NativeDSD Bundles are a mini collection of DSD albums created by the NativeDSD team that brings the works of a special artist, music label or musical genre to your personal library. Better yet, when you buy both of the albums in this bundle NativeDSD gives you a special 30% OFF discounted price on the full bundle. Expanding your musical horizons and collection while saving money at the same time. Each DSD Bundle is a music opportunity and adventure we urge you to explore!

Volume 1

Schubert composed his first five symphonies while still a teenager, but they represent just one facet of his prodigious fluency. Some of his musical ideas bear a family resemblance to certain themes from Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, but already his own musical character is evident.

He began his Second Symphony in December 1814 and had finished it by March 24th of the following year. He completed the Fourth Symphony in about three to four weeks during April 1816. We should not read too much into the Fourth Symphony’s “Tragic” appendage, added by Schubert as an afterthought. It may be merely an example of the flippant comments which he wrote on some of his youthful scores, but nevertheless, the symphony has more gravitas than its predecessors. Schubert also includes a second pair of horns to enrich the texture. This is the only piece of non-programmatic music to which he gave a descriptive title.

Volume 2

While offering little suggestion of the symphonic mastery he would attain less than a decade later, the First Symphony, influenced by Mozart’s last symphonies and completed in October 1813, is a remarkable achievement.

Schubert composed his Third Symphony over a period of about two months, completing the work in July 1815. The Third Symphony is generally characterized by an increased rhythmic intensity, at times bordering on obsession. We may well think of Schubert primarily as a wonderful melodist, but driving, sometimes overpowering rhythm is just as strong a feature of many of his greatest works.

The question of why Schubert left this B minor symphony unfinished has continued to exercise scholars. The most convincing explanation is that he simply found himself unable to continue on the same exalted level and resigned himself to leaving the symphony as it was – two movements of breath-taking quality and imagination. There is no evidence that he ever wished, in his remaining six years, to return to the work, or that he regarded it as “unfinished”. Beethoven’s influence on the historic development of the symphony was staggering. His own examples, widening the expressive range of the genre, opened up a new world. Against this background, Schubert conceived a work of much greater poetry, drama and profundity than he had attempted in his previous symphonies.

Over-familiarity may well have blunted our appreciation of this symphony, which is strikingly original from almost every aspect. Apart from the concentrated, expressive quality, there is also a greatly enhanced sense of tone-color, with much richer sonorities, and a new spaciousness.

Volume 3

After completing the symphonic cycles of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, Jan Willem de Vriend is now undertaking Schubert’s complete symphonic output with Residentie Orkest The Hague. This is the third volume in that series featuring Schubert’s Symphony No. 9.

For about 150 years it was believed that Schubert composed his Ninth Symphony in 1828, not long before his death but, musical scholarship being a continuous process, this theory was later disproved. It was discovered in the late 20th century that in fact he composed most of this work three years earlier and revised it in 1826 and 1827. Following a period of poor health, 1825 was a better year for Schubert, while his finances were also improved.

Schubert never heard a single performance of many of his works, including this great symphony. When it was rehearsed in 1827 at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, the string players complained that passages in which a rhythmic figure is obsessively repeated, especially in the finale, were unplayable.

In May 1824, Schubert attended the first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Beethoven revolutionized symphonic form, expanding its expressive range enormously, his Ninth Symphony being conceived on a much grander scale than any previous symphony. Schubert was just one of many composers influenced by Beethoven’s achievements.

Many scholars have suggested the many ways in which Schubert was influenced by Beethoven, but the most extraordinary aspect of Schubert’s mature music is its complete individuality. The compositional techniques, the handling of tonality and structure, and the orchestral sound of these two contemporaries have little in common. Schubert’s own profound originality is more striking for its emergence at a time when Beethoven’s impact on the development of the symphony was so revolutionary and far-reaching.

