A few months before Urlicht AudioVisual recorded Miranda Cuckson’s Világ in August 2022, Sascha von Oertzen (the engineer on Világ) got a hold of me to see if I might be interested in taking on a project. We got together for lunch soon thereafter, and she revealed the details.

My jaw just about hit the floor when she told me what it was.

Some years earlier, the Berlin Philharmonic had established its own in-house record label, and set a new standard for quality in both sound and packaging. Most of the focus was and remains on modern recordings of the digital era, including several conducted by their current music director, Kiril Petrenko – their recent release of Shostakovich Symphonies Nos. 8, 9, and 10 is simply sensational.

But the one release that absolutely floored me was the complete surviving radio recordings made by the orchestra from 1942 through 1944 conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler – a 22-SACD set issued in 2019. Yes, about half of the recordings in the set had been issued two decades earlier by Deutsche Grammophon after the tapes had been recovered from a Russian broadcast archive – but the Berlin Philharmonic’s discs, under the supervision of Christoph Franke, yielded a consistent and substantial improvement in sound quality over any previous releases.

Sascha told me that the label was beginning work on a second large historical box. It would chronicle live performances of the orchestra from the 1950s and ’60s conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Christoph had already enlisted Emile Berliner Studios to transfer the tapes. Sascha was coordinating with Christof, supervising a portion of the remastering process and doing additional remastering on several of the recordings herself.

She asked if Urlicht AudioVisual might be interested in helping out with preparing some of the recordings for release.

(… knowing full well that there was practically no way I would say no to a project this interesting!)

And so, over the next two years, we worked together on the project. Sascha sent me raw high definition digital transfers. I fired up my many digital toolkits, and worked to improve the overall sound quality as well as remove all manner of glitches large and small – not to mention some of the most sonorous coughs I’ve ever heard (and you’ll never hear).

There was an especially interesting takeaway from this project: if you think you “know” Karajan from his studio recordings, you will be astonished by some radical interpretive differences. Karajan’s approach in front of an audience is noticeably different than that before the microphones. Compare the plush, rich sound of his Dvořák “New World Symphony” on UK Columbia/EMI with the propulsive outer movements and scherzo – and emphatically rhetorical second movement – from the concert performance from 23 September 1965. The interpretation is a far cry from Talich or Kubelík, and is completely convincing.

The same held true of the other recordings I processed: Bruckner’s Fourth and Eighth Symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5, an enormously satisfying all-Richard Strauss program (the Oboe Concerto with the orchestra’s principal oboist Lothar Koch, Vier letzte Lieder sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and Ein Heldenleben), and Mozart’s Divertimento No. 15. The same composer’s Concerto for 3 Pianos (with Karajan, Jörg Demus and Christoph Eschenbach at the keyboards) and Richard Rodney Bennett’s Aubade are among items new to the official Karajan discography.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that many of the other recordings were remastered by another member of the team Sascha assembled, Jennifer Nulsen, whose portfolio as an audio engineer is most impressive.

You can read reviews of Berliner Philharmoniker / Herbert von Karajan: Live in Berlin 1953–1969 in The Guardian and a detailed two-parter at MusicWeb (here and here).

The set is now available from several vendors, including the Berlin Philharmonic (where you can find a complete list of contents), Presto in the UK, and JPC in Germany.

Alfred Brendel’s first recordings were made in early 1950s Vienna forindependent American labels – Period, Vox, and the short-lived SPA label, for whom Brendel made four LP recordings of rare repertoire that he would not record again, discs that have long been prized by lovers of piano music.

