"Adolf Reichel is an unknown" is how Jannis Mallouchos' monograph on the Bernese chief conductor, composer, pianist and teacher of German origin begins. 652 pages later, the unknown man has been researched as exhaustively as few of his peers, in a scholarly book that reads as grippingly as a novel. In the literature on early socialism and the Vormärz, Adolf Reichel (1816-1896) has long been an old acquaintance. But years ago, a handful of musicians (Suzanne Reichel, Adrian Aeschbacher, Stefan Blunier) tried in vain to draw attention to Reichel as a composer.

It then took a Greek composer and musicologist, a German professor, a Dutch archive, an Austrian publisher and a coincidence to rediscover the Swiss musician: Mallouchos came across Reichel's great-great-granddaughter on the Internet, who had just tracked down her ancestor's music manuscripts, which had been lost for decades.

Excellent networked personality

Mallouchos meticulously traces Reichel's adventurous path from good Prussian subject to supporter of oppositionists and revolutionaries known to the police (who today would probably have to put up with the label "terrorists") and finally to serene republican and Swiss citizen with Emmental citizenship, the progenitor of a dynasty that today counts six generations of musicians without a break.

Mallouchos traces Reichel's encounters with countless important personalities from Friedrich Schleiermacher to Alexander Herzen (whose collaborator Marija Ern he married), Georg Herwegh, Frédéric Chopin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Karl Marx and Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen, his stations in "revolutionary and romantic" (John Eliot Gardiner) Europe and his long-standing symbiotic friendship with the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin down to the finest ramifications and cross-relationships. He places Reichel's memoirs, his theoretical works, his letters and his compositions - beautiful and thoroughly touching music, written conservatively but very adeptly in the idiom of classical Romanticism between Beethoven and Schumann - astutely and knowledgeably in the intellectual-historical contexts of their epoch.

The book concludes with work analyses, a bibliography and a list of Reichel's 279 works, which we will hopefully soon see published and hear performed again.

Jannis Mallouchos: Adolf Reichel (1816-1896), Political, cultural-historical, music-theoretical and compositional aspects of a musician's life, 652 p., € 80.00, Hollitzer, Vienna 2023, ISBN 978-3-99094-084-6

While recordings and recitals of songs by female composers in the 1980s were still limited to a few names such as Clara Schumann and Fanny Hensel, Cécile Chaminade, Mel Bonis and Alma Mahler, in 1992 the music series "Frauen komponieren" ("Women compose") published by Schott from the 19th century also included Josephine Lang and Luise Adolpha Le Beau, as well as Luise Reichardt, Emilie Zumsteg and Johanna Kinkel.

The wealth of vocal music created by female composers for one voice with piano accompaniment is presented for the first time in Maria Behrendt's extremely carefully edited compilation Evening sounds Night songs expressed. It makes it clear that songs occupied a central position in the work of Romantic women composers within the German-speaking cultural area. Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, Josefine Lang and Johanna Kinkel are now joined by ten female composers who, it must be assumed, were previously hardly known to the specialist world.

The diversity of the texts is also noteworthy, as the poets Wilhelmine von Gersdorf, Anna Ritter, Aline Sello and Friederike Serre stand out alongside the frequently set poets Goethe, Heine, Lenau, Geibel and Heyse. The lack of biographical data on Isidore von Bülow, Mary Norris and Julie Wilhelmine von Tschirschky shows how much biographical information remains to be researched.

As Maria Behrendt concentrates her very special selection on evening songs, night songs, dreams, longing and nocturnal moods, one can guess how much there is still to discover in songs by 19th century women composers outside of these themes.

Of the total of 15 songs by as many female composers, the through-composed songs by Maria Arndts, Anna Bochkoltz, Bertha von Brukenthal, Clara Faisst, Fanny Hensel, Marie von Kehler and Mary Norris stand out from the verse songs by Josephine Lang, Aline Sello or Helene Zitelmann due to their stronger individuality. The editor has contributed exemplary individual annotations to the new editions, which are largely based on first editions and provide precise information about the sources as well as dedications and music text revisions.

