Greetings from the Biedermeier times
PERSONAL NOTES by the artists
What was your first encounter with “historical” instruments?
Sheila Arnold [SA]: Everything began in the late 1990s, attending a masterclass at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. There I met a handsome young guitarist from the class of Pepe Romero. The young guitarist, for his part, was not entirely uninterested in an Indian pianist from the class of Lev Naumov. Pepe soon realized what was going on. He gave Alexander the score of a piano/guitar duet and said: “Go and find a pianist!” The title was full of innuendo: “Papageno wants a sweetheart”.
Alexander-Sergei Ramirez [AR]: No sooner said than done! At least sometimes I did what my teacher told me.
Many years went by as a couple until we actually started making music together. The guitar and the piano are entirely autonomous harmonic instruments that do very well by themselves, or combine ideally with melody instruments.
SA: Our musical approaches are nonetheless quite similar. Eventually we did try out that duet by Mozart/Beethoven/Carulli – but on our modern instruments. Due to their entirely disparate sonorities, the musical liaison was doomed to fail. The piano had to play softly all the time, or not play at all; the guitar was constantly forced to sound as loud as possible. That couldn’t turn out well. Neither of us could elicit any trace of musical charm or start to make nuances in terms of timbre.
It became clear that these works were not conceived for the instruments we were playing
AR: Indeed! They were written in the early 1800s for fortepiano and Romantic guitar, also called “Biedermeier guitar”. Instruments in the 1810-1850 period were built much more intricately and minutiously than their more voluminous siblings of today.
(excerpts from the line notes)
Sheila Arnold belongs to the generation of pianists for whom the language of the fortepianos has
had a decisive influence on their self-image as musicians.
Outstanding successes at international
competitions such as the Mozart Competition in Salzburg or the Concours Clara Haskil as well as
numerous scholarships and awards such as the Mozart Prize of the Mozart Society Wiesbaden
in 1995 contributed significantly to her international concert activity as a soloist in recitals and
with renowned orchestras and conductors as well as a chamber music partner. She played in big
European concert Halls and at festivals such as in Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
Rheingau, Spannungen Heimbach, Hambach, Echternach, Sangat, Ravinia and others.
Her CDs have
been awarded prizes such as the Choc of Classica Magazine or inclusion in the longlist of the German
Record Prize. She is also co-editor of the new edition of Ludwig van Beethoven‘s piano pieces published
by Wiener Urtext 2020. Sheila Arnold is a professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln.
After having studied dance and theatre in Berlin and in Spain, Friederike v. Krosigk founded her own theatre company, the Ensemble Theatrum, in 1996, and settled in the 800-year-old castle of Hohenerxleben in Saxony-Anhalt.
Friederike v. Krosigk performs theatre productions in churches and theatres all over Germany, including the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. Her unique performances on the concert castanets (in classical music, world music, and jazz) have impressed audiences in several European countries.
She has performed with the Gewandhaus String Quartet, with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and with the Young Philharmonic Orchestra of Venezuela under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel.
Her art of castanet playing has likewise been featured on European broadcast television (ARTE).
Gioachino Rossini was born in 1797 in Pesaro, born to a hornist and opera singer. He spent his youth in the opera hall and at the age of 14 he started his studies to become a composer in Bologna, where he was taught to use a strict counterpoint technique. Quite soon, Rossini composing a large number of operas: his famous comic operas (among which his Il Barbiere di Siviglia) in his early twenties, and most of his serious operas in his late twenties. With his compelling, rhythmic music, which was characterised by its orchestral exuberance and coloratura fireworks, Rossini took over the world of music, to the frustration of critics and academics. When he reached the age of 31, he left Italy and traveled to London and Paris. His success made him powerfully rich. Rossini retired early. With almost 40 years still to live, he composed his last opera, Guillaume Tell, in Paris. Some reasons for his unexpected retirement could be his recurring illness, his financial stability and the adverse political and artistic conditions of the time. For 20 years, Rossini struggled with his health. He returned to Paris in 1855, where he recovered to some extent. Together with his wife, he organised special dinner parties for the upper class, and for those occasions he wrote his many chamber music works, which he referred to as his Péchés de Vieillesse. He died in 1868. Rossini's image is characterised by the many humoristic anecdotes about him. Yet, even though his comic operas are masterfully composed, his serious operas have been truly influential and formed the basis for the romantic operas of Donizetti and Bellini.
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