Showing posts with label Classics with Klaus Döring Klassik mit Klaus Döring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Classics with Klaus Döring Klassik mit Klaus Döring. Show all posts

Friday, October 16, 2026

A Debut of Note: Himari

by Maureen Buja  October 7th, 2026


Himari

Himari © himari-info.com

Himari started her violin study at age 3, working with Koichiro Harada and Machie Oguri. She made her debut with a professional orchestra at age 6, and at age 11 she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Ida Kavafian. At age 13, she signed an exclusive contract with Decca Classics, becoming the label’s youngest female artist.

In competition, Himari has been awarded grand prizes at the Arthur Grumiaux Competition in Belgium (2019) and the International Competition for Young Violinists in Honour of Karol Lipinski and Henryk Wieniawski, Lublin, Poland (2021), as well as the 26th Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition in Italy and the Kogan International Violin Competition in Belgium. She plays the 1717 ‘Hamma’ Stradivari on loan from Mr Yusaku Maezawa. Her bow is on loan from the Munetsugu Collection.

Henryk Wieniawski (1835–1880) wrote his first violin concerto in 1851 while on tour in Russia with his brother. After returning to give concerts in Leipzig, Paris, and London, he returned to Russia in 1860 at the invitation of Anton Rubinstein. He spent the next 12 years there, variously as solo violinist to the Tsar, leader of the opera Orchestra, and professor of violin at Rubinstein’s conservatory. When he returned to his touring career in 1872, he extended his travels to North America with Rubinstein. When he returned to Europe in 1875, he was appointed professor of violin at the Brussels Conservatory. His health was increasingly frail, and he had to leave the stage during a performance of his Violin Concerto No. 2 in Berlin. Joseph Joachim was in the audience and took his place on stage, replacing the concerto with a performance of the Bach Chaconne on Wieniawski’s violin. Despite this setback, Wieniawski continued his tour out of financial need, but he was often forced to leave the stage, unable to perform. Wieniawski died on 31 March 1880 in the house of Tchaikovsky’s patroness, Nadezhda von Meck.

In the first movement, after a first subject in the clarinet and a more lyrical second subject, the violin enters in a technically demanding solo entry in 10ths. The first subject follows, played only on the G string. The rest of the movement includes a brief cadenza, followed by a lyrical passage that gives the violinist a chance to display technique, complete with triple-stopped chords and difficult but dazzling arpeggios. The final coda brings back the first subject.

Henryk Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 14 – I. Allegro moderato

Himari plays with authority and assurance, and even her own teacher remarks on her maturity: ‘If you’re listening to Himari and you close your eyes, you wouldn’t realise her age. Inside Himari, there is an older person and a wise musician… she’s immensely talented.’

After this brilliant orchestra debut, Himari fills the rest of the album with recital material of the highest quality, including Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne No. 16 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55, No. 2 (transcribed by Jascha Heifetz); Leopold Godowsky’s Triakontameron: XI. Alt Wien (transcribed by Jascha Heifetz); Jean Sibelius’ Mazurka, Op. 81, No. 1; and Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 in C sharp minor (transcribed by Nathan Milstein). These are works by the virtuosos of their day, and even Sibelius’ Mazurka is technically demanding, with a cadenza-like opening, double stopping, and huge leaps in the melodic line, requiring a virtuoso hand.


She closes the album with more Henryk Wieniawski, with his Fantasia on Themes from Gounod’s ‘Faust’, Op. 20.

With its mix of orchestral and recital material, Himari’s debut recording gives us an exceptional view of her skills. Sometimes, as happens on live recordings, her leaps may fall a hair short, but that’s the excitement of live performance. In the piano and violin works, where Chelsea Wang, who made her own orchestral debut at age 6, ably accompanies her, we have a more traditional format. Still, again, Himari’s choice of works distinguishes her. In Wieniawski’s Faust Fantasia, she has the vision to create a coherent storyline amid all the virtuoso fireworks.