Volume 4

The fourth and final volume in Jan Willem de Vriend’s survey of Schubert’s symphonies. Covering Schubert Symphonies Nos 5 and 6 with the Residentie Orkest the Hague on Challenge Classics.

Schubert’s musical ideas at this time sometimes bear a family resemblance to themes by Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven, but nevertheless his own style was already precociously developed. One would not mistake his Fifth Symphony of 1816 for the work of any other composer, though its difference in character from the Fourth Symphony is equally striking. Here, omitting clarinets, trumpets or timpani, Schubert uses a reduced orchestration in comparison with his previous symphonies.

Schubert began his Sixth Symphony in October 1817 and completed it in the following February. The Sixth Symphony represents a sideways step in Schubert’s symphonic development, a digression which may be explained by the phenomenal popularity of Rossini. At this time Rossini’s operas were being received with tremendous enthusiasm in Vienna. Keen to earn a living from his compositions, Schubert now emulated aspects of the style which was enjoying such vogue.

The Overture in D in the Italian Style dates from November 1817. In common with the Sixth Symphony, it reflects the influence of Rossini. According to Heinrich Kreissle, Schubert’s first biographer, this work was the result of a wager which he made with some friends that he could easily compose “in the Italian style”.

Jan Willem de Vriend, Conductor
Residentie Orkest The Hague

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The first question to ask must be: how could it possibly come about that certain essential works by a composer which display no flaw or failure in musical conception or compositional execution stayed dormant in libraries for well over two hundred years and had to wait so long for publication and audience attention?

Three concertos for double bass and orchestra by Johann Matthias Sperger, who was not just a composer but also the most renowned double bassist of the 18th century, performed and recorded here by orchestra and soloist according to their original scores. The decision was taken here to select, from Sperger’s vast legacy of compositions – which includes no less than eighteen double bass concertos – just those early works called No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4. These works are all products of the years of Sperger’s first employment as a double bassist, between 1777 and 1783, in the court orchestra of the archbishop of Hungary, the duke Joseph Graf von Batthyány in Pressburg. They date specifically from the years 1778 and 1779. Sperger’s treatment of the solo double bass in a way quite new in his day as well as the execution of the orchestral part recall the Cello Concertos of no less a figure than Joseph Haydn. Already just the tonal range demanded here, spanning four and a half octaves, shatters all previous conceptions and lets the double bass enter those cantabile spheres once peculiar to the cello or violin. Melody and virtuosity leave nothing to be desired and demand of the soloist true mastery of his instrument.

The soloist in these recordings – Ján Krigovský – uses gut strings, as was common practice at the time of the works’ composition well over two hundred years ago, bringing out the warm sound of the instruments.  The chamber orchestra Collegium Wartberg 430 provides highly authentic accompaniment. To do justice to history and for the pleasure of today’s audience the present recordings were made in the same auditorium as Johann Matthias Sperger first presented these concertos in: the “Hall of Mirrors” in the Primate’s Palace of Bratislava (formerly Pressburg).

Ján Krigovský – Double Bass
Collegium Wartberg 430 – Chamber Orchestra

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Here again, the qualities of his pianism, for which he is recognized as one of the leading musicians of our time, come under the spotlight: the diversity of touch and the suppleness between tension and tranquility to characterize every Prelude and Fugue, the precision of tone, the lack of any affectation, a natural finesse in phrasing and articulation, and a familiarity with the score going hand in hand with a freshness that conjures a sense of improvisation. Here we encounter a new landmark in the crowded field of interpretations of this wonderful music.

Hannes Minnaar – Piano

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The album is a rare and precious collection of Baroque horn concertos. These concertos they all come from a Swedish collection named ‘Wenster’. The composers and the works have all a connection with the town of Dresden, an especially vibrant musical center at the half of 18th century. Played on modern instruments by musicians who are well-informed on historical performance practice.

