable for young horn players to play together. They were probably intended for a horn virtuoso of Beethoven's time, Friedrich Hradezky. He is said to be on the cast list of the Vienna Fidelio-In 1824, he probably played the infamous horn solo in the third movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Franz Alexander Pössinger, Sechs kleine Stücke op. 30 for three horns, edited by Rudolf H. Führer, DM 1475, € 19.95, Doblinger, Vienna 2014

Lovingly edited by Simon Scheiwiller, Kunzelmann has published a Concerto for two horns by Wenzel Wratny, who worked as a bandmaster and music director in Leibach and Graz in the 18th century. This is an enjoyable piece which can also be performed by advanced amateurs or natural horn players.

Wenzel Wratny , Concerto per 2 Corni da Caccia in E flat major, piano reduction and parts, edited by Simon Scheiwiller, first edition, OCT 10335a, Fr. 35.00, Edition Kunzelmann, Adliswil 2014

To mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps, Pan-Verlag published the composition Light over shadow for two flutes by the composer Michael Schneider (*1964). Schneider, whose work ranges from chamber music and vocal music to orchestral works, received important inspiration from János Tamás during his time at grammar school and then studied composition with Dimitri Terzakis in Bern.

Light over shadow was composed as early as 1993 in a master class by Edisson Denissow during the International Music Festival in Lucerne, where it was premiered by Kathrin Rengger and Katja Marty in the same year. The composer dedicated the duo to Elfriede Frank, the second wife of Anne Frank's father, who herself survived the Holocaust but lost her husband and three children. In the foreword, he describes her as a vital and open-minded woman whose life was overshadowed by the loss of these family members. A poem by the poet Ossip Mandelstam (1891-1938), who was persecuted under Stalin, entitled Into the distance is the motto of the play. Powerlessness and violence on the one hand are juxtaposed with hope, humanity and the power of poetry on the other.

In this duo, the composer impressively describes moods inspired by the fate of persecuted people with soft, airy, fragile tones. The piece begins darkly and mysteriously in the low register, but becomes increasingly brighter as it progresses through the expansion and shifting of the range into the second and third octaves of the flutes, which illuminate each other in the interplay, but still moves dynamically in the quiet range between pp and mf. The dialogue between the two flutes becomes increasingly colorful, first through a harmonics melody in both voices, which often alternate in the upper voice, and then through simultaneous multiphonics in both voices, which sound almost like spherical sounds, even if the piece always returns to the lower register. The end of the duet is freely arranged with whistle sounds and is reminiscent of a whispering of voices. Light over shadow is thought-provoking and an impressive dialog in which hopeful light is cast over shadows by the timbres of the flutes.

Michael Schneider, Licht über Schatten, for two flutes, PAN 360, € 9.00, Pan, Basel/Kassel 2015

A romantic arpeggio study, a simple blues, a jazzy rhythm, chords of pure and augmented fourths, a lively seven-eighths piece - there's a bit of everything. Most of the "12 + 1 Etudes on the Way to the Guitar Olympus" are in E minor or G major, some with a strong chromatic touch. There are rudimentary tablatures directly under the notes. This makes it easier for those pupils who are less familiar with reading music to find their way around the fingerboard in high registers or with many accidentals.

Each piece has a clear structure that allows the author to suggest variations with minimal additional instructions, for example a new touch pattern, a different order of notes within a bar or altered slurs. This results in different levels of difficulty, which can be ticked off by the players in the boxes provided. There are also corresponding pictograms for playing by heart, for the correct fingering and for playing tempo.

The layout of the booklet is primarily aimed at children. However, the pieces can be played just as well by teenagers. All the numbers are assigned to specific figures or places from Greek mythology and are accompanied by short commentaries. There is no information about the authorship of the illustrations - are they by Morandell himself?

Robert Morandell, Herkulesaufgaben, 12 + 1 etudes on the way to the guitar Olympus, D 35 958, € 14.50, Doblinger, Vienna 2015