"Never waste a good crisis" - this Churchill quote was the response of one of the musicians involved when Dutch jazz violinist Tim Kliphuis asked him to join his trio (with Nigel Clark on guitar and Roy Percy on double bass) for this production. The project was created during the first lockdown in spring 2020, when the musicians' agendas emptied and all their gigs were canceled. The album was produced in studios in the Netherlands, Ireland and Scotland, largely using the playback method. The Five Elements is a reflection on how we treat our planet and an expression of the hope that we can preserve the earth as a habitat for ourselves and our descendants. The fifth element, the "quintessence", stands for culture, especially music, which reaches our innermost being and teaches us to live in harmony with our vulnerable environment.

Anyone who dismisses this program as esoteric stuff fails to appreciate the sincere commitment of the musicians involved and their high level of professionalism. Using the vocabulary of jazz, minimal music and classical elements, they have created music that captivates the listener for its entire duration. Ostinate tutti passages alternate with imaginative solos and groovy riffs. Tim Kliphuis, also known in Switzerland as an inspiring teacher through his workshops at ESTA, ZHdK, Konsi Bern and Swiss International Music Academy, moves very skillfully in this crossover area and constantly discovers new ways of combining classical, jazz and world music to create stimulating compositions. The fact that he is a virtuoso violinist and surrounds himself with equally outstanding musicians only enhances his musical message. The piece Threnody (Lament) is an improvisation on Bach's Chaconne with string quartet, which essentially follows the original and reflects on it again and again in a predominantly baroque style. Here, too, the playing is virtuosic and spotless.

"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the passing on of fire." - A quote that is attributed to Gustav Mahler as well as Thomas More. On the cover of the first recording of Joseph Lauber's Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2, the Swiss composer is depicted adding twigs to a fire with a pitchfork. Conductor Kaspar Zehnder discovered Lauber's symphonic works in the Lausanne University Library and has now released a technically exemplary recording with his Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra (sound engineer: Frédéric Angleraux) on the new Schweizer Fonogramm label. Two more albums with Symphonies Nos. 3 to 6 will follow in the course of the year. No ashes are unearthed here, but blazing embers. Although Joseph Lauber (1864-1952) does not present himself as an innovator in the symphonies composed in 1895/96, his approach to tradition certainly has its own character.

Musically inspired by his teachers Joseph Rheinberger and Jules Massenet, he combines German late Romanticism with French refinement in the use of color. His symphonies are characterized by elegance, fine differentiation and a rather two-dimensional structure. And occasionally also Swiss local color, when he begins the first symphony with a two-part alphorn melody in the horns, which two flutes repeat as an echo and continue symphonically. The first symphony unfolds many lyrical points of calm and lacks any real drama. The warm string sound of the Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra, as in the fine unison opening of the Andante espressivo, is the basis of Zehnder's coherent interpretation. Agogic flexibility and dynamic nuance are further quality features. In the fast repetitions, as in the finale, Felix Mendelssohn also looks around the corner. The Second Symphony in A minor combines enchanting themes, for example in the opening movement, with more dramatic developments. The Andantino, quasi Allegretto is reminiscent of Antonín Dvořák in its sweet melancholy. Bohemia in Switzerland - this can also be discovered in Joseph Lauber's music.

Büchelbox. Balthasar Streiff and Yannick Wey. Zytglogge, EAN 7611698043694

The music book for the CD is published by Müllrad-Verlag in Altdorf (Art.Nr. 1064, Fr. 34.00).

Luciano Berio was an exceptional composer. As early as the 1960s, he caused a sensation with his "open aesthetics", which led to such key works as the quotation composition Sinfonia (1968/69). "I borrow quotes from the museum," he once said, "and mix them with my own music." The CD recorded by the Basel Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Ivor Bolton with the simple title Transformation now offers special insights. Berio is indeed "open" - open to Johann Sebastian Bach, to Gustav Mahler, but also to Beatles classics such as Michelle, Ticket to Ride or Yesterday.

