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Historical Recordings

Karlrobert Kreiten

Historical Recordings

Format: CD
Label: CAvi
UPC: 4260085531554
Catnr: AVI 8553155
Release date: 17 February 2017
1 CD
 
Label
CAvi
UPC
4260085531554
Catalogue number
AVI 8553155
Release date
17 February 2017

"(...) Some time during 1937-38 he recorded the Piano Sonata, Op.2 of the wealthy industrialist Robert Forkardt, a grouchily romantic piece that stands up to scrutiny well as does his Paraphrase on Guter Mond. (...)"

Music Web International, 25-4-2017
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
Press
EN

About the album

This new release contains the complete preserved recordings of Karlrobert Kreiten. This explains the fact that certain pieces are presented in two different versions, along with two further recordings whose quality might be deemed unacceptable, yet which we have nevertheless included as a sort of postscript at the end. Indeed, such poor recording quality emblematically reflects the problematic handling of Karlrobert Kreiten's legacy. For many years, no document of Kreiten's piano playing had ever surfaced. In 1983, however, Emmy Kreiten-Barido finally authorized the Thorofon firm to publish some of her late son's private recordings as part of a commemorative LP. The original phonograph records used as a basis for that LP are apparently lost; thus, for the current release, we have had to retrace the steps presumably taken in the course of the 1983 mastering process in order to process the signla with the digital techniques now available...

Artist(s)

Karlrobert Kreiten (piano)

KARLROBERT KREITEN was born on 26 June 1916 in Bonn and grew up in Düsseldorf, where he gave his first public performance at the age of ten in the auditorium that has now become the Tonhalle. In 1933 he became immediately known to a wider audience: as one of the youngest participants in the Vienna International Piano Competition he was awarded the Silver Badge of Honour; soon thereafter he won the Mendelssohn Prize in Berlin. After having studied in Cologne and Vienna, Karlrobert was admitted to the class of Claudio Arrau in Berlin, where he studied from 1937 to 1940. Soon he was invited to perform in major concert venues: for instance, he appeared twice with the Berlin Philharmonic. Kreiten’s repertoire extended from Classical and...
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KARLROBERT KREITEN was born on 26 June 1916 in Bonn and grew up in Düsseldorf, where he gave his first public performance at the age of ten in the auditorium that has now become the Tonhalle.

In 1933 he became immediately known to a wider audience: as one of the youngest participants in the Vienna International Piano Competition he was awarded the Silver Badge of Honour; soon thereafter he won the Mendelssohn Prize in Berlin.

After having studied in Cologne and Vienna, Karlrobert was admitted to the class of Claudio Arrau in Berlin, where he studied from 1937 to 1940. Soon he was invited to perform in major concert venues: for instance, he appeared twice with the Berlin Philharmonic. Kreiten’s repertoire extended from Classical and Romantic works to Prokofiev and Stravinsky; audiences and the press hailed him as a piano phenomenon. Claudio Arrau was deeply shaken by his death: more than four decades later, he still pointed out his former pupil’s exceptional artistic rank.

Karlrobert Kreiten is one of the greatest piano talents I ever met. If the Nazi regime had not put him to death, he undoubtedly would have earned his rightful place among the great German pianists of his day. He belonged to the ‘lost generation’ of those who could have taken up the gauntlet of the likes of Kempff and Gieseking. Kreiten possessed an incredible ease; nothing was difficult for him. Moreover, his playing always revealed a profound musical intention. Kreiten was always an artist, never a mere ‘virtuoso’.


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Udo Falkner (piano)

Tobias Koch (piano)

To trace the essence of sound with the joy of discovery and open-minded versatility – that is the musical credo of Tobias Koch, one of the most fascinating current performers in the area of historical keyboard instruments. Koch never ceases to surprise his audiences with a series of exceptional projects, featuring an extensive variety of repertoire and a pronounced curiosity for discovering rare historical instruments and unknown musical gems. A comprehensive musical career as soloist, chamber musician, and vocal accompanist has led him to tour throughout Europe. He appears as a guest artist in leading festivals such as Schleswig-Holstein, Ludwigsburg, Verbier, and the Warsaw Chopin Festival. Important musical partners include Andreas Staier, Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, Concerto Köln, Collegium 1704 Prag, Hofkapelle München, Frieder Bernius...
more

To trace the essence of sound with the joy of discovery and open-minded versatility – that is the musical credo of Tobias Koch, one of the most fascinating current performers in the area of historical keyboard instruments. Koch never ceases to surprise his audiences with a series of exceptional projects, featuring an extensive variety of repertoire and a pronounced curiosity for discovering rare historical instruments and unknown musical gems.

