Martin Helmchen – Bach: Six Partitas (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:23:43 minutes | 1,58 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Martin Helmchen belongs to the category of great piano virtuosos who are also interested in early instruments: ‘One of the most thrilling moments of my life as a pianist was when I encountered the intact, original Spät & Schmahl tangent piano from 1790. My initial doubts about a pianist of today being able to master such an instrument rapidly gave way to the swelling conviction that here one could make certain things in Bach’s music sound in a way that is impossible on both the harpsichord and the modern piano. Everything here subjugated me: the colours, the symbiosis of the characteristics of the harpsichord, clavichord and early piano, the buff stop, the opening up of polyphonic textures.’ It is true that this instrument was built forty years after Bach’s death, but, Helmchen continues, ‘the greatest composers, including Beethoven, complained about the limitations of their instrument, and it’s fascinating to play keyboard instruments that were ultimately an extension and improvement of the ones those composers knew’.
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Julia Fischer & Martin Helmchen – Franz Schubert Complete Works for Violin & Piano (2014)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 02:11:36 minutes | 5,2 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: ISO SACD | © Pentatone Music B.V.
Pentatone is combing two of its best-selling recordings, Franz Schubert: Complete Works for Violin and Piano Volume one and two to a double Super Audio-CD set. The recordings by these two brilliant German artists, Julia Fischer and Martin Helmchen — which were originally launched in in 2009 (Vol 1) and 2010 (Vol 2) — were remarkably successful from both a critical and a commercial standpoint. As it is the violin and piano works that constitute the essential enchantment, one can hardly imagine that somebody would be interested in one without wanting the other as well.
These performances, which were charmingly recorded in a warm acoustic space form, perfectly balanced conversations between two vibrant young personalities. As Pentatone once again collaborated with its trusted partner Polyhymnia International recording studio, with its outstanding reputation for the quality of its multi-channel surround sound recordings, it goes without saying that this album will be a delight to music aficionados’ ears.
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Julia Fischer, Martin Helmchen – Schubert: Complete Works for Violin and Piano, Volume 2 (2010)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:02 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
This album together with volume 2 completes the collaboration between Julia Fischer and Pentatone. Since all works which Schubert wrote for Violin and Piano, Volume 2 will show Julia Fischer as pianist as well (in the 4-hands piece: Fantasie in F minor D 940/op. 103).
Schubert’s complete works for violin and piano consist of three “sonatinas” Op. 137 Nos. 1-3 (D. 384, 385 and 408), Rondo Brillant D. 895, the Duo D. 574, and the amazing late Fantasia in D major D. 934. Because these do not quite fill two CDs, Volume 2 includes the Fantasia in F minor for piano duet, with Julia Fischer taking the second piano part. She’s obviously a tremendously gifted artist as the performance is an excellent one in every respect, and you’d never guess that one of the players is not a professional pianist.
That said, it’s the violin and piano works that constitute the principal attraction, and I include both discs together because I can’t imagine anyone interested in one not wanting the other as well. The three sonatinas are not, in fact, all that small, especially the latter two, which have four substantial movements apiece. Like everything Schubert wrote they are melodically generous and lovely from beginning to end. The D. 574 is more ambitious still, and by the time we get to the Fantasia we are talking about miracles. These performances are stupendous: perfectly balanced dialogs between two vibrant young personalities, ideally recorded in a warm acoustic space. There’s no need to say more: just get these discs. –David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
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Julia Fischer, Martin Helmchen – Schubert: Complete Works for Violin and Piano, Volume 1 (2009)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:29 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
“It is particularly refreshing that Julia Fischer, one of the younger generation of world’s most promising string players, has not only taken these works to heart, providing a scintillating account of the Rondo Brilliant by way of an encore, but also given them the best possible new lease of life by making a persuasive and invigorating case for their continued promotion and enjoyment among violinists and audiences alike. She is aided in no small measure by the young pianist martin helmchen, who is enjoying a flourishing career as a soloist and also, on the evidence of this new PentaTone release, as an accompanist of stature…..If the second volume in this series is as good, it will be worth the wait.” –Richard Evans, International Record Review
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Martin Helmchen – Schumann: Novelleten & Gesänge der Frühe (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:22 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Robert Schumann between early freshness, amorous devotion – and later, prayerful intimacy, in between three pieces by his later wife Clara Wieck: this is how the program of the present ALPHA CLASSICS CD by Martin Helmchen can be outlined. A quasi-biographical program: departure, marital dedication and inspiration as well as the greatest thoughtfulness in view of a last happy phase; not yet under the sign of illness and sorrow.
