Boulanger Trio

Boulanger Trio – Wanderlust (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:14:08 minutes | 716 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berlin Classics

On “Wanderlust,” the new album on Berlin Classics, the Boulanger Trio explores romantic worlds of feeling, transports listeners to a wide variety of soundscapes, and takes hold of the musical walking stick. With a program that explores through different national schools of composition, they not only combine the great names of the 19th century on one album, but deliver an intelligently assembled soundtrack for a road trip. Founded in Hamburg in 2006 by Karla Haltenwanger (piano), Birgit Erz (violin) and Ilona Kindt (violoncello), the trio is now based in Berlin and Hamburg. In 2007 the ensemble won the 4th Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition in Norway, followed by the Rauhe Prize for Modern Chamber Music in 2008. The ensemble has received musical guidance from Hatto Beyerle, Menahem Pressler and Alfred Brendel.
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Boulanger Trio – Teach Me! (The Students of Nadia Boulanger) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:03 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berlin Classics

Nadia Boulanger, or: Teaching as a Relationship. “I was accustomed to say that the composer must look far ahead into the future of his music. This seems to me to be the male train of thought: thinking at once of the whole future, of the entire fate of the idea, and preparing himself in advance for every possible eventuality. This is the manner in which a man builds his house, orders his affairs and arms himself for his wars. The other is the woman’s way of looking at the world, using good powers of judgement to address the immediate consequences of a problem, while failing to allow for more distant events. This is the approach of the seamstress, who could work with the most luxurious fabric, without thinking about how long it will last, provided it achieves the desired effect at the present moment. It need last no longer than the fashion. This is the approach of the kind of cook who prepares a salad without asking herself whether all the ingredients are right and go together well, whether they combine satisfactorily. A French sauce – or perhaps a Franco-Russian one – is poured over it and so everything is blended. Composing to such directions is consequently nothing but the production of a certain style.” (Der Segen der Sauce, p. 150)
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Boulanger Trio – Juon, Tchaikovsky: Piano Trios (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:07:49 minutes | 655 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © CAvi-music

“In Juon’s piano trio”, as the members of the Boulanger Trio find, “we plunge into the most profound recesses of the soul. Everything acquires existential significance. This work truly captivates us: so much occurs within such brief moments”. This is where our performers find a bridge that connects Juon’s kaleidoscopic tone poem with PETER TCHAIKOVSKY’s colossal Piano Trio, op. 50, a musical epitaph for pianist and conductor Nikolai Rubinstein, who had been Tchaikovsky’s friend and mentor.
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Boulanger Trio – Friedrich Cerha (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 59:05 minutes | 547 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © CAvi-music

Friedrich Cerha’s output has solid roots in an extended musical tradition, while spanning a wide arc from the beginnings of new music all the way to the present. This is not only due to the composer’s respectable age, but primarily to the great number of activities he has pursued in the course of his long life, along with the great variety of influences he has incorporated into his work. At the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music in 1956, he attended seminars given by violinist Rudolf Kolisch and pianist Eduard Steuermann, who had prepared performances of works by Schoenberg, Berg and Webern in collaboration with the composers themselves. Cerha passed on this firsthand knowledge to the next generations in his numerous articles, in his post as Professor for Composition, Notation and Interpretation of New Music at the Musikakademie (which became the Vienna Conservatory of Music), in his performances as a violinist, and last not least as a conductor of ensembles, orchestras and operas, much in demand on the international new music scene.
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