new CD now commercially available

© Tilman Skowroneck 2018

As I have written previously, I made a new solo recording in June 2015. It is now available on CD, produced by the German label TYXart. The official announcements are here (German) and here (English). Listening examples can be found here. The CD is available worldwide, for instance at amazon.com. If you already have this disk, why not go there and leave a review?

The initial reviews were very positive. See my “reviews” page for a few examples.

The complete track list follows below:

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new recordings

© Tilman Skowroneck 2015

On 22 and 23 June 2015 I had the pleasure to record a mixed program of Froberger, Louis Couperin and Rameau (the first suite, which I hadn’t previously recorded) in the quiet and lovely church of Jonsered close to Gothenburg. Further below are some sneak clips (music edits done, but perhaps not the ultimate final tonal balance). The recording was made by Herwin Troje. As always, please contact me for permission before sharing these links.

The instrument, a little unexpectedly, is a one-manual brass-strung harpsichord after German originals, with a 392-415 keyboard.

Temperaments used: a ‘French ordinaire’ variation and Rameau (which, really, is another ‘French ordinaire’ variation), at a=392Hz. The project was initiated by the instrument’s owner Bengt Nässén.

Johann Jakob Froberger (1616—1667)

Toccata VI in A minor

Gigue

Lamentation, faite sur la tres douloreuse Mort de Sa Majeste Imperiale, Ferdinand le Troisieme

Louis Couperin (c. 1626—1661)

Prélude in D minor

Allemande

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683—1764)

Prélude

hand choreography and fingering I

Pianist Claudio Arrau was extremely precise in playing the composer’s notation, and refused to divide certain technical difficulties (such as the beginning of Beethoven’s Op. 111) between two hands, if the notation did not call for it (see Joseph Horowitz Conversations with Arrau, Part 2 “Interpretation”, or the article about Arrau in Joachim Kaiser Grosse Pianisten). In the classical and romantic repertoire, such a reluctance to yield to technical convenience often enhances the sounding result. Beethoven might well have been one of the first composers who notated certain passages in an, from a technical viewpoint, unnecessarily awkward manner for the sake of musical expression.

remembering school concerts

Where in the world would one encounter a traverso player who performs larger solo sections from Vivaldi’s “Il Cardellino” at 9:00 in the morning for an audience of 80? Where can we see a fight between two rooster-dressed Baroque violinists who simultaneously play an adapted version of Biber’s Battaglia? How does one arrive at the unbelievable record of having tried to publicly perform the first half of Rameau’s La Poule on a pentagonal Virginal (but giving up because of being interrupted by a bunch of unruly chickens) approximately 750 times?. How many baroque musicians have been allowed, no: expected to snore on stage while their colleagues performed Vivaldi’s Winter? What institution allows a harpsichordist to experiment with various fingerings in the fast bits of the fifth Brandenburg concerto’s cadenza on stage, ten or eleven times a week?

For all these treats, you need to be in a Swedish basic school