One could argue for a long time about the terms arrangement, orchestration or instrumentation. In any case, Berio does not engage in the deconstruction typical of the avant-garde in his rearrangements. Bach's Contrapunctus XIX from the Art of the fugue he embeds in a warm woodwind arrangement. The voices now come across elegantly, not with the "X-ray vision" that was still dear to the structurally oriented Schönberg school. In other adaptations, Berio also shows himself from an undogmatic, completely joyful musical side. Fiery Spain is reflected in the transcriptions of Manuel de Falla's Siete Canciones populares Españolas echoes. He orchestrates the sometimes brash, sometimes very intimate songs with tremendous sensitivity to sound, leaving the mezzo-soprano part untouched.

The Sonata op. 120 No. 1 for clarinet (or viola) and piano, written by Johannes Brahms in 1894, sounds like it was written off the cuff. In 1986, Berio orchestrated the five-movement chamber music into a veritable romantic symphony. The Beatles adaptations must be classified as quirky and funny occasional works. However, the strangely baroque, very much in the spirit of the Brandenburg Concertvalues Beatles classics. It is probably more of a private matter than a special contribution to the noble history of music. Cathy Berberian, the American singer and then wife of Luciano Berio, was "crazy about the Beatles" - so why not a baroque love greeting with "I love you, I love you, I love you" from Michelle? Well, all in all an enjoyable double CD, which incidentally also tastes good while cooking.

As a teacher of theory and composition, he influenced several generations of musicians in Switzerland; as an author of choral works, he created something lasting; his equally independent chamber music has yet to be rediscovered: Paul Müller-Zürich (1898-1993) was a gifted teacher and, as a composer, a master of counterpoint. His early works for string instruments bear witness to this.

Trained in Zurich, Paris and Berlin by Philipp Jarnach and Volkmar Andreae, among others, and familiar with the music of his contemporaries, he distanced himself from the avant-garde, preferring to orientate himself towards Brahms and Reger rather than Schoenberg or Webern. Paul Müller-Zürich went far as an advisor and organizer, joining the Pro Helvetia Foundation Board in 1957 before being appointed President of the Swiss Association of Musicians in 1960.

The expressive beginnings of the composer, who was awarded the Music Prize of the City of Zurich in 1953, are impressively demonstrated by the Casal Quartet with Razvan Popovici (viola) in three differently scored works. The String Quintet op. 2 in F major (1919) jumps out at the listener from the very first bar, when a fortissimo chord is followed by an initial ostinato motif pianissimo and the main theme, which soars upwards full of tension, is heard. Disturbingly buzzing presto interjections cloud the gentle flow of the slightly melancholy music in the third movement, an intermezzo that begins sweetly. Ostinati also characterize the finale, which is condensed by fugato interjections and ends abruptly in D minor.

The String Quartet in E flat major op. 4 (1921) is also dominated by highly expressive pushing and storming, with the chromaticism in the Adagio forming the greatest contrast to the less complicated harmony in the folk-dance-like rondo finale.

The String Trio op. 46, composed around 1950, is calm from the outset, with its lyrical first movement leading from C minor to C major. The members of the Casal Quartet charge into the powerfully gripping finale with great intensity of sound and musical esprit.

Paul Müller-Zürich: String Quartet op. 4, String Trio op. 46, String Quintet op. 2. CasalQuartet (Felix Froschhammer, Rachel Späth, Markus Fleck, Andreas Fleck), Razvan Popovici, viola. Solo Musica SM 287

The melancholy melody of the opening prelude on this CD is almost like a minimalist film score. A waltz hints at Chopin, but is also imbued with a completely different, idiosyncratic color. The later impressionistic play of colors in Deux estampes permeated by a hitherto hardly known, very individual personal style ...

During his studies in the USA, Swiss pianist Christian Erny came across the oeuvre of Arthur Lourié, whose name sounds as "un-Russian" as his music. Is this precisely why Lourié, who was born in what is now Belarus in 1891, lived for a long time in Paris and later in the USA, where he died in 1966, has largely disappeared into obscurity?

