Henle Horizons

Manuel de Falla’s "Serenata andaluza" was composed around 1900 and already displays the young composer’s distinctive style: melodies inspired by Spanish folklore and rousing Andalusian rhythms mix wit...

Only few etude works were originally conceived for the viola – that of Leipzig composer Friedrich Hermann is one of them. In 1881 the pupil of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy wrote six virtuoso etudes in...

Published in early 1806, Kreutzer’s "40 Études ou Caprices" for violin – there are 42 today – are the product of his years-long employment at the Conservatoire de Paris and are the most comprehensive...

Johann Nepomuk Hummel was one of the most famous pianists of his time, who could even compete with Beethoven. Among his numerous compositions for piano solo, the Sonata in F-sharp minor op. 81 stands...

Hardly any piece of music is as closely associated with the term "salon music" as Christian Sinding’s "Rustle of Spring". After its publication in 1896, it quickly became one of Sinding’s most popular...

Moritz Moszkowski’s "Étincelles" (sparks) was written in 1886 and numbers among the composer’s best known character pieces. Sparkling runs, elastic repetitions and a dance-like lightness lend the piec...

Born in Prague in 1852, Alfred Grünfeld became a "chamber virtuoso" as a pianist in Vienna during the 1870s and was well-connected within the musical circles of the Danube metropolis. Johann Strauss J...

Composed in 1915 for coloratura soprano Antonina Nezhdanova, Rachmaninoff’s wordless "Vocalise", with its flowing, wistful theme, quickly became a worldwide hit. Numerous arrangements honour this uniq...

After the first edition of Beethoven’s Serenade op. 8 for string trio of 1797, there followed within a few years numerous arrangements for a wide variety of scorings which are largely unknown today. T...

Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe op. 48 is regarded as the epitome of Romantic art song – a cycle full of sensitive poetry and soft nuances. In his arrangement for viola, the renowned violist Timothy Ri...

With the Clarinet Concerto in A major K. 622, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart created one of his most intimate and mature works – a late legacy full of radiance, warmth and lyrical depth. Award-winning violis...

Anyone who loves Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata will sooner or later come across Nikolay Myaskovsky – one of the leading figures in early twentieth-century Soviet music. Myaskovsky studied with Rimsky-Ko...

Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturnes number among the most intimate and at the same time most artistic examples of Romantic piano poetry. Composed between 1830 and 1846, they reflect Chopin’s mature expressive...

Cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and pianist Alexandre Tharaud share a deep artistic friendship, at the heart of which stands Franz Schubert, the central figure in their mutual music-making. Their first jo...

In 2023 cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and pianist Alexandre Tharaud released a CD with the music of the legendary French gambist Marin Marais, newly arranged by the two artists. The album caused a sensa...

In 2023 cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and pianist Alexandre Tharaud released a CD with the music of the legendary French gambist Marin Marais, newly arranged by the two artists. The album caused a sensa...

Among the most popular works by Johannes Brahms are his twenty-one Hungarian Dances for piano solo – inspired by Hungarian music, whose temperament and richness of colour he came to know through his f...

Today, the piano trio composed in 1804 by Johann Nepomuk Hummel unjustly stands in the shadow of the great standard works of that time; yet it combines classical elegance with brilliant virtuosity. Sk...

Robert Fuchs (1847–1927), playfully nicknamed the "Serenade fox" (fox is Fuchs in German) by his contemporaries such as Johannes Brahms, is largely unknown today. He owes his posthumous fame above all...

Popular epithets of classical works often do not stem from the composer – but in the case of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, it is different: "Pastoral Symphony or Recollections of country life. More an e...

Gideon Klein’s String Trio is a deeply touching testament to the artistic and spiritual resilience of musicians persecuted under National Socialism. Only a few days before his deportation to Auschwitz...

Erwin Schulhoff’s String Duo for Violin and Cello, composed in 1925, is the perfect example of the modern, adventurous compositional style of the "Roaring Twenties". In this radical work, the Czech-Je...

The Passacaglia by Johan Halvorsen is a musical masterpiece full of virtuosity and emotional depth; in an exciting manner, it blends Handel’s Baroque style with Halvorsen’s Romantic tonal language. Th...

Jules Massenet is considered one of the great masters of French opera. Thanks to its emotional expressiveness, the famous "Méditation" from his opera "Thaïs" (1894) remains one of the most popular wor...

What one has so long and so boisterously merely played, is awkward to write down. With this charming self-irony, Johannes Brahms described the lively origins of his Hungarian Dances, whose rousing rhy...