Philharmonic Ensemble Vienna
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Full Biography
Shkëlzen Doli | Violin
Holger Groh | Viola
Sebastian Bru | Violoncello
Gottlieb Wallisch | Piano

Is there a better entrée for a new chamber music formation than the New Year's Concert of the Viennese Philharmonics? On 1 January 2015, during the intermission of the traditional concert dedicated to the Strauss dynasty, a TV event enjoyed by millions worldwide, the four musicians of the "Philharmonic Ensemble Vienna" boarded a vintage tram and rode along Viennas representative boulevard, the Ringstrasse. Of course they made music as they did so. Playing works included on this CD. The New Year's Concert film is also a reference to an upcoming anniversary. 150 years ago, on 1 May 1865, Emperor Francis Joseph inaugurated the Viennese Ringstrasse, lined with stately edifices of the greatest beauty unlike in any other city in the world: the University, the Vienna Town Hall, the Parliament, the Museum of Natural History across from the Museum of Art History, the Postal Savings Bank by Otto Wagner, the Stadtpark with the monument of Johann Strauss II, who once made music in the neighbouring Kursalon, and finally the Vienna State Opera, whose orchestra pit is the true home of the Viennese Philharmonics.

Musical greetings from a city in which music has long played an important role. The Viennese Philharmonics have long since celebrated their 150th anniversary, namely in 1992. You see: A wealth of tradition. How delightful that it also makes itself felt and heard in every note of the intermission film and of the first CD of the "Philharmonic Ensemble Vienna". For three members of the Viennese Philharmonics and the Viennese pianist Gottlieb Wallisch have banded together under this name: "Philharmonic Ensemble Vienna". That way, it all stays in the family. The Philharmonic violinist Shkelzen Doli had the idea and took the initiative. He was able to attract violinist Holger Groh, who plays viola in the ensemble, cellist Sebastian Bru and Gottlieb Wallisch to the idea of forming a piano quartet. This is the basic formation that can be expanded or reduced according to the requirements of the repertoire.

The range of music interpreted is wide, reaching from baroque to contemporary. Familiar and unknown, serious and lighter music are all given their place. Even occasional forays into the traditional music of the areas the members hail from are permitted. But the overriding principle is always: To cultivate the Viennese musical style handed down from generation to generation, the typical philharmonic musical style, in a small ensemble. "Chamber music is great fun' says Shkelzen Doli."You are, of course, more exposed, but you also have more liberties and are not only part of a larger whole!" To him, carrying on to play chamber music with orchestra members is a matter dose to the heart, seriously and unspectacularly, quite intentionally traditional, and yet keeping abreast of the times. This by no means precludes plenty of imagination when it comes to the choice of music. "Natural and organic, beautiful, noble, round, sonorous and with lustre" associates Doli when asked to describe the typically Viennese sound and musical style. Moreover, it is likewise important how this sound blends during play, how the musicians listen and react to each other, how they phrase, shape, breathe together.

Born in Albania, grown up in former Yugoslavia and graduated from the legendary school of Russian violin educator Ewgenia Tschugaeva, Doli learned to make music in this spirit from his Philharmonic colleagues, in the large orchestra and the various chamber music ensembles, such as the "Wiener Virtuosen" or Rene Staar's "Ensemble Wiener Collage" and as co-founder of "The Philharmonics". This musical style was also taught to Holger Groh from Weiz in Styria, as student of Alfred Staar and Rainer Küchl, who then passed it on as artistic director of the Styrian Society of Music Friends and as conductor, soloist, and chamber musician. As a true Viennese, cellist Sebastian Bra soaked up the musical spirit of his hometown early on, learning cello from his father who is the solo cellist of the Vienna State Opera. Following his studies with Robert Nagy, he received a final polish from teachers such as Clemens Hagen and Heinrich Schiff, won competition awards, and is regularly active as a soloist. Gottlieb Wallisch also comes from a family of Viennese musicians, studied with Heinz Medjimorec and Oleg Maisenberg and played concerts as a laureate of competitions, including of the "Concours Clara Haskil' with leading European orchestras under notable conductors such as Giuseppe Sinopoli or Lord Yehudi Menuhin. In addition to his international career as a soloist, he devotes himself to his professorship at the Haute École de Musique de Genève.

The programme of their debut CD corresponds to the artistic credo of the "Philharmonic Ensemble Vienna". The album opens with Mozart's piano quartet in G minor, KV 478 dating from 1785. It is the first of a total of two works that Mozart composed far this instrumentation. The publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister, who had commissioned him with it, had had easily playable pieces for use by the average household in mind. But Mozart, who had composed his opera "Le nozze di Figaro”, "Maurerische Trauermusik" and the piano concert in E-flat major, KV 482, aside from the string guartets for Joseph Haydn during this year, delivered such deep and challenging compositions, that Hoffmeister didn't even publish them. With the piano quartet in B minor, op. 75, composed by Robert Fuchs in 1904, the "Philharmonic Ensemble Vienna" recalls a contemporary of Brahms who is largely forgotten today. Fuchs was born in Frauental in Styria in 1847 and died in Vienna in 1927. There he worked as a composer, conductor and teacher. His students included Gustav Mahler, Franz Schreker, Franz Schmidt and Hugo Wolf. Johannes Brahms highly appreciated him as a composer.
   
The waltz paraphrase from "Rosenkavalier" by Richard Strauss then leads back into familiar Philharmonic territory. In his "Wienerische Maskerad" - and this is where we come full circle with the New Year's Concert - the composer, deeply connected to the Vienna Philharmonics not only through his time as director of the State Opera, references a melody from the chain of waltzes "Die Dynamiden" by Johann Strauss's younger brother Josef. Long before "Rosenkavalier", Richard Strauss composed "Liebesliedchen" in 1893, a lovely, dancing Andantino for piano quartet. In contrast, Carlos Cardel paid spirited homage to the tango with “Por una Cabeza". Michael Rot arranged this immortal hit song for piano quartet. Just as Claude Debussy's beguilingly tender "Beau Soir". All of this makes ideal material to be carried away by in the music of the "Philharmonic Ensemble Vienna” in a most beautiful and entirely Viennese way.

2017/2018
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