Fréderick Franssen says, “From among the enormous choice of horn repertoire available in the early stages of my study of the instrument, my interest was piqued by the very earliest horn music. The music from that era did and still does exert its magic on me due to the pure beauty of its clear and transparent sound world. One of my first finds on this quest of discovery through the Baroque period was a concerto by an unknown hand, which appears on this album and comes from a very special collection – the ‘Wenster’.

The library at the University of Lund in Sweden contains one of the largest collections of horn music from the first half of the 18th century, under the name of ‘Wenster’. The manuscript contains 18 works, with virtually all of the composers having some sort of connection to the city of Dresden, and it may have been transcribed by a traveling horn player during a visit to that city. The six works on this recording are all taken from this collection.”

Fréderick Franssen – French Horn
Members of Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra

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Schumann composed his Cello Concerto in about two weeks during November 1850. Before Schumann, few major composers had written cello concertos. Schumann avoids technical display for its own sake, allowing his characteristic poetic expression, intimacy, and fantasy to prevail.

Schumann originally scored the Fantasiestücke Opus 73 (1849) for clarinet and piano but simultaneously provided alternative arrangements for violin or cello. In his choice of clarinet Schumann was typically innovative. The three pieces are melodically interrelated, creating a unity underlined by the absence of breaks between them.

Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro in A flat major, Opus 70 dates from a week after the Fantasiestucke Opus 73. He originally intended his Opus 70 for the new valve horn, though he named cello, violin, or viola as alternative instruments. The piece is fully characteristic of Schumann’s Romantic spirit. The expansive and dreamily romantic Adagio gives way to an Allegro with a leaping, joyful main theme.

Just as Schumann had wanted “popular elements” to prevail in his Rhenish Symphony (1850), the Fünf stücke im Volkston (1849) are correspondingly simple, tuneful, and accessible. Nevertheless, Schumann’s creative imagination and wide expressive range are no less apparent.

Ella says “I would like to invite you into a world I love dearly. The fantasy rich world of Robert Schumann’s music. As a child I was intrigued by what I sensed to be the captivating and magical inner world of Schumann’s music. Years later I came to understand that the raw intuition that drew me to this music as a child was a spellbinding quality that characterizes Schumann’s music and to this day fascinates me.”

Ella van Poucke – Cello
Jean Claude Vanden Eynden – Piano
Phion Orchestra of Gelderland & Overijssel
Gunter Neuhold – Conductor

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Challenge Classics is proud to present a new account of Bach’s Goldberg Variations by the critically acclaimed young pianist Hannes Minnaar. It is his 8th DSD release at NativeDSD Music.  His rendition of Goldbergs sums up all the features of a ‘contemporary’ interpretation at the highest degree:

• Transparent, detailed, and crystal clear phrasing: each and all notes are discernible.
• A supreme – but not artificial nor mannered – control and care of tone and sound: touch, color and timbre are all fruit of a clearly deep insight and work.
• A smooth flow of the discourse: a solid overall concept of the work structure and a plain, simple (never emphasized) ‘singing’ of the melodic line. (Even when he takes a very slow tempo – as in the famous Variation no. 25, about 30% slower than usual – he always sustains the melody, which means it is not the tempo that makes the melody living, but the capacity to make it flow, to ‘connect’ sounds and silences).
• These Goldbergs are not told as a narrative: it is not a dramatic tale, but the architectural structure is well visible. It is not a story. It is a three-dimensional visual work of art.
• Northern Star productions gives Minnaar the sound that perfectly matches his concept of the work. The rest is made by the unique Chris Maene Straight Strung Concert Grand CM005 piano generously supplied by Piano’s Maene.

This is a ‘Goldberg’ for the 21st Century.

Hannes Minnaar – Piano

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The profile of Norwegian soprano Mari Eriksmoen continues to rise through her regular appearance on Europe’s major opera, concert, and recital stages. She is consistently praised for her compelling blend of radiant stage personality and purity of vocal tone.

Mari Eriksmoen – Soprano
Stavanger Symphony Orchestra
Jan Willem de Vriend – Conductor

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