Himari Debut album cover

Himari: Debut (Wieniawski, Chopin, Sibelius, and Godowsky)

Himari, violin; Berlin Philharmonic with Sebastian Weigle, conductor; Chelsea Wang, piano
Decca Classics 00028948722099
Release date: 25 September 2026

Vienna Soundscapes: The Quatuor Hermès

 by Maureen Buja  October 12th, 2026


In choosing their works for this album, the Quartet looked at both Beethoven and Haydn before settling on Mozart. As the starting cornerstone, Mozart’s 1783 quartet (Quartet No. 15 in D minor) opens the discussion. The Quartet sees Webern and Korngold as further embodiments of the Viennese soul.

The invisible body in the middle of these works is Romanticism, and by jumping from Mozart’s Classical quartet, which they view as ‘pre-Romantic’, to Webern’s and Korngold’s definitive post-Romantic works, we’re asked to imagine what lies between them. Mozart’s dramatic quartet and its use of D minor as its key only emphasises the work’s ‘post-Classical’ position in this context.

Webern’s Langsamer Satz, written in 1905, transcends Romanticism on the edge of atonality. Webern sets a love story in a man’s walk with his beloved, but at the same time finds traditional atonality unable to fully convey the emotions he wants to express. In the same idea of intimacy and anxiety that can be found in Mozart’s Quartet No. 15, said to have been written while he awaited the birth of his first child, Webern carries us with a sense of emotional restraint.

The album ends with Erich Korngold’s String Quartet No. 2. The precocious Korngold was often compared to the equally precocious Mozart, and one of the strengths of his music from the beginning was its ability to conjure up stories and images. The Quartet first met Korngold through his Piano Quintet, and they found the same sense of farewell in this String Quartet. They are protagonists in an epic tale, and the music seems to have cinematic qualities, as will so much of his future Hollywood material.

The recording is an imaginative and creative look at the string quartet as it moves from tradition to the future. Emotions give way to emotional stories that lead to cinematic ones.

Quatuor Hermès (photo by Lyodoh Kaneko)

Quatuor Hermès (photo by Lyodoh Kaneko)

They play with skill and authority, and their extensive work with late Romantic and Early Modern quartets and quintets gives them a unique modern viewpoint. They note that this recording is their first to include Mozart.

This album joins an extensive list on La Dolce Volta by the Quartet, including Schumann’s Three Quartets, Op. 41 (LDV 17), String quartets by Ravel, Dutilleux, and Debussy (LDV 33), Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, with Geoffroy Couteau (LDV 61), and his Piano Quartets nos. 1–3 (LDV 62.3), and Schubert’s Rosamunde and Der Tod und das Mädchen (LDV 85).

LDV134 Quatuor Hermes album cover

Echoes of Vienna: Mozart, Webern, Korngold

Quatuor Hermès
La Dolce Volta LDV 134

Official Website

For more of the best in classical music, sign up for our E-Newsletter

Chopin’s Final Year: A Month-By-Month Guide to 1849

 Emily E. Hogstad  October 15th, 2026


During the final year of his life, he gave his last public concert, signed his will, and stopped taking new pupils. His famous relationship with author George Sand was over, and the two would never reconcile. He was 39, weighed 99 pounds, and spent months unable to compose.

What followed was one of the most romanticised and mythologised deaths in classical music history. Former students, celebrated artists, and the Parisian elite attended and mourned across Europe.

Here is how Chopin’s final year unfolded, month by month.

October 1848: Chopin Draws Up a Will

Maria Wodzińska: Chopin, 1836 (National Museum in Warsaw)

Maria Wodzińska: Chopin, 1836 (National Museum in Warsaw)

In October 1848, Chopin was finishing his final concert tour through Scotland and England, accompanied by his student Jane Stirling.

At the time, he was battling late-stage tuberculosis. His health deteriorated so much that, later in the month, while he was staying in Edinburgh, he signed a last will.

He described his choice to his friend Wojciech Grzymała as “a kind of disposition to be made of my stuff in the future, if I should drop dead somewhere.”

On 31 October, he arrived in London on his way back home.


November 1848: Chopin’s Final Concert

In November, Chopin’s health continued to go downhill. His doctors began acknowledging that his diagnosis was almost certainly a terminal one. He lost weight until he was just 99 pounds (45 kilograms).