On his second solo CD, Christian Erny's playing takes on this world of sound and thought in the most unagitated way possible. Erny knows how to subtly mix the registers and colors as if they were human voices. This is no coincidence, as Erny is very ambitious as the director of his Zurich Chamber Singers and, by his own admission, this brings with it many synergy effects for the pianistic interpretation.

Thus, certain neoclassical traits unfold in Lourié's music in an emphatically weightless and detailed manner, as well as a meditative Intermezzo and later a worn Nocturno touch deeply. But Lourié and his committed contemporary interpreter can also do things quite differently: a furious Gigue becomes an unleashed rhythm and sound study that is much more reminiscent of a rebellious Stravinsky and not at all of baroque models. The ambiguity of Lourié's circumstances is symbolized by a LullabyA lullaby: although still deeply rooted in Romanticism, a second writing unmistakably anticipates the beginning of modernism.

He is the comet in Winterthur's classical music sky: Roberto González-Monjas, concertmaster of the local Musikkollegium since the 2013/2014 season, who also performs as a conductor. He also works in the same capacity in Rome with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and as a professor of violin at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. A jack-of-all-trades who has been shaking up concert life in the all-too-often overshadowed city of Zurich since taking up his post.

Now, with the Musikkollegium on the Swiss label Claves, he presents a CD that sparkles with verve and lightness. Recorded are the famous Haffner Serenade KV 250 by Mozart and the Serenade op. 1 by Othmar Schoeck, with González-Monjas acting both as conductor and solo violinist. It is astonishing how easily and accentuated the orchestra, which at times seemed rather ponderous under the former chief conductor Douglas Boyd, is now able to play.

The eight-movement Haffner Serenade is both a masterpiece and the conclusion of Mozart's serenade oeuvre. Magnificently scored (with the entire wind section) and thus colorful, it combines symphonic ambition with the entertaining lightness of this genre. As an ingenious special feature, Mozart designed movements two to four as a veritable violin concerto full of song-like quality and virtuosity, a "found food" for the violinist González-Monjas. With his filigree style and wonderfully singing violin sound, he dominates the serenade for long stretches, with sound engineer Andreas Werner emphasizing his art even more. This is a bit of a shame, because the orchestra has a lot to offer, as the witty Schoeck Serenade shows. Once composed as a final thesis in Zurich and reworked in Leipzig, the work pleases with its craftsmanship, humor and sensuality of sound: from the dance-like opening to the magnificent middle section, this eight-minute gem makes a convincing case.

Even 14 years after the Ramée label was founded, every CD is still a feast for the eyes and ears. Specializing in early music (in this case defined as up to just over the turn of the 19th century), Ramée does not focus on quantity, but rather brings to light many rarities from the depths of music history in consistently outstanding interpretations, which are then played again and again with lasting enthusiasm.

These treasures also include the chamber music of Franz Xaver Sterkel (1750-1817) - a composer who was widely known as a pianist during his lifetime, whose numerous sonatas and piano trios were held in high esteem by enthusiasts and yet (like so many of his generation) was forgotten far too quickly with the rise of musical romanticism. In addition to an artistic journey through Italy, it was of course not Vienna, Berlin, Paris or London that were the stations of his work, but rather Mainz, Regensburg, Aschaffenburg and Würzburg - places where Sterkel played a decisive role in establishing a lively musical life, but where he also remained true to himself despite the stylistic changes that he was well aware of: Sterkel thus despised the supposedly "unworthy arts", instead seeking "noble simplicity", "pure rhythm" and "harmony and melody" (1808).

This selection of sonatas, which appeared in print between 1785 and 1817, demonstrates that he succeeded in doing so in a remarkably unique language. They combine refreshing inventiveness with a pronounced sense of chamber music dramaturgy (both tonally and harmonically). Els Biesemans (fortepiano) and Meret Lüthi (violin) show just how much creative scope there is in their perfectly executed interpretation. They make it fascinatingly clear what Sterkel's works really contain.

The title of Lisette Spinnler's latest CD, Sounds Between Falling Leavesseems to be a clear reminiscence of autumn. The melancholy mood of the seven songs would also fit in with this. In an interview with the Badische Zeitung however, the jazz singer has let it slip that the album title refers to something else - to a period of searching and going into silence: "The album title is actually a metaphor for the time in which I wrote this," she explained.