Abendklänge Nachtgesänge, selected songs by female composers of the 19th century for voice and piano, edited by Maria Behrendt, Urtext, EB 9477, € 25.90, Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden

It's not easy to get over the song that opens this wonderful album. Truth tells the autobiographical story of a young woman. She strikes up a conversation with a famous poet in a bar known for serving alcohol to minors and is persuaded by him to accompany him home, where she just manages to escape a serious sexual assault. However, the song is less about this than about the truth that caught up with the man a few years ago: He was convicted by a newspaper - and by Ella Ronen - of serial assault.

Ella Ronen wraps this story in a melody that the elliptically recurring mini refrain ("The truth is on its way") in combination with the velvety alto voice and a subtle guitar arrangement accentuated with conga and zither (?) makes truly unforgettable. In English, the effect would be described as "haunting" - I can't think of an accurate translation. In any case, I had to Truth many times before I could tear myself away and get involved with the remaining nine songs.

This makes it all the more gratifying to be able to report that Ronen's fourth album is an all-round joyful success. Recorded with the American producer Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Alexandra Savior etc.) in upstate New York, it is The Girl With No Skin a remarkably diverse and subtle work that also indulges in angry moments ("Fuck cute/I'm tired of cute/cute has never ever served me"). Ella Ronen grew up in Tel Aviv before ending up in Lausanne as a student, where she recorded her debut album in 2014. She now lives in Zurich with her two children and is a co-founder of the feminist Mino Collective together with Brandy Butler and Sarah Palin.

Ella Ronen: The Girl With No Skin. Irascible Records/BB*Island

"100 minutes of piano music from the last 100 years in the context of social inequality and unequal power relations" promises the double CD by Thurgau pianist Simone Keller. The result is a highly heterogeneous and diverse anthology of structurally disadvantaged music by female composers and people of color, primarily from the USA and Switzerland. Inequality in music history is an explosive topic, but of course you can't hear it in the individual pieces. Because when they are interpreted as wonderfully as they are here, you wonder once again what went wrong.

Some personalities such as Ruth Crawford Seeger or, more recently, Julius Eastman are now part of any basic course in modern music. But there are others to be discovered, such as the St. Gallen poet and composer Olga Diener (1890-1963), whose texts Hermann Hesse described as "far too much dream and far too little poetry". Her "secret language", according to Hesse, speaks again today with its peculiar twists and turns.

Despite the background, it has not become a riotous anthology, but a rather calm one. It also includes something new: the slowly unfolding piece Black/blackness: After Mantra(s) for piano and electronics by Jessie Cox, which touches on questions of the climate crisis. Or a Properly Scottish of Cristina Janett, who comes from a family of folk musicians. "I discovered folk music with its diverse influences much later," writes Keller, a pianist from a farming family, "and it was only when I worked with Cristina Janett that I realized how much it was part of my identity." It is precisely such processes of awareness that are central here.

Finally, there is the composer Irene Higginbotham (1918-1988), known or barely known for having written the song Good Morning Heartache wrote for Billie Holiday. He appears three times on this album and gives it its title, as well as a book that Simone Keller has published in two languages, German and English. It not only contains further texts on the compositions, but also sheds light on the socio-cultural background against which they were written and at the same time leads us beyond this into our own time. The questions posed here, seemingly gently, are urgent.

Simone Keller: Hidden Heartache. Intakt CD 419

Simone Keller et al: Facetten 21 - Hidden Heartache, Kulturstiftung des Kantons Thurgau, 320 p. with music booklet, Fr. 32.00, Jungle Books, St. Gallen 2024, ISBN 978-3-033-10349-8

Rosmarie Tüzün-Gamma from Oftringen is the fourth generation to play the traditional Schwyz zither with great passion. Her mother was Rosa Gamma-Gwerder, a very good zither player who grew up on the Büölacher farm in Rickenbach/Schwyz. Even after her marriage to Schattdorf, the "Büölacher-Rösli" used to make music at home with relatives and friends. Ten years after her death, her daughter Rosmarie was given all of her cassette tapes. "The music touched me so much that I got my mother's old Schwyz zither out of the cupboard for the first time in 30 years," she says. She immediately had the instrument overhauled by zither maker Herbert Greuter in Schwyz and found an understanding teacher in Luise Betschart, Illgau.