Chopin gave his final public concert at London’s Guildhall on 16 November 1848. It was a benefit show for Polish refugees. Unfortunately, the English crowd was more interested in socialising and dancing than in listening to Chopin’s playing.

Chopin understood then that the end was nearing. He wrote to his friend, writer Stanisław Koźmian, that “I have ended my public career.”

A week later, on 23 November, he left London by rail and crossed the English Channel. He wrote to Grzymała, asking him to leave out flowers so his apartment would smell good when he arrived. He returned to his Parisian home on the 24th.

December 1848: Chopin’s Final Compositions

It is believed that sometime before the year ended, or in very early 1849, Chopin wrote some of his last music: a Waltz in A minor (WN 63) and a Mazurka in G minor (WN 64).   

January 1849: Chopin’s Final Picture

On New Year’s Day, they took Chopin’s last picture. Looking at it, it’s clear that he wasn’t feeling well.

He spent the rest of January resting, playing privately, and teaching.

Sadly, his condition deteriorated enough during the month that he stopped accepting new pupils, despite the financial hit.

February 1849: Visiting With Friends

Portrait of Frédéric Chopin and George Sand by Eugène Delacroix

Portrait of Frédéric Chopin and George Sand by Eugène Delacroix

In February, artist Eugène Delacroix visited Chopin. He would visit eight times throughout the year.

Delacroix wrote that one of the things they discussed was Chopin’s legendary ex, the author George Sand.

Sand was writing her memoirs at the time, and the two men wondered what she would write about. Chopin would not live to see the book: she only finished and published it in the mid-1850s, years after his death.

We wrote about Chopin and Sand’s tumultuous relationship here: https://interlude.hk/frederic-chopin-and-george-sand-the-real-story-behind-their-relationship/.

March 1849: Visiting With Former Students

His health continued to deteriorate. Friends continued to come by.

In late March, Chopin’s friend and former student Countess Delfina Potocka visited to perform for him. Fellow student Maria Kalergis also dropped in to play piano.

April 1849: “Boredom is for him the cruellest torment”

Although he had broken up with her mother, George Sand, Chopin continued to correspond with Solange Clésinger, whom he viewed as a kind of daughter figure. Solange was about to give birth to her first child.

On 5 April, Chopin reported to her, “I am at a loss what to do. I have a fourth successive doctor; they take from me 10 fr. a visit – they come sometimes twice a day but bring me little relief.”

On 7 April, Delacroix swung by again, and the two went on a ride down the Champs-Élysées. Wanting to distract Chopin from his pain, Delacroix asked him about the logic of music.

Delacroix returned a week later, but by that time, Chopin was in no shape to go riding again. He reported that Chopin was “distressed” and “breathless.” “Boredom is for him the cruellest torment,” Delacroix wrote.

May 1849: Corresponding With George Sand’s Daughter

In May, Solange Clésinger wrote to Chopin to let him know that she had given birth to a daughter. She asked if he would consider encouraging her husband, sculptor Auguste Clésinger, to work in London.

A few months later, Auguste Clésinger would create Chopin’s death mask.

June 1849: Summering in the Suburbs

It was common in aristocratic Parisian circles to leave the city for the summer. Accordingly, Chopin’s friends banded together to find him summer housing in the suburb of Chaillot.

On 18 June, he wrote to Grzymała, painting a vivid picture of life in the Parisian capital in the summer of 1849: “Everyone is leaving – some from fear of cholera, others from fear of revolution.”

In the same letter, he reported, “I am stronger, as I have caught up on eating and thrown up my medicine – but I am panting and coughing the same, just that I am bearing it better – I have not yet started to play – I cannot compose – I do not know what kind of straw I shall soon be eating.”

Four days later, he wrote, “Violent attacks of illness. Two haemorrhages during the night.”

A week later, he wrote to his sister Ludwika, asking if she could come to Paris to be with him in his final months. “If you can, then come. I am weak, and no doctor can help me like you.”

