SCHMIDINGER: Concertino for Piano & String Quintet 'a piacere'
Concertino for Piano & String Quintet
"a piacere"
Performed by Christoph Soldan (Piano)
and the Silesian Chamber Soloists
~ World Premiere Recording ~
Concert Grand Piano: Steinway & Sons D-274
Recorded in a concert at the theatre
"Saalbau" in Neustadt (Germany)
HD Recording · DDD · Duration: 14 Min. 33 Sec.
Digital Album · 1 Track
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s a source of inspiration for 'a piacere', being created due to encouragement and request of the pianist Christoph Soldan, I benefited in multiple regards from the piano concerto K. 415 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I have, aside from an intense connection to the oeuvre of Mozart due to my work for the 'Neue Mozart Ausgabe', also an intimate relation to the piano concerto, as it is the only concerto I could interpret myself. The most obvious reference to Mozart's work is the choice of the instrumentation: piano and string orchestra or piano with string quartet - as it pleases you, just 'a piacere'. The melodic material I choose from a miniature cadence in bar 199 of the first movement of Mozart's K. 415 and by modification of the octave position I created a seemingly original texture out of a literal quote - the gesture is preserved. The rhythmic figures live on the sequence of impulses of 4 - 1 - 5. In this work of one movement there is a change of strictly notated parts with rhythmically deliberated parts, signed over 'a piacere', before concluding in a finale that is accompanied by an oscillating string figure - as in Mozart's concerto.
Helmut Schmidinger
Released with kind permission of Doblinger Music Publishing, Vienna
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he pianist Christoph Soldan (born 1964) studied under the Professors Eliza Hansen and Christoph Eschenbach at the Hamburg Musikhochschule. His break-through to active international concert playing came in a tour with Leonard Bernstein in summer 1989. Of Christoph Soldan, the world-famous director said, "I am impressed by the soulful size of this young musician." Since then, Soldan has played in numerous tours with renowned orchestras across Europe and abroad. In particular, this can be seen in the CD recordings of all of Mozart's piano concertos, which were performed and recorded from 1996 until 2006. A tour of piano evenings took place in Mexico and other countries in Central America in October 1997. In August 1998 he debuted in Salzburg and in the Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic, and in May 1999 in the Leipzig Gewandhaus. In March 2000, there were three piano evenings in Japan. So far, there have been radio and television productions with the Hessische Rundfunk, Deutschlandfunk, SWR, ORF and ZDF. The Bayerische Rundfunk broadcasted his piano evening in the Munich Residenz in October 1998 and his concert in the Bad Brückenau music festival live in 1999. Radio Bremen braodcasted his recital in Bremen in august 2002. Starting in 1996 Soldan was performing all 27 piano concertos by Mozart together with the slovakian chamber orchestra Cappella Istropolitana, the South-West German Chamber Orchestra of Pforzheim and the Silesian Chamber Orchestra Katowice. This cycle of concerts ended in January 2006, performing the concertos for 2 and 3 pianos. Christoph Soldan developed a "pas de deux for piano and Dance", together with his wife, the dancer and choreographer Stefanie Goes. The première took place in Stuttgart in May 2000. In Spring 2001 he participated the Prague Spring Festival accompanied by the slovakian chamber orchestra "Cappella Istropolitana". Two recitals in Hamburg and Berlin were followed by a live-recording of two Mozart piano concertos in the medieval monastery of Maulbronn in september 2002. In January 2004 the première of the new dance project "something about humans and angels" took place in Stuttgart followed by a concert-tour to South Africa. Since 2007 Soldan is working also as a conductor concerning the performances of piano concertos by Bach and Mozart. In the 2015/2016 season, Christoph Soldan will be guesting in Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Slovakia and the United States with various programmes such as recitals, literary concerts, childrens concerts, as soloist with 5 of Mozart's piano-concertos as well as in chamber music programmes with Brahm's piano quintet op. 34. Since 1994 Christoph Soldan was artistic director of the "Schubertiade auf Schloß Eyb". In 2007, together with his wife, Soldan founded a theatre in the north of Baden-Württemberg between Stuttgart and Heidelberg, where all artistic programmes are taking place since then. The German press describes Christoph Soldan as an artist personality who works with the spiritual intensity and soulful dimension of a piece of music, rather than giving a purely technical virtuoso performance. This challenge to music and to himself is rarely seen today.
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he Silesian Chamber Soloists are the section leaders oft he Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra in Katowice (Śląska Orkiestra Kameralna). All of them are outstanding soloists, who studied on several Music-Universities in Poland and Germany. In 1993 the ensemble has been founded as a quartett first and was enlarged later by an additional doublebass position. The high level of artistic performance made the quintet to the leading chamber ensemble in Silesia. Concert tours have been organized to various festivals within Poland and other European countries. The Silesian Chamber Soloists performed with great success in the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, MDR Musiksommer und im Rheingau Musik Festival. Cooperations were made with outstanding conductors and soloists, such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Yehudi Menuhin, Valery Gergiev, Christoph Eschenbach, Justus Frantz, Pinchas Zuckerman, Maxim Vengerov, Mscislav Rostropovich and Christoph Soldan. One special feature does result from the fact, that the concertmaster of the ensemble, Dariusz Zboch, is not only a very gifted violinist but at the same time arranging pieces of music. His last work has been published on two CD productions, a cycle of arrangements of the solid goal hits from the 60th and 70th concerning the songs of Procol Harum, Queen, Pink Floyd, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Abba oder Deep Purple. This true "cross-over-project" is combining popular music with works of the classical repertoire. In 2015 und 2016 there are 5 concert tours, that take place together with the german conductor and pianist Christoph Soldan throughout several european contries. As repertoire there will be performed 4 piano concertos by Mozart, Schubert´s trout-quintett, Brahm´s piano-quintett opus 34 und Chopin´s piano-concerto in e-minor.
Dariusz Zboch (Violin) · Jakub Łysik (Violin) · Jarosław Marzec (Viola)
Katarzyna Biedrowska (Cello) · Krzysztof Korzeń (Double Bass)
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