For the first time, all four of these recordings are being reissued together, sonically restored and with new liner notes, for streaming and download.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Flute Sonata in B-flat Major, Anh4
Trio for Piano, Flute and Bassoon in G Major, WoO37
with Camillo Wanausek, flute & Leo Cermak, bassoon (WoO37)
Franz Liszt: Weihnachtsbaum, S. 186
Richard Strauss
Fünf Klavierstücke, Op. 3, TrV 105
Piano Sonata in B Minor, Op. 5, TrV 103
Ferrucio Busoni: Fantasia contrappuntistica, BV 256
Johann Sebastian Bach arr. Busoni: Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639 (BV B 27 No. 3)

Alfred Brendel, piano

While exact recording date information is not available, these recordingswere made in Vienna between 1951-52 (Liszt) and 1952-54 (Beethoven, Strauss, Busoni)
Liszt released in 1952 as SPA-26
Beethoven released in 1952 as SPA-28
Strauss released in 1954 as SPA-48
Busoni and Bach-Busoni released in 1956 as SPA-56
Executive producer for SPA: F. Charles Adler
Engineer and editor unknown
Cover image: original SPA Records generic cover graphic
Reissue produced, restored and mastered for Toblach Ausgabe
by Gene Gaudette, Urlicht AudioVisual

Click here to download the liner notes!

Six new sonatas.

Six outstanding soloists – teaming up with multitalented composer-pianist Ethan Iverson.

NOW AVAILABLE! Click here for links to CD purchase, HD downloads, and streaming!

From the press release:

Ethan Iverson Announces New Album: Playfair Sonatas

Cover art by Roz Chast

with Miranda Cuckson, violin; Makoto Nakura, marimba; Carol McGonnell, clarinet; Mike Lormand, trombone; Taimur Sullivan, saxophone; and Tim Leopold, trumpet

Release Date on Urlicht AudioVisual: November 15, 2024

Pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson will release his next album Playfair Sonatas digitally and as a 2-CD set on November 15, 2024 via the Urlicht AudioVisual label. Playfair Sonatas features six sonatas composed by Iverson for six different instruments and piano, and recorded by Iverson with some of today’s most vibrant classical performers – Miranda Cuckson, violin; Makoto Nakura, marimba; Carol McGonnell, clarinet; Mike Lormand, trombone; Taimur Sullivan, saxophone; and Tim Leopold, trumpet. The album is bookended by a Fanfare and Recessional performed by the whole ensemble.

Playfair Sonatas was born in 2020 during the pandemic, when Iverson met curator, producer, and frequent commissioner of new work Piers Playfair for a summertime outdoor dinner. Like most musicians that year, Iverson had downsized and was concerned about making a baseline income. He had recently moved and rented a smaller, cheaper studio, and when Playfair asked if there was anything he could help with, Iverson replied, “Yeah, I’d love to cover the studio rent for a few months.” The two agreed that in exchange for six months of rent, Iverson would write six sonatas, and that Playfair would be allowed to choose the instrumentation. 

Writing these Playfair Sonatas led Iverson to composing larger works, including his Piano Sonata, recently recorded as part of his album Technically Acceptable on the Blue Note label. Seth Colter Walls wrote of the piece in The New York Times, “Classical in conception… it also contains traces of crunchy harmonic modernism and the bumptious sounds of vintage American jazz styles.”

Iverson’s Playfair Sonatas similarly showcase this signature approach. The sonatas intertwine 21st-century jazz gestures with the formal structures of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn. While the outer movements are titled with traditional tempo indications (Allegro, Rondo, Scherzo, and similar), the middle movements of each work are dedicated to an artist whose work blended jazz and classical. 

“These dedications came about late in the game,” says Iverson. “I had scrapped a previous Adagio for clarinet, and wrote a new middle movement I really liked. However, was this ‘oom-pah’ rhythm too much like one of Carla Bley’s amusing ‘music hall’ pieces? Well, what if I dedicated the movement to her? That would fix the issue of appropriation. As it turned out, Carla passed away the same day I finished ‘Music Hall’ and devised the ‘dedications’ stratagem. The other five salutations to Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Paul Desmond, Joe Wilder, and Roswell Rudd came easily, for they had been in the back of my mind the whole time.” 

Piers Playfair adds, “It’s cool that out of a Covid dinner we were able to put a project together that so encapsulates one of our joint core beliefs, that the divisions that divide music, such as jazz, classical, blues etc, into neat little boxes are really just names that people put on them and shouldn’t define the artists.” 