July 1849: The Door Closes on a George Sand Reconciliation

In July, Amélie Grille de Beuzelin wrote to George Sand, “He painfully feels your absence.”

George Sand replied with exasperation, making it clear that their legendary relationship was over: “His sentiment died long ago, and if my memory still oppresses him, it is because he feels pangs of conscience.”

The couple would never reconcile – and a few months later, she’d choose not to attend his funeral.

August 1849: Chopin’s Sister Ludwika Arrives to Caretake

Ludwika Chopin

Ludwika Chopin

After a few weeks of preparing and travelling, Chopin’s sister Ludwika arrived in Paris on 9 August with her husband and their daughter.

She would stay with her brother until the end.

September 1849: Final Visits

In September, it was time to return to Paris proper.

It had been months since he could teach or make money, so Jane Stirling paid for his lodgings at the Hôtel Baudard de Saint-James on the Place Vendôme. He moved there on 9 September.

Pauline Viardot as Orphée, 1860

Pauline Viardot as Orphée, 1860

His colleague, singer and composer Pauline Viardot, reported that during this time, as the city paid its respects, “All the grande dames of Paris considered it their duty to faint in his room.”

October 1849: Chopin’s Death

Time was rapidly running out, and Chopin knew it. He informed his sister Ludwika that he wanted his unpublished work thrown into the fire. (She ended up disobeying his wishes, which is why we have so many posthumous Chopin works.)   

His condition deteriorated badly on 15 October. By then, only his closest loved ones remained, waiting with him for the end. We wrote about those final days here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-17-october-frederic-chopin-died/.

Soon after midnight on 17 October, his physician asked him if he was suffering. “No longer,” Chopin replied. He died about an hour later.

His sister Ludwika and George Sand’s daughter, Solange Clésinger, were present for his death.

After Ludwika liquidated her brother’s estate, she returned to Poland. She carried her brother’s heart with her so that it could be buried in Polish soil, as per his wishes.

Solange Clésinger-Sand

Solange Clésinger-Sand

Conclusion

Chopin’s death at 39 cut short one of the most singular careers in Western music history.

Even at the end, he was surrounded by an extraordinary web of loyalty and love. His student Jane Stirling funded his final months. His friend Delacroix visited eight times. His sister Ludwika crossed Europe to be with him, stayed until the last breath, and then carried his heart home to Poland.

The works he wanted burned survived because the people closest to him ignored his wishes. We’ve been grateful ever since.

Monday, October 12, 2026

All by Yourself

 All by Yourself.

A phrase that sounds simple… until it becomes personal.
We live in a world full of noise, motion, and connection—yet many of us feel like a small boat on an unpredictable sea.
Doing life.
Facing storms.
Searching for direction…
all by yourself.
This new series begins with one honest question:
What happens when your strength, your certainty, and your self-reliance aren’t enough?
Let’s talk about the reality behind the phrase so many quietly live with.
Have you ever felt “all by yourself”?
Share it with us — we’re listening.
#AllByYourself #LifeRocks #faithInTheStorm #godiswithyou #ChristianInspiration #YouAreNotAlone #HopeInHardTimes #FaithOverFear
#StormsOfLife
在 Messenger 上聊天
在 Messenger 上聊天

Friday, October 9, 2026

Five Women Composers Who Studied at the Paris Conservatoire

The Paris Conservatoire was founded in 1795 after the French Revolution. Since then, many of classical music’s greatest figures have passed through its doors.

Initially, women weren’t allowed to benefit from the Conservatoire’s rigorous education. In fact, women weren’t admitted outside vocal classes until 1849, when French violin prodigy Camilla Urso broke that glass ceiling at the age of nine.

Urso proved to the institution that women could be extraordinary students, and hundreds of women followed in her footsteps.

Today we’re looking at five largely forgotten women composers who studied at the Paris Conservatoire.

Grace Becker Vamos

Grace Vamos

Grace Vamos

Fontainebleau Suite  

Grace Becker was born in 1898 in California to a violinist father and pianist mother. The musical couple had a spare cello that Grace started playing as a child.

As a young woman, she studied at the Paris Conservatoire and the Fontainebleau School of Music.