Melchior Ulrich, Schwyz, noted 25 dances from the cassettes: "The live recordings were all made in Rosmarie Tüzün's parents' house in Schattdorf as relatives and friends played music together. Conversations and laughter often drowned out the main voice of the zither, which had to be guessed in places." Now the pieces are in the "dancey" Büölach style, lively and infectious, under the title Büölach Schwyzer zither dance available as a music book.

It is available at
Tel. 078 697 07 31 or rosmariegamma@gmail.com.

Step by Step on DrumsVolume 1, by Marco Kurmann is very appealing, interesting and child-friendly thanks to the numerous comic-style illustrations. It guides pupils and teachers in a targeted manner. The teaching aid was designed as a guide for music school lessons and deliberately contains no explanations and very little text. In this way, the author allows teachers to incorporate their own ideas and input. There is also plenty of space on the pages for this.

After a brief overview of what the first step involves, we start with quarter and eighth notes on the snare. Gradually, various grooves with eighth notes are introduced and soon the toms are included. In between, there are short theory sections in which answers to the respective questions are entered and there is room for your own additions.

In the five steps of volume 1, the students get to know the individual instruments of the drum set, deal with basic musical terms and learn notes from the whole to four-sixteenth note figures. Drumset solos, snare drum duets and drumset duets conclude each step. Audio files for the pieces can be downloaded as full versions or click tracks from the author's website. The duets are even available with the first or second voice separately and in two different tempos.

Thanks to the successful mixture of sensible rhythmic progression and many beats that increase in difficulty, this teaching aid offers a clear, structured structure as well as exciting and varied learning. In 20 steps, divided into four volumes, the Step by Step on Drums the ideal basic training in the first four to six years of drum lessons.

Marco Kurmann: Step by Step on Drums, Leitfaden für den Schlagzeugunterricht, Volume 1, 98 p., € 24.00, Leu-Verlag, Neusäss, ISBN 978-3-89775-189-7

We owe this huge amount of hard work to the Romanian violin teacher Petru Munteanu. On 442 pages, he has compiled the most important statements of all published violin schools clearly and with many music examples and illustrations. He currently teaches at the Leopold Mozart Center at the University of Augsburg. So it is only natural that Leopold Mozart's Thorough violin school is the focus of the 1769 and 1789 editions. The other textbooks are compared with them. It turns out that Leopold Mozart foresaw many things in great detail that are still valid today.

Munteanu outlines the special features of each violin school presented in gray boxes, which is very helpful because of the countless, otherwise repeatedly identical views of the various pedagogues. Particularly interesting is the description of Carl Guhr's school, who factually and in detail pointed out the violinistic peculiarities of Paganini's playing and was even able to create from memory a version of Nel cor più non mi sento by Paganini.

In the sixth chapter, which is often referred to, "Violin teaching and the violin schools today", Munteanu poses three questions, which he attempts to answer with the help of quotes from experts (Seiffert, Seling, Eberhardt, Kolneder, Hausegger, Flesch, Galamian ...): Who, what and how should we teach? I found only a few stimulating thoughts, but a central one by Carl Adolf Martienssen on the third question: In learning language, every child is a "child prodigy". "The child prodigy complex is psychologically the immediate direction of the will of the auditory sphere towards the sound goal ... of the instrument to be played ..." This should inspire every teacher to use this important black box!

Petru Munteanu: Violin secrets from 500 years, Leopold Mozart's violin school in the context of violin teaching traditions, 442 p., € 49.80, Wissner, Augsburg 2023, ISBN 978-3-95786-306-5

New Klezmer Tunes is already the third volume of klezmer pieces for clarinet by Joachim Johow, born in Berlin in 1952. In this collection, consisting of 16 original compositions, he refers to the tradition of Jewish itinerant musicians who played at weddings and other festivities and combines the joy of making music with everyday life in the pieces. This can be seen in pictorial titles such as In the morning in the alley, At the fair, Worries, In the café, In the evening etc.

The pieces are of varying degrees of difficulty. Some have a relatively easy range and rhythm, others are in the medium level of difficulty with more demanding rhythms. Many pieces only use the low and middle clarinet range up to a maximum of a three-note C.