A comprehensive musical career as soloist, chamber musician, and vocal accompanist has led him to tour throughout Europe. He appears as a guest artist in leading festivals such as Schleswig-Holstein, Ludwigsburg, Verbier, and the Warsaw Chopin Festival.

Important musical partners include Andreas Staier, Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, Concerto Köln, Collegium 1704 Prag, Hofkapelle München, Frieder Bernius with Hofkapelle Stuttgart, the choirs of the broadcasting entities WDR (Cologne) and BR (Munich), and singers such as Dorothee Mields, Jan Kobow, Thomas E. Bauer, and Markus Schäfer, with whom he has been collaborating for many years. Tobias Koch works in tandem with instrument makers and restorers, as well as with some of the most important musical instrument museums;

He is on the faculty of the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf and imparts masterclasses on an international level. A wide range of publications and a great number of broadcast productions for radio and television round out his work in the field of music, along with over 40 CD releases of works ranging from Mozart to Brahms.


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Composer(s)

Maurice Ravel

Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer who is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer. Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the Conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes the place of...
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Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer who is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.
Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the Conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes the place of development. He made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known.
As a slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas, and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies and only one religious work. Many of his works exist in two versions: a first, piano score and a later orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit (1908), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require skilful balance in performance.

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Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the 'Three Bs' of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.   Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become...
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Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Within his meticulous structures is embedded, however, a highly romantic nature.

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Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II was an Austrian violinist and composer of many waltzes and operettes. His father, the composer Johann Strauss sr., did not want him to become a musician. As a child, he studied in secret under his father's biggest rival's guidance, Joseph Lanner. Johann Strauss jr. could really focus on a career as a composer once Johnn sr. left the family.  His two brothers, Josef and Eduard, were composers two, but Johann jr. was by far the most succesful. This led to an enormous jealousy among the brothers, especially with Eduard. Yet, musically too, Johann jr. was far better equipped then his two brothers.  During his lifetime, he was already known as the king of waltzes and the growing popularity of...
more

Johann Strauss II was an Austrian violinist and composer of many waltzes and operettes. His father, the composer Johann Strauss sr., did not want him to become a musician. As a child, he studied in secret under his father's biggest rival's guidance, Joseph Lanner. Johann Strauss jr. could really focus on a career as a composer once Johnn sr. left the family. His two brothers, Josef and Eduard, were composers two, but Johann jr. was by far the most succesful. This led to an enormous jealousy among the brothers, especially with Eduard. Yet, musically too, Johann jr. was far better equipped then his two brothers. During his lifetime, he was already known as the king of waltzes and the growing popularity of the Viennese waltz is partly due to him as he was able to lift the genre from the regular dance halls to concert stages. He was regarded as one of the most prominent composers of his time, among others by Johannes Brahms who was a personal friend of his. At the age of 73, Strauss II died of pneumonia.


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Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin is one of the greatest composers of the Romantic piano tradition. He was a master in making the small form great. His ballades, mazurkas, polonaises, preludes, etudes and nocturnes all belong to the most popular standard works for piano ever written.  As a child prodigy, Chopin grew up in a middle class family, who lived among the literati of Warsaw. When in 1830 the November Uprising broke out in Poland, the twenty year old Chopin stayed in Vienna. He became an exile and never returned to his mother country. He eventually settled in Paris.  He avoided public concerts, but he did like performing in small settings, such as salons and at home for his friends. This way, Chopin built a...
more

Frédéric Chopin is one of the greatest composers of the Romantic piano tradition. He was a master in making the small form great. His ballades, mazurkas, polonaises, preludes, etudes and nocturnes all belong to the most popular standard works for piano ever written. As a child prodigy, Chopin grew up in a middle class family, who lived among the literati of Warsaw. When in 1830 the November Uprising broke out in Poland, the twenty year old Chopin stayed in Vienna. He became an exile and never returned to his mother country. He eventually settled in Paris. He avoided public concerts, but he did like performing in small settings, such as salons and at home for his friends. This way, Chopin built a reputation as an exceptional pianist, teacher and composer.
Chopin brought a unique synthesis between the Viennese bravado and the French/English lyric style. Even though his pieces often are technically very demanding, the focus was always on creating a lyric expression and poetic atmosphere. He invented the instrumental ballade, and brought salongenres to a higher level with his many innovations and refinements.


