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Konstanze Eickhorst plays Schubert: One single Moment Musical lasting just a few minutes can seem like an eternity of suffering or happiness, while a sonata movement with "heavenly lengths" can fly by in next to no time. In the Lübeck pianist's new GENUIN CD we experience both: in Konstanse Eickhorst's interpretation the Wanderer Fantasy, six Moments Musicaux and the late C minor Sonata become existential journeys up mountains and down into valleys.
Highest praise in Klassik heute - CD tip of the week
"The articulation throughout is soft, rounded and full, without a single line going out of focus; and it is well matched by the pleasantly subdued lighting, which is perfectly supported by the restrained yet effective sound engineering." www.klassik-heutec.com, Michael B. Weiß, 6.3.2013
"An excellent recording!" Klassik.com, 22.3.2013
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Mozart in melancholy mood is the focus of pianist Konstanze Eickhorst's latest CD on the GENUIN label. The Fantasias, Sonatas and Rondo in this programme are all minor-key works whose sadness, anger and defiance in no way correspond to the usual picture of the ever-buoyant Olympian. Yet the pianist, playing with sensitivity and warmth, allows the sun to sparkle through the rain clouds and smiles amidst the tears. From the first D minor notes of the Fantasia K397 through to the final A minor Rondo K511, she takes us on a wonderful journey into the emotional depths of the 18th century.
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Konstanze Eickhorst and the Linos Ensemble have just completed the final recordings in their major project “Arnold Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances”, in which these musicians make available on CD the programmes of a series of concerts which were at the time innovative and not open to the general public. The last item in this production is a recording of Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony op. 9 in the arrangement for piano, violin, cello, flute and clarinet.
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In March 2011 Konstanze Eickhorst recorded a purely minor-key programme for the Genuin label consisting of works by Mozart.
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This season Konstanze Eickhorst is working with the actress Johanna Gastdorf on a new programme of words and music to be called "Fanny und Charles". This virtuoso musical and literary event centres on the inspirational encounter between Fanny Mendelssohn and Charles Gounod in the Villa Medici, Rome, in 1840.
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During her life Madame Farrenc held a professorship at the Paris Conservatoire, made frequent and successful concert appearances, and was awarded numerous distinctions. Since her death her memory is preserved in a series of acclaimed recordings which form an unequivocal testimony to her creative artistry. The latest project of the Linos Ensemble, with Konstanze Eickhorst at the piano, is a recording of three of her splendid and at times audacious chamber works: the Piano Trios op. 33 and op. 44, dating back to around 1850, and the Sextet for Piano and Wind op. 40, written some ten years later.
"Once again Konstanze Eickhorst is at the keyboard. In the players of the Linos Ensemble she has found a degree of commitment equal to her own. The sound they produce is both full-bodied and brilliant, their phrasing is eloquent, and the recording has a convincing dynamic impetus and balance." (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9 May 2009)
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The Capriccio recording of chamber music by Francis Poulenc and Jean Françaix has just been released. Diether Stepphun writes in the August-September edition of "ensemble" magazine: "…The famous Linos Ensemble and the splendid pianist Konstanze Eickhorst perform the four pieces with sensitivity. They give a touch of spice to the impudence of Poulenc and present the dream-world of Françaix with intense and deep feeling. Listening to them is sheer delight!"
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In summer 2005 cpo released their recording of the Grand Septuor op. 25 and Grand Otetto op. 128 by Ferdinand Ries – two works which might best be described as chamber concertos, and in which it seems entirely appropriate to acclaim Konstanze Eickhorst, long-standing pianist with the Linos ensemble, as soloist. Ferdinand Ries was an outstanding pianist himself, and in these "concertos", scored for convenient combinations of seven and eight players respectively and needing no full orchestra, he clearly saw the ideal vehicle for displaying to his audiences the full potential of his Beethoven-trained hands. |
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