As in his earlier compositions, Johow juxtaposes soulful, slow and mostly minor-key melodies with fast, dance-like and playful pieces. The composer uses different minor-key variations and plays with the expressive possibilities of the excessive second leap. Some ornaments such as trills, bounces and suggestions are already present in the musical text, but there is additional scope for personal interpretation.

The edition published by Schott in the World Music series consists of the clarinet part and a piano accompaniment. In addition, audio files of all pieces, each with a complete recording as well as just the accompaniment, can be downloaded with a code or used free of charge on streaming portals. The recordings are well cared for and musically played, although they could also be arranged a little more freely to suit the style of music in order to provide pupils with further ideas for interpretation. The piano accompaniments for most of the pieces can also be played well by piano learners (or clarinet teachers). In addition, the harmonies are also given for all pieces.

The New Klezmer Tunes are well suited as pieces to enrich lessons as well as for student concerts or other performances.

Joachim Johow: New Klezmer Tunes, 16 Pieces for Clarinet, ED 23389, € 20.50, Schott, Mainz

Two musicians who have known each other for a long time are responsible for these new discoveries of works by Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739) that are well worth hearing. Soprano Nuria Rial and conductor Nicoleta Paraschivescu naturally got to know each other in Basel, the former studying at the University of Music, the latter with Andrea Marcon at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where she founded her ensemble La Floridiana in 2011. And they both enjoy exploring baroque music, where the pool of music seems inexhaustible.

A precious manuscript decorated with drawings forms the starting point for the recording of the cantatas; it belongs to the Schneider-Genewein Collection in Zurich. A stroke of luck for Paraschivescu: "These cantatas have never been recorded before. A total of around 400 solo cantatas by Marcello are documented, many in different manuscripts and in different libraries. But this particular one contains two unique pieces. This manuscript is also special because it is very elegant and elaborate, with painted initials."

The enthusiasm and attachment to Marcello's music is unmistakable in the interpretations. The music is colorful and very agile. The chosen sequence of works is exciting and successful, as the symphony and cantatas alternate, which makes the whole thing even more lively. The cantatas are also exciting. Ti sento Amor, ti sento is a piece with a typical lamento character, in which Qual turbine improvviso In contrast, wild storm and rage dominate.

The full richness of this music unfolds in the harmony of Nuria Rial's silvery-sounding, perfectly conducted soprano and the fast-paced and nuanced Ensemble La Floridiana. The spatial effect of the acoustics rounds off the recording.

Benedetto Marcello: Sinfonias & Cantatas, La Floridiana, Nuria Rial, Nicoleta Paraschivescu. German Harmonia Mundi 196587106829

Laurent Menager (1835-1902) is the best-known composer of the 19th century from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. He studied with Ferdinand Hiller in Cologne, then returned to Pfaffenthal, a small district in the lower part of Luxembourg City, where he worked as an organist, music teacher and choirmaster throughout his life. He was instrumental in the founding of the General Luxembourg Music Society (now the Union Grand-Duc Adolphe), of which he became choir director in 1891.

His oeuvre mainly comprises vocal compositions (songs, operettas) and a string quartet as well as a Prière du Soir for violoncello and piano. His songs strengthen the cultural identity of "Lëtzebuergesch", Luxembourg's official national language, which is increasingly giving way to French in everyday life today.

Menagers Paraphrase pour cordes sur la mélodie "Kuck Friêmen op d'Kârt" op. 45 is available as a signed autograph and is published here in a single edition from volume 6 of the critical complete edition of his works. After a short, recitative-like, dramatic introduction in E minor, the cello introduces the song theme in G major. The remaining strings take the lead and continue to modulate the thread until the fast six-eighth note final section in E major with a groovy ending.

The level of difficulty for the performers is medium, even a chamber orchestra instrumentation is conceivable, possibly with solo passages.

This short song paraphrase is certainly an amusing addition to the repertoire! And a cultural excursion into a language area that otherwise appears to us as a blank spot on the musical map. The song text by Michel Lentz, the poet of Luxembourg's national anthem, reads: "

Kuck, Friêmen, op d'Kârt an da fens dû e Land,
'T stêt Letzebur'g driwer geschriwen;
I arrive in the world where I am a child
Méng allerschënst Joere bliwen.