In 1937, she moved to Hungary to study with composer Zoltán Kodály, then returned to America when World War II broke out in the summer of 1939.

She spent most of the rest of her career in California, interspersed with frequent visits to Mexico.

Her piano concerto was the first orchestral piece ever written by a woman to be performed in California.

In addition to composing, she also founded a trio called the Trio Moderne, an all-woman ensemble featuring Becker Vamos, flautist Christine Howells Pfund, and harpist Marie Hughes Marguarrie.

In 1946, she married Ernest Vamos, a dentist and an amateur cellist. They never had any children. Instead, she focused on her career, teaching countless students and endowing multiple scholarships and competitions.

Today, the scores of Grace Becker Vamos’s works are available through Vamos Publishing.

Koharik Alis Gazarossian

Koharik Alis Gazarossian

Koharik Alis Gazarossian

Koharik Alis Gazarossian was born to Armenian parents in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) in 1907.

As a child, she took piano lessons from a former student of Franz Liszt.

In 1926, at nineteen, she moved to Paris and began studying at the Conservatoire.

Her piano teacher was Lazare Lévy, whose other pupils included John Cage, Clara Haskil, and Monique Haas.

She also studied composition with Paul Dukas, composer of the tone poem The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Her own work often drew upon Armenian folk influences. Among her fans was fellow Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian.

Her set of 24 Etudes, finished in 1958, covered the twelve major and minor keys. Each one is dedicated to a friend or pupil. Listeners can hear influences of pianists like Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev.

These works were recorded in 2022 by Armenian pianist Naré Karoyan.

Jeanne Demessieux

Jeanne Demessieux

Jeanne Demessieux      In 1933, at twelve, she began studying at the Paris Conservatoire. Three years later, she began studying organ with Marcel Dupré. The organ soon became her primary instrument.

In 1941, at the age of twenty, she earned a first prize in organ performance and improvisation at the Conservatoire.

In 1947, she became the first female concert organist to sign a record deal.

She was especially famous for her memory. Apparently, she memorised 2,500 pieces over her career, including the entire organ output of J.S. Bach.

She was also a composer, writing works for solo organ, piano, and vocal music.

She died in November 1968 of throat cancer. She was only 47 years old.

Sylvia Soublette

Sylvia Soublette

Sylvia Soublette

Pequeña Suite para Violín y Piano   

Sylvia Soublette was born in 1924 in Viña del Mar, Chile. Music ran in the family: both of her parents were musical, and her paternal grandmother was a composer.

In 1941, as a teenager in college, she founded the Coro Femenino Viña del Mar (the Viña del Mar Women’s Choir). She also began composing.

In 1951, she earned a scholarship from the French government to study at the Paris Conservatoire. While there, she studied under Milhaud and Messiaen.

After her studies in Paris, she returned to Chile. In 1960, she founded the Ancient Music Ensemble and led it until the 1973 military coup.

She married politician Gabriel Valdés in 1945, and he served as Chile’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1964 to 1970. After Pinochet came to power, Valdés, Soublette, and their four children travelled to the United States and Venezuela.

The family returned to Chile in 1981, and Soublette resumed her musical career there.

In 1991, she founded the Santiago Music Institute and toured internationally.

Toward the end of her long life, she said, “I am a composer, but from another time. Not from the 21st century, but from the 20th century. However, at this point, what I feel most like is an educator.”

She died in January 2020 at the age of 95.

Édith Canat de Chizy

Édith Canat de Chizy

Édith Canat de Chizy

Édith Canat de Chizy was born in Lyon, France, in 1950.

As a college student, she studied at the Sorbonne and the Paris Conservatoire. She won half a dozen first prizes in analysis, composition, counterpoint, fugue, harmony, and orchestration.

In 2006, she began teaching at the Regional Conservatory of Paris. She has published over a hundred opus numbers’ worth of music.

In 2005, she became the first female composer to be elected to the prestigious Académie des Beaux-Arts.


The violin is her main instrument. Here’s her fourth quartet, “En noir et or” (In black and gold).

