Hornist Felix Klieser Releases New Album of Baroque Arias
Editor’s Note: Originally Published on March 12, 2021. Reprinted with permission.
Press Release
Felix Klieser, on his new album Beyond Words, focuses on the language of music, the stories that it tells – all without any words at all. He places the emphasis on the images that arise before our mind’s eye when listening to the music, on the emotions triggered by the music. For Beyond Words the hornist has chosen various arias by Bach, Vivaldi, Handel and Gluck, each of which describes the various, self-contained musical worlds they encompass in a very individual manner.
For many listeners, the repertoire will probably conjure up memories, since many people will be very familiar with Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus and Ombra mai fù or Bach’s Bereite dich Zion and Wohl mir, dass ich Jesum habe. On this album, they will hear them in a very different form