ensemble minui - Opera Suites for Nonet, Vol. 2 (2022) [Official Digital Download 24/48]

Located somewhere between chamber music and orchestra, since its founding in 2016 the Carinthian-based ensemble minui has dedicated itself with elegance and finesse to the musical possibilities for large chamber music ensembles. While simple reductions of large orchestral works were initially on the programme, opera music gradually became the great passion of ensemble minui. In the arrangements of clarinettist Stefan Potzmann, the nine versatile orchestral musicians offer listeners with their second recording stylish new perspectives on three large-scale opera works, reduced to what is essential for them: the music!

An Italian opera from 1896, a German expressionist musical drama from 1909 and a Russian opera from 1877 - at first glance, the works assembled in the new album by ensemble minui, La Bohème, Elektra and Eugene Onegin, have little in common (apart from their unbroken popularity with opera audiences since their premieres). But whenever one juxtaposes several works of art that supposedly have little in common, they enter into a dialogue with each other and suddenly appear to be related to each other like siblings, as if their creators had each thought of the other when composing their work. Thus, on closer inspection, the three operas in question also turn out to be a triptych, at the centre of which is La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini. La Bohème and Elektra are linked by their dates of composition. Although 13 years lie between the premieres of the two works, they belong to the artistic epoch of the Fin de Siècle, whose lust for decay pulsates in both operas, albeit in conceivably different ways: in Elektra brute, even violent, seeking the extremes, in La Bohème under the mask of cheerfulness and comic lightness. La Bohème and Eugene Onegin, on the other hand, are close through their common subject matter. Both operas deal with the lives and (love) problems of young people and claim to portray them realistically. It is in keeping with the dubiousness inherent in the concept of realism in view of the fundamentally highly artificial art form of opera that Puccini and Tchaikovsky also pursue very different strategies in doing so. For the former, "realism" means the unsparing exposure of social misery, but also of an almost superhuman courage to live and friendship that overcomes petty quarrels, while Tchaikovsky is more concerned with the inner reality of the emotional worlds of his characters, who, as members of the Russian landed aristocracy, do not have to suffer any material worries - and yet find themselves in existential hardship.

Tracklist:
1. La bohème Suite (After Puccini's SC 67): I. Largo sostenuto (02:24)
2. La bohème Suite (After Puccini's SC 67): II. Andantino affettuoso (04:28)
3. La bohème Suite (After Puccini's SC 67): III. Allegro (01:57)
4. La bohème Suite (After Puccini's SC 67): IV. Andantino (03:55)
5. La bohème Suite (After Puccini's SC 67): V. Allegretto giocoso (02:51)
6. La bohème Suite (After Puccini's SC 67): VI. Allegro moderato (03:26)
7. La bohème Suite (After Puccini's SC 67): VII. Tempo di valzer lento (02:59)
8. Elektra Suite (After Strauss' TrV 223): I. Maestoso (04:38)
9. Elektra Suite (After Strauss' TrV 223): II. Sehr lebhaft (01:53)
10. Elektra Suite (After Strauss' TrV 223): III. Stets sehr bewegt, doch etwas ruhig beginnen (03:16)
11. Eugen Onegin Suite (After Tchaikovsky's TH 5): I. Andante mosso - Allegro moderato (03:20)
12. Eugen Onegin Suite (After Tchaikovsky's TH 5): II. Andante (03:06)
13. Eugen Onegin Suite (After Tchaikovsky's TH 5): III. Allegro moderato - Andante non tanto (03:45)
14. Eugen Onegin Suite (After Tchaikovsky's TH 5): IV. Tempo di valse (05:34)
15. Eugen Onegin Suite (After Tchaikovsky's TH 5): V. Moderato - Andante (03:47)
16. Eugen Onegin Suite (After Tchaikovsky's TH 5): VI. Tempo di mazurka - Allegro vivo (02:44)


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