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Press

(...) Some time during 1937-38 he recorded the Piano Sonata, Op.2 of the wealthy industrialist Robert Forkardt, a grouchily romantic piece that stands up to scrutiny well as does his Paraphrase on Guter Mond. (...)
Music Web International, 25-4-2017

Play album Play album
01.
Variations on a theme by Paganini Op. 25, Book II
07:49
(Johannes Brahms) Karlrobert Kreiten
02.
Intermezzo in A Flat Major Op. 76, No. 3
02:14
(Johannes Brahms) Karlrobert Kreiten
03.
Fragment,gedämpft/muted. Zum Andenken an / In Memory of Karlrobert Kreiten (2016)
03:47
(Thomas Blomenkamp) Tobias Koch
04.
Prélude in B Flat Major Op. 28 No. 21
02:03
(Frédéric Chopin) Karlrobert Kreiten
05.
Prélude in B Flat Minor Op. 28 No. 16
01:21
(Frédéric Chopin) Karlrobert Kreiten
06.
title unknown, recorded 1937
02:21
(Robert Forkardt) Karlrobert Kreiten
07.
Toccata Op. 29, No. 2
02:22
(Othmar Schoeck) Karlrobert Kreiten
08.
Klaviersonate fis-Moll / Piano Sonata in F Sharp Minor Op. 2: 1st movement
04:12
(Robert Forkardt) Karlrobert Kreiten
09.
Klaviersonate fis-Moll / Piano Sonata in F Sharp Minor Op. 2: 2nd movement
05:34
(Robert Forkardt) Karlrobert Kreiten
10.
Klaviersonate fis-Moll / Piano Sonata in F Sharp Minor Op. 2: 3rd movement
02:53
(Robert Forkardt) Karlrobert Kreiten
11.
Paraphrase über / on « Guter Mond, du gehst so stille »
01:34
(Robert Forkardt) Karlrobert Kreiten
12.
KarlrobertKreiten,aus/from: Meine Stadt am Fluss / My Hometown at the River (1987)
04:36
(Oskar Gottlieb Blarr ) Tobias Koch
13.
SonatineE-Dur/inEMajor: 1st movement
03:02
(Theo Kreiten) Karlrobert Kreiten
14.
SonatineE-Dur/inEMajor: 2nd movement
02:39
(Theo Kreiten) Karlrobert Kreiten
15.
SonatineE-Dur/inEMajor: 3rd movement
02:26
(Theo Kreiten) Karlrobert Kreiten
16.
SonatineE-Dur/inEMajor: 4th movement
01:47
(Theo Kreiten) Karlrobert Kreiten
17.
Klang–Feuer–Asche/Sound-Fire-Ashes. Hommage à Karlrobert Kreiten (2016)
04:02
(Philipp Lojak) Udo Falkner
18.
An der schönen blauenDonau/ The Blue DanubeOp.314(arr.by TheoKreiten)
08:48
(Johann Strauss II) Karlrobert Kreiten
19.
Nocturne cis-Moll/in C SharpMinorop.posth.
03:14
(Frédéric Chopin) Karlrobert Kreiten
20.
Begegnung 8 – lento. Für Klavier und einen Lautsprecher / For Piano and one loud speaker
03:32
(Christian Banasik) Udo Falkner
21.
PréludeB-Dur/inB FlatMajorOp.28,No.21
01:53
(Frédéric Chopin) Karlrobert Kreiten
22.
Préludeb-Moll/inBFlatMinorOp.28, No.16
01:04
(Frédéric Chopin) Karlrobert Kreiten
23.
Toccata, aus / from : Le Tombeau de Couperin M. 68
03:56
(Maurice Ravel) Karlrobert Kreiten
24.
Prélude b-Moll / in B Flat Minor Op. 28 No. 16
01:09
(Frédéric Chopin) Karlrobert Kreiten
show all tracks

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