And translates: "Look, stranger, on the map, you'll find a country,/It's got Luxembourg written all over it/That's where I was born and where I stayed as a child/Many beautiful years."

Laurent Menager: Paraphrase pour cordes sur la mélodie "Kuck Friêmen op d'Kârt" op. 45, for 2 violins, viola, violoncello and double bass, score with parts, EM 2632, € 24.90, Merseburger, Kassel

Far too rarely do film scores make it into print. Yet such scores are extremely helpful for studying details of the composition, which is often acoustically relegated to the background, beyond freely compiled "suites". This is particularly rewarding when the music proves to be suggestive and independent. For example, the music composed by Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) for Alfred Hitchcock's ingenious agent thriller peppered with subtle irony North by Northwest (1959).

The very first bars are formative: a fandango rhythm in the timpani (readable as 6/8 in double time), answered by a syncopated alternating note in the low strings (double time as 3/4). The overture describes the pulsation of the big city, later the wild ride on a coastal road. Rhythms, themes, harmonic twists and timbres run through the entire film as leitmotifs - and thus unify the almost uninterrupted sequence of dramatic scenes, whose trigger in the film is ostensibly dated November 24, 1958 by the insertion of an issue of The Evening Star from the following day (incidentally, albeit graphically altered, with an authentic headline). The legendary scene in the cornfield is completely without music (and for a breathtaking stretch also without language).

The printed score also includes all those numbers that were (for good reasons) omitted or shortened in the film. A descriptive analysis on twenty pages makes the musical text comprehensible even for film buffs. A continuation with further legendary Herrmann settings would be desirable, for example of Vertigo or Psycho.

Bernard Herrmann: North by Northwest (1959), score, Omni 50791, XX+211 p., € 79.00, Omni Music Publishing/Schott, Los Angeles/Mainz 2022, ISBN 978-1-73450-791-1

Music knowledge is a life's work. Who is well versed in all eras, who knows a composer's oeuvre in its entirety, who knows about genre boundaries and can provide similar information about Duke Ellington, Def Leppard or Johann Sebastian Bach? In view of the diversity, it's a good idea to start with the basics - the basics that The practical theory book for music lessons first published in 1997 by the now retired music teacher Emil Wallimann and the bandleader and music coach Peter Wespi.

Learning platform

Since 2015, both experts have been promoting an e-learning platform to accompany the book, available at www.musikwissen.ch. The target audience is - according to the book itself - "grammar school pupils, but also prospective conductors or music teachers". Anyone who studies the exercises will come up with other "customers": in addition to applicants to music academies or interested amateurs or pensioners, there are also long-time music editors or music journalists who might want to brush up on their theoretical knowledge. Well, what was that again about the enharmonic confusion? Where were the semitone steps in the Mixolydian mode again? Or: What does the bebop scale actually sound like in a minor key?

You can tell that the two long-standing educators have experience in teaching. And they make imaginative use of the diverse digital-interactive possibilities: The website and its respective pages are refreshingly clear and without fuss. There are audio examples (the ear training under the title "Eartraining" is particularly recommended), there are simple multiple-choice questions, as well as continuous texts to be completed. Once a learning unit has been completed, you move on to the next exercise. Motivating progress can be made quickly; a quick glance at the book or links to short information videos will help if you get stuck.

Insights into music history

The platform is divided into four levels of difficulty. If you have completed everything with a green tick, you have already achieved a very solid foundation in aspects of musical notation, rhythm, instrument, genre and form theory and harmony. The illustrative examples provide the learner with many an insight into music history en passant, which can of course be expanded upon. There is a brief mention of non-European music, as well as the 20th and 21st centuries, in which composers consciously abandoned traditional musical knowledge and traditional elements such as the circle of fifths, the rondo or the sonata form.

In times of blatant loss of musical education, this enthusiastically run and constantly updated learning platform remains an extremely useful initiative!

musik-wissen - easy to learn. Offers and conditions for individual users, schools, institutions and associations with printed workbook, multimedia eBook or e-learning at: musikwissen.ch/offer

Many violinists know and love Telemann's 12 fantasies The continuation, TWV 40:26-37, is only known to viola da gamba players, a minority today. The viola da gamba was already going out of fashion in Telemann's time, which is why in 1735 he added a great deal of sophistication to his 12 viol fantasias in order to attract buyers: broken chords and passagework, monophonic and polyphonic writing in both fugal and gallant styles.