Anyone listening to the CD will encounter the Basel native's most introverted work to date. The songs sound like contemplation set to music, but some of them also turn out to be contemplations of nature. This applies not least to The Sun Has Setbased on a poem by Emily Brontë (1818-1848), which talks about grass swaying dreamily in the evening breeze. The 41-year-old uses this template to use her voice sparingly, but very effectively. She stretches her vocal parts, tends to whisper and knows how to lend the words additional weight with her nuances.

Pieces like The Night Is Darkening Around Me or Silent Dream seem calm, almost entirely gentle and quiet. Only the piece penned by Mongo Santamaria Afro Blue, the only cover on the record, scores the prevailing contemplation with finely spun rhythms from Latin jazz. The playful melodies, one of Spinnler's trademarks, are no longer quite as dominant as they used to be. Instead, the musician and her three accompanists on piano, bass and drums now indulge in a sound that aims to be virtuosic and balanced. This succeeds and makes that Sounds Between Falling Leaves not just improvisationally, but presented in an almost artistic manner.

The Fribourg Institute of Music Medicine has published an extremely informative DVD-ROM. Not only is the actual vocal apparatus examined in clear and well-structured short presentations, but many related details are clearly presented in short film sequences. Seeing the processes involved in breathing, singing and speaking on film is much clearer and easier to understand than studying physiological drawings and illustrations, which can only show the complex, three-dimensional model of the respiratory tract and larynx to a limited extent and, above all, not in its function.

The DVD-ROM is essentially divided into three main sections: The first deals with the "instrument voice". Here there are subsections on breathing, the larynx and the vocal tract. Each of these sections is again divided into several sub-chapters. All relevant processes are illustrated in detail and vividly using magnetic resonance imaging and animated 3D models. We can observe singers singing while various aspects are commented on and explained, we learn details about consonant and vowel formation as well as their sound propagation in space. Information about speech and singing breathing, messa die voce, subglottic pressure and many other interesting details associated with vocal production are also presented in a realistic way.

The next chapter is dedicated to "vocal forms of expression". Here we learn more about prosody (the musical elements of speech), different vocal genres and different singing styles from yodeling and art song to pop and musical singing. We find sub-chapters on children's and choral singing, as well as on vocal expressions when laughing or crying.
In a final chapter, voice science has its say: it presents examination methods, voice measurement processes and computer programs.

This DVD-ROM is a helpful tool for interested singers and amateurs as well as singing teachers and students of didactics, providing comprehensive and clear information in either German or English in 160 minutes!

The voice. Insights into the physiological processes involved in singing and speaking, Freiburg Institute for Musicians' Medicine (Bernhard Richter, Matthias Echternach, Louisa Traser, Michael Burdumy, Claudia Spahn), DVD-ROM, 160 min., Fr. 45.40, Helbling, Esslingen, ISBN 978-3-86227-258-7

The term "altfrentsch" refers to a folk music instrumentation: the trio of violin, dulcimer and basset (string instrument between cello and double bass). The Bernese cabaret artist Franz Niklaus König depicted this ensemble as a vignette in the "Sammlung von Schweizer=Kühreihen und Volksliedern" in 1826. The same collection also contains two Appenzell dances for this ensemble. "Altfrentsch" means "old-fashioned" and literally comes from the expression "old Franconian".

In 1998, a manuscript containing 54 dances from the late 18th century was discovered in Gonten (Appenzell Innerrhoden), which the Center for Appenzell and Toggenburg Folk Music published in 2008 under the title Altfrentsch published. This collection of dances, now available in a new edition, also contains foreign melodies that were undoubtedly contributed by traveling fiddlers and other traveling musicians.