A Debut of Note: Himari

  

The young Japanese violinist Himari (b. 2011 as Himari Yoshimura) made her American concert debut with Henryk Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor with the Santa Fe Symphony in 2023, aged 11, and then made her European debut with the work in 2025, age 13. That debut with the Berlin Philharmonic is captured on her debut recording on Decca Classics, appropriately called Debut.

Himari

Himari © himari-info.com

Himari started her violin study at age 3, working with Koichiro Harada and Machie Oguri. She made her debut with a professional orchestra at age 6, and at age 11 she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Ida Kavafian. At age 13, she signed an exclusive contract with Decca Classics, becoming the label’s youngest female artist.

In competition, Himari has been awarded grand prizes at the Arthur Grumiaux Competition in Belgium (2019) and the International Competition for Young Violinists in Honour of Karol Lipinski and Henryk Wieniawski, Lublin, Poland (2021), as well as the 26th Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition in Italy and the Kogan International Violin Competition in Belgium. She plays the 1717 ‘Hamma’ Stradivari on loan from Mr Yusaku Maezawa. Her bow is on loan from the Munetsugu Collection.

Henryk Wieniawski (1835–1880) wrote his first violin concerto in 1851 while on tour in Russia with his brother. After returning to give concerts in Leipzig, Paris, and London, he returned to Russia in 1860 at the invitation of Anton Rubinstein. He spent the next 12 years there, variously as solo violinist to the Tsar, leader of the opera Orchestra, and professor of violin at Rubinstein’s conservatory. When he returned to his touring career in 1872, he extended his travels to North America with Rubinstein. When he returned to Europe in 1875, he was appointed professor of violin at the Brussels Conservatory. His health was increasingly frail, and he had to leave the stage during a performance of his Violin Concerto No. 2 in Berlin. Joseph Joachim was in the audience and took his place on stage, replacing the concerto with a performance of the Bach Chaconne on Wieniawski’s violin. Despite this setback, Wieniawski continued his tour out of financial need, but he was often forced to leave the stage, unable to perform. Wieniawski died on 31 March 1880 in the house of Tchaikovsky’s patroness, Nadezhda von Meck.

In the first movement, after a first subject in the clarinet and a more lyrical second subject, the violin enters in a technically demanding solo entry in 10ths. The first subject follows, played only on the G string. The rest of the movement includes a brief cadenza, followed by a lyrical passage that gives the violinist a chance to display technique, complete with triple-stopped chords and difficult but dazzling arpeggios. The final coda brings back the first subject.

Henryk Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 14 – I. Allegro moderato

Himari plays with authority and assurance, and even her own teacher remarks on her maturity: ‘If you’re listening to Himari and you close your eyes, you wouldn’t realise her age. Inside Himari, there is an older person and a wise musician… she’s immensely talented.’

After this brilliant orchestra debut, Himari fills the rest of the album with recital material of the highest quality, including Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne No. 16 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55, No. 2 (transcribed by Jascha Heifetz); Leopold Godowsky’s Triakontameron: XI. Alt Wien (transcribed by Jascha Heifetz); Jean Sibelius’ Mazurka, Op. 81, No. 1; and Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 in C sharp minor (transcribed by Nathan Milstein). These are works by the virtuosos of their day, and even Sibelius’ Mazurka is technically demanding, with a cadenza-like opening, double stopping, and huge leaps in the melodic line, requiring a virtuoso hand.


With its mix of orchestral and recital material, Himari’s debut recording gives us an exceptional view of her skills. Sometimes, as happens on live recordings, her leaps may fall a hair short, but that’s the excitement of live performance. In the piano and violin works, where Chelsea Wang, who made her own orchestral debut at age 6, ably accompanies her, we have a more traditional format. Still, again, Himari’s choice of works distinguishes her. In Wieniawski’s Faust Fantasia, she has the vision to create a coherent storyline amid all the virtuoso fireworks.

Himari Debut album cover

Himari: Debut (Wieniawski, Chopin, Sibelius, and Godowsky)

Himari, violin; Berlin Philharmonic with Sebastian Weigle, conductor; Chelsea Wang, piano
Decca Classics 00028948722099