Viacheslav Dinerchtein adapted the Fantasias for viola for Amadeus-Verlag back in 2019. This was followed in 2022 by an arrangement by the English composer Brian A. Schiele. Each of these lively works has two or three movements, and all the odd fantasias contain a fugato full of surprises. Some movements are reminiscent of dances such as Allemande, Gavotte, Courante, Bourrée, although they are never named as such. Others are contemplative and polyphonic or joyfully virtuosic. Every well-defined key appears once: Eight are in the circle of fifths in major from E flat to E, four in minor from C to E. Since the viol has six strings in fourth-octave tuning and a larger range in the lower register, octaves have to be accepted on the viola and chords either broken or thinned out. Schiele has done this skillfully, but recommends in the preface that the facsimile (the printed edition in Edition Güntersberg/Walhall G281 or online) be consulted.

Georg Philipp Telemann: Fantaisies pour la Basse de Violle TWV 40:26-37, 12 Fantasies arranged for viola by Brian A. Schiele, EW 1150, €18.50, Edition Walhall Magdeburg

Pentecost, the fiftieth day after Easter, has always fascinated and inspired many composers with its miracle of tongues and the sending of the Holy Spirit. With Music for the Spirit is the first choral book on this subject to be published by the German-English composer, conductor and church musician Stephen Harrap with Breitkopf und Härtel.

The collection for mixed choir a cappella or with organ accompaniment is a real treasure trove and contains over 500 years of choral music by important European composers. A certain focus of the repertoire is on English choral music. Attention has also been paid to the different lengths, levels of difficulty and instrumentation (from 3 to 8 voices) of the pieces. Highly recommended!

Music for the Spirit. Chorbuch zu Pfingsten & anderen Anlässen, edited by Stephen Harrap, ChB 5384, € 26.90, Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden

It is generally known that Vladimir Horowitz, the legendary pianist, often interpreted the musical text in a very personal way and did not shy away from interventions. In Mussorgsky's Pictures of an exhibition The piano movement in a way that corresponded to his more orchestral conception of sound. Rachmaninov's Second Piano Sonata or Liszt's Mephisto Waltz he played in his private versions. Not to mention the numerous piano transcriptions, which also testify to his creative temperament and established part of his fame.

However, even die-hard fans might be surprised to learn that Horowitz was apparently also an ambitious composer as a teenager and wrote a whole series of original piano works. However, when the Russian Revolution reached Kiev and his family suffered greatly as a result, he had to give up this dream. He now tried to start a career as a pianist so that he could at least support his family financially. "If the revolution hadn't played so hard on his family and forced him to give concerts, the world would have known a different Horowitz later on," said his former classmate Vera Resnikov.

When Horowitz was later asked about his compositions in the West, he always replied that the manuscripts had remained in a secret place in Russia. It was not until 1986, when he was finally able to visit his homeland again, that he received the sheet music back. Schott Music has now set itself the task of publishing these previously unknown works as part of the Horowitz Edition.

Below is Fragment douloureux op. 14, probably the last composition written in Kiev. The piece comprises just 73 bars and begins "lento, lugubre, misterioso" as a kind of funeral march in 3/4 time. The following sighing motifs and sweeping arpeggios are strongly reminiscent of Rachmaninov, while the numerous trills from bar 27 onwards are more in Scriabin's handwriting. With a steady increase in tempo and dynamics, the piece reaches its culmination at bars 47/48 and from then on gradually returns to the atmosphere of the beginning "poco a poco a tempo lento". (Presumably a diminuendo should also be added here).

In its brevity, this Fragment douloureux a kind of drama in miniature. The piano writing is pianistically quite demanding and can only be mastered by big hands. The possibilities of the instrument are exploited with great flair. You can already sense the keyboard magician to come ... Horowitz dedicated the work to his piano teacher Felix Blumenfeld, who was himself a great pianist and composer.

Vladimir Horowitz: Fragment douloureux pour piano, The Horowitz Edition, ED 23085, € 12.00, Schott, Mainz