“Ethan and Piers assembled an absolute dream team of soloists, each of who brought their A game to Oktaven Audio for two days of amazing and inspiring music-making,” says producer Gene Gaudette. “The recording sessions were spirited, crackling with energy, and seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye. The Playfair Sonatas are such terrific music – engaging, witty, and still fresh even after multiple hearings. They will no doubt find not only a wide listening audience via this recording but surely be embraced by players looking for new, challenging, genre-crossing repertoire.”

• Read Ethan Iverson’s notes on each of the Playfair Sonatas, including the dedication movements, here.

• Alongside the album, Iverson will publish the scores for all of the Playfair Sonatas, making them available to interested musicians free of charge. 

• Listen to Movement II, “Music Hall (for Carla Bley)” from the Clarinet Sonata and follow along with the score:

• Playfair Sonatas are commissioned by Piers Playfair and 23Arts Initiative. 

• The album is released worldwide on Gene Gaudette’s Ulricht AudioVisual label.

About Ethan Iverson:

Pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson was a founding member of The Bad Plus, a game-changing collective with Reid Anderson and David King. The New York Times called TBP “Better than anyone at melding the sensibilities of post-60’s jazz and indie rock.” During his 17-year tenure, TBP performed in venues as diverse as the Village Vanguard, Carnegie Hall, and Bonnaroo; collaborated with Joshua Redman, Bill Frisell, and the Mark Morris Dance Group; and created a faithful arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and a radical reinvention of Ornette Coleman’s Science Fiction.


Since leaving TBP, Iverson has released critically-acclaimed jazz albums on ECM and Blue Note, often accompanied by bonafide jazz stars such as Tom Harrell or Jack DeJohnette. Downbeat has called Iverson “A master of melody” while Hot House recently raved, “Known for his intellectual depth and adventurous musical spirit, Ethan Iverson has traversed the boundaries of jazz tradition while leaving an indelible mark on its evolution.” After witnessing a 2024 concert of standards spontaneously chosen by the audience, Stereophile wrote, “Iverson is a natural, consistent crowd-pleaser. For his entire career, he has been finding ways to be accessible while pushing the envelope.” 

Iverson holds down the piano chair in the critically acclaimed Billy Hart quartet and has recorded with other elder statesmen like Albert “Tootie” Heath and Ron Carter. In terms of performing classical music, Iverson has accompanied Mark Padmore in Schubert’s Winterreise and Johnny Gandelsman in the three Brahms Violin Sonatas.

On top of his activities as a pianist and composer, Iverson has an active career as a writer, publishing significant criticism in The Nation, JazzTimes, The New York Times, and the Culture Desk of The New Yorker. He also posts frequently on his Substack, Transitional Technology. 

About the Instrumentalists:



Miranda Cuckson, violin: www.mirandacuckson.com  


Makoto Nakura, marimba: www.makotonakura.com  


Carol McGonnell, clarinet: www.carolmcgonnell.com  
 

Mike Lormand, trombone: www.deviantseptet.com/mike-lormand   


Taimur Sullivan, saxophone: www.taimursullivan.com  


Tim Leopold, trumpet: www.mostlymodernfestival.org/tim-leopold-trumpet



Playfair Sonatas


Music by Ethan Iverson


Fanfare – The Ensemble
Violin Sonata – Miranda Cuckson, violin • Ethan Iverson, piano
Marimba Sonata – Makoto Nakura, marimba • Ethan Iverson, piano
Clarinet Sonata – Carol McGonnell, clarinet • Ethan Iverson, piano
Trombone Sonata – Mike Lormand, trombone • Ethan Iverson, piano
Alto Saxophone Sonata – Taimur Sullivan, saxophone • Ethan Iverson, piano
Trumpet Sonata – Tim Leopold, trumpet • Ethan Iverson, piano
Recessional – The Ensemble

Ulricht AudioVisual | Release Date: November 15, 2024



Recorded December 2 & 3, 2023 at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY
Recording engineer: Ryan Streber
Piano technician: Shane Hoshino
Edited by Ryan Streber and Gene Gaudette
Produced by Gene Gaudette
Executive producer: Piers Playfair
Cover art: Roz Chast