On the new album Altfrentsch on the road the six musicians of the Landstreichmusik under the direction of violinist Matthias Lincke chose only half of the 16 recorded dance melodies from the aforementioned manuscript. The remaining pieces are recordings of alpine dances that have been preserved on shellac records from the first half of the 20th century. Not only the old pieces, but also the historical playing styles (instrumentation, tempi, voice leading, intonation, phrasing and final turns) were adopted. The result is astonishingly vital and differs from the monophonic, specially arranged older Swiss folk dances, which have become fashionable in new folk music.

But you also enjoy listening to this recommendable recording because Dide Marfurt mixes up the melodies with the Jew's harp and other historical musical instruments, Christine Lauterburg contributes her violin playing and voice and the Austrian folk musician Matthias Härtel (double bass), Elias Menzl (dulcimer) and Simon Dettwiler (Schwyzerörgeli) add to the atmosphere.

The Swiss pianist Timon Altwegg and the Moscow-born violist Hana Gubenko, who are known for their love of discovery, have a new publication to their credit, which surprises exclusively with unknown works by Jewish composers. From the undated Sephardic Poem Apart from Aaron Yalom (1918-2002), they were all composed in the short period from 1972 to 2012 and are committed to sonata form in very different ways.

The two most recent compositions, the 2nd Sonata by Frank Ezra Levy (born 1930) and the Sonata ebraica by Graham Waterhouse (born 1962), bear dedications to the two performers, who are to be praised for their commitment to all the pieces with the same dedication and conviction.

The opening track of the CD, released this year by Edition Kunzelmann, is already a great success, Sephardic Poem by Yalom, has great potential to surprise. The composer, who was born near Geneva as the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants and died in New York, created a bravura piece of strong individuality based on a lyrical theme and enriched with a great deal of pianistic brilliance. The sonorously austere 1st viola sonata by the Basel-born composer, pianist and teacher Ernst Levy also exhibits this, as there are no verbal tempo indications or performance markings in any of the four movements.

In the Sonata ebraica by Waterhouse, which gives the CD its name, presents the Yiddish folk song quoted in the kaddish-like middle movement Oyfn Pripetshik the most clearly audible Jewish reference to the title of the work.

The two compositions by Ernst Levy's son Frank Ezra prove to be particularly rewarding additions to the repertoire. From the one-movement Sonata Ricercare with its frequent changes of meter, the 2nd Sonata differs in its French-like elegance, the smooth flow of the catchier melody and greater contrasts: sonorous organ dots and relentless martellato attacks alternate effectively with wonderfully delicate repetitions of notes in the viola and wittily interspersed jazz rhythms.

Sonata ebraica (compositions by Aaron Yalom, Ernst Levy, Frank Levy, Graham Waterhouse). Hana Gubenko, viola; Timon Altwegg, piano. Guild GMCD 7419

This music can hardly be reduced to a common denominator. Martin Jaggi composes impulsively, even manically to explosively, then again discreetly, meditatively introverted. The diversity corresponds to a tremendous wealth of means. Jaggi takes whatever helps and is useful - be it harmonic-tonal sounds, be it the dissonant-complex vocabulary of the 20th and 21st centuries, be it repetition, which the Basel native, born in 1978, is familiar with from minimalism or from rock and pop.

The chameleon-like transformation is not compatible with the demands for a distinctive personal style. But who can still demand that? Today, when the world is as complex as this Girgawhich Jaggi wrote for the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in 2014. The percussion is dominant, while the rough brass mingles with the string attacks. Again and again, there are abysmal caesuras - precisely at those points where the material no longer offers much. No doubt: Jaggi has a sense of form.

There are six works on this exceptionally entertaining portrait CD from Musiques Suisses. In addition to two brilliant orchestral works, Jaggi shows his chamber music side in four ensemble pieces composed between 2006 and 2013. Plod on for violin, viola, cello and piano (2007) presents the Mondrian Ensemble, in which Jaggi himself plays the cello. As Michael Kunkel describes in the booklet, there is a "melancholy underlying tone". Indeed, extinction seems to be the theme. Again and again, the music gathers strength only to collapse resignedly. Jaggi once again shows himself to be a quick-change artist, and indeed a musical all-rounder. In addition to the dark, raucous, brutal and subtle, there is something else: virtuosity - on the part of the performers as well as the composer.

Portrait Martin Jaggi; Musiques Suisses (Grammont Portrait), CTS-M 146

Hans-Jürg Sommer taught guitar as a professional music teacher for around forty years, but is also a renowned alphorn player, composer of over 500 works for alphorn - including the famous Moss-Ruef -He is also known as a conductor, course leader and music writer. In 2002, he was awarded the Golden Treble Clef for his musical merits and in 2006 the Music Prize of the Canton of Solothurn for his cultural achievements.

In 2010, Sommer published a 154-page documentary entitled An evaluation and interpretation of historical sources on alphorn melodies (self-published by Oensingen). His aim was to edit old pieces not from the perspective of an ethnomusicologist, but as a player in search of traditional melodies. He collected old notations of rows of carols from the travel literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, as already published in Alfred Leonz Gassmann's Alphornbüechli from 1938 and in other publications, but supplemented them with old sound recordings that have been available since the 1930s and have now been transcribed.

However, the author did not reach all of the 5000 or so alphorn players in Switzerland with this important collection, because many of them can only learn melodies by ear. This realization gave Hans-Jürg Sommer and one of his alphorn partners, Thomas Juchli, the idea of recording the Kühreihen melodies from this collection and setting them in carefully selected Swiss mountain landscapes. The music educator's aim was not simply to visualize the well-known connection between landscape, music and dairy farming in the film, but to present individual parts of six recurring cow rows from the 18th and early 19th centuries in their original function. Initially, the invocation motifs can be heard in ascending melodies. After these introductions, lure and row parts show that cows grazing on the Alps still follow them today in the traditional manner. The discussion about the meaning of the term "rows of cows" is concluded by this natural phenomenon: when the alphorn or other music is played, the cows line up one after the other in a long row. In further sequences, which Sommer calls caesuras, everyone recognizes quiet passages of music during which the alpine herdsman used to wait for the cows in front of the barn. After further lure and row sections, the rows of cows end with a repetition of the introduction and a whoop.

What seems easy to understand in an astonishingly simple commentary in either German, French or English, and is also beautifully presented, is the result of years of painstaking work to reach a general audience and, above all, schoolchildren.

Local interpreters do not seem to be very interested in the Romanticism in Switzerland, which was mainly imported from Germany, or in the works of the late Romantics born here. Theodor Kirchner's piano works from the Swiss period were recorded by Irene Barbuceanu; the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra championed the symphonist Joachim Raff, who was born in Lachen (SZ). The main orchestral works by Hans Huber were recorded by the Stuttgart Philharmonic, those by Fritz Brun are available in recordings with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. The first complete recording of Hermann Suter's three string quartets was made by the Beethoven Quartet, which was founded in Bonn. So it is hardly surprising that it was a German pianist, Christof Keymer, who came to prominence with the first complete recording of the solo piano works by Hermann Goetz (1840-1876), most of which were composed in Winterthur and Zurich.

His interpretations are all the better off on the German label cpo, as they fit in well with the often unusual repertoire of this producer who loves discovery. These are indeed discoveries, as they include not only the Loose leaves op. 7 and the two Sonatinas op. 8, which are occasionally heard in recital exercises, there are several rarities on the two CDs. Christof Keymer had already published the first editions of four pieces from the estate with Amadeus-Verlag in Winterthur in 2013: the early Alwinen Polka from his student days in Königsberg, a stormy Fantasy in D minor, a work peppered with staccati Scherzo in F major and the one in sonata form Forest fairy tale in B minor (BP 1497).

Of particular interest is the three-part Scherzo. Composed while still studying with Hans von Bülow in Berlin in 1862, the piece gives rise to the assumption that Goetz took the etude, notated only one tone lower, from the Vingt exercices et préludes of the Polish Chopin precursor Maria Szymanowska-Wołowska (1789-1831).

Keymer creates all of these works, a sonata movement in G major and smaller pieces with great attention to tonal detail in order to create a lyrical atmosphere in the lyrical parts of the Loose leaves with warm espressivo and wonderful composure.