Schumann was twenty-eight years old when he composed a remarkable cycle of eight pieces for piano in 1838, the Novelletten Op. 21. This impressive and highly virtuosic collection was dedicated to the German-Russian pianist Adolf von Henselt (1814-1889), whose spectacular playing and technique were often compared to Franz Liszt, and not by chance. The Novelletten, which the composer described as “long, bizarre tales,” were written at about the same time as the incomparably more famous
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Martin Helmchen, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Gordan Nikolic – Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 15 & 27 (2013)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 55:29 minutes | 2,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: ISO SACD | © Pentatone Music B.V.
For the sequel to his first Mozart CD with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, pianist Martin Helmchen has once again chosen two strongly contrasting piano concertos in one and the same key: this time B flat major. The works are from two entirely different periods in Mozart’s life. Piano Concerto no. 15, K. 450 is one of six composed in 1784, three of which were written for two other pianists, Barbara von Player and Maria Theresia van Paradis. Together with the Clarinet Concerto, K. 622, Piano concerto no. 27, K 595, composed in the same year, 1791, forms Mozart’s swansong in the genre and was written in a period when the good old days of his Akademien (or concerts) had been consigned to the past.
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Martin Helmchen, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Gordan Nikolic – Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 13 & 24 (2007)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:00:13 minutes | 2,38 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: ISO SACD | © Pentatone Music B.V.
This is the debut album of Martin Helmchen, prize-winning 25-year old German pianist whose career received a boost when he won the 2001 Clara Haskil Competition. Though opening salvos fired by so many young pianists today often come in the form of Mozart, it can be a risky business; bad Mozart-playing can signal the quick end to a career because the nature of the music exposes so many strengths and flaws. Even now we see so many album released by “name” piano-players who really don’t have a clue as to how to handle the composer. Helmchen, I am happy to report, has found the key to the puzzle, and acquits himself very well indeed.
“The sound on this issue is sumptuous; you will not hear finer, more articulate clarity in the orchestra on any other recording that I know of and the piano sounds simply marvellous, clean, bold and rich … well worth hearing for those just building a collection or those with 5,000 Mozart concerto discs already in their collection. Unreservedly recommended.” –Fanfare
Martin Helmchen, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker & Antje Weithaas – Schubert: Arpeggione Sonata & Trio No. 2 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:23 minutes | 1,27 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Following a first recording on Alpha devoted to Brahms which garnered much praise – ‘real duo playing’ said Gramophone, while Classica discerned ‘shared music making . . . a world full of nuances and subtlety, boundless sonic imagination (Marie-Elisabeth Hecker), playing of rare intelligence (Martin Helmchen)’ and awarded the disc a ‘Choc’ – the duo is reunited. Its new programme features two summits of chamber music: Schubert’s famous Arpeggione Sonata – named after a now obsolete instrument that was a cross between the guitar and the cello – and his no less celebrated Trio no.2 D929, which achieved even greater popularity thanks to Stanley Kubrick’s film Barry Lyndon. In the latter, the duo is joined by an eminent musician with whom they enjoy playing, Antje Weithaas, ‘one of the great violinists of our time’ (Fonoforum) and also one of the teachers most sought after by the young generation. For example, she taught Tobias Feldmann, the young violinist recently signed by Alpha.
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Martin Helmchen – Beethoven : Piano Concertos 2 & 5 “Emperor” (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:06:23 minutes | 636 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Following two stunning projects with his spouse, the cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Martin Helmchen started a solo collaboration with the label Alpha Classics, publishing a remarkable version of the Variations Diabelli, one of the best in recent years, and certainly better than the one by Gorini on the same label. As part of the year of Beethoven, he has teamed up with conductor Andrew Manze for a complete recording of the Concertos by the Master of Bonn. This first volume sets the tone.
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Martin Helmchen, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin & Andrew Manze – Beethoven: Pianos concertos 1 & 4 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:36 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
As the celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethovens birth approaches, and following a much-admired version of the Diabelli Variations (Alpha 386 Gramophone Editors Choice), Martin Helmchen has decided to record his complete piano concertos in the company of musical partners with whom he has a special affinity, Andrew Manze and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. They devote this first volume to the Concertos nos. 2 and 5, giving lovingly polished performances of these two masterpieces of the piano repertory. Composed even before Concerto no. 1, the Second Concerto was premiered in Vienna in 1795, when Beethoven was only twenty-five years old, but underwent several revisions before being published in its final version in 1801. Concerto no. 5 is the last that Beethoven composed. Though completed in 1808, it was not premiered until 1811. Beethoven normally gave the first performance of his concertos himself, but this time his increasing deafness meant he was unable to do so.
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Martin Helmchen – Schubert, F.: Piano Sonata No. 20, D. 959 / 6 Moments Musicaux, D. 780 (2008)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:14 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
A flourish of new recordings of Schubert’s last three piano sonatas has brought interpretations as individualistic as those available for the Beethoven sonatas, which is all to the good. This one, by the rather cherubic young German pianist Martin Helmchen, offers a fine example of creative rethinking of the work. Helmchen gives the music a Beethovenian trajectory. His reading of the opening Allegro of the Piano Sonata in A major, D. 959, is initially quite odd — tentative, and a little tense — with the notes of the opening figure punched out and kept quite separate. The lyricism, usually brought to the fore here, is present only in Helmchen’s gentle arpeggios. It’s not a dry interpretation as a whole, however, although taken together it’s on the slow and quiet side. Helmchen forges fully thought-out readings of each of the four movements, which go through a progression suggesting a series of psychological states. His Andantino movement is dark, extremely calm, almost enervated. The lively scherzo has the flavor of a reawakening, blooming into full flower with the lyricism of the rondo finale (which was given a new lease on life by the television series Wings), which gains strength and sweeping enthusiasm by pushing the tempo as it proceeds. The Moments Musicaux, D. 780, that round out the disc do not simply follow the sonata pattern; they’re taken more quickly and in general more briskly. The sound from the Dutch audiophile label PentaTone is excellent, and this disc is well worth the time of those who love Schubert’s monumental late piano works.
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Martin Helmchen – Messiaen: Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:10:14 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Composed in 1944 and first performed at the Salle Gaveau in Paris on 26 March 1945 by Yvonne Loriod, this is the second great pianistic cycle by Olivier Messiaen: a major work indeed, not only in the composer’s oeuvre but in the entire repertoire for solo piano. As we know, its origin is in the faith and spirituality of Olivier Messiaen, who described it as: ‘The Contemplation of the Child-God in the cradle, and the gazes fixed upon Him: from the inexpressible Gaze of God the Father to the multiple Gaze of the Church of love, also taking in the unheard Gaze of the Spirit of joy, the tender Gaze of the Virgin, of the Angels, of the Magi, and of those creatures that are immaterial or symbolic (Time, Extreme Height, Silence, the Star, the Cross).’ He continues: ‘It is a complex of sounds destined for perpetual variations, pre-existing in the abstract as a series, but very concrete and easy to recognize by their colours: a steely grey-blue traversed by bright red and orange, a mauve-tinted violet spotted with leather-brown and encircled in deep purple.’ The vision of this work transmitted by Martin Helmchen – a great piano virtuoso who is himself marked by a strong sense of spirituality – is another substantial contribution to the Messiaenic monument.
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Martin Helmchen – Beethoven: Diabelli Variations (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 54:59 minutes | 800 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
The pianist Martin Helmchen has now joined Alpha for several recordings. Acknowledged as one of the leading pianists of his generation, an eminent interpreter of the German repertoire, Helmchen will explore various periods and composers (including Messiaen!), but Beethoven will have a preponderant place in his forthcoming recording projects. Before the complete Concertos, planned for 2020, he tackles the Diabelli Variations, ‘a climax in the life of a pianist’. He sees these variations as ‘a voyage to the very heart of the infinity of human feelings and moods, by turns profound, philosophical, satirical’. He regards the cycle as a visionary work that heralds future developments in music, containing the first stirrings of twentieth-century minimalism, atonality and abstraction. This recording is the end result of a long personal association and numerous concerts.
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Martin Helmchen – Beethoven: Concerto No.3 & Triple Concerto (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:00 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
German pianist Martin Helmchen continues his journey through Beethoven’s piano concertos with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Andrew Manze. In the Third Concerto, published in 1804, Beethoven seems to be moving away from the Mozartian model and inaugurates his ‘middle period’, using the minor mode to depict a distress and heartache that are certainly not unconnected with the famous ‘Heiligenstadt Testament’, which he wrote in 1802 to record his growing deafness. Martin Helmchen is joined by two partners with whom he performs a great deal of chamber music – violinist Antje Weithaas and cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker – to record the Triple Concerto, also written during the composer’s so-called ‘heroic’ period.
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Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Martin Helmchen – Brahms: Cello Sonatas (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:37 minutes | 923 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Since her high-profile victory at the 2005 Rostropovich Competition (she is the only winner ever to have taken both the First Prize and two special jury prizes), Marie-Elisabeth Hecker has belonged among the cellists who really count in the world. For her very first sonata recording, she is reunited with her partner both on the concert platform and in private life, the stylish pianist Martin Helmchen, in a programme of Brahms. The combination of the cellist whose playing was described by Die Zeit as ‘moving and instinctively beautiful’ and the pianist whom Diapason calls a ‘master of sound, tempo and articulation’ promises to be a moment of true chamber music, lyrical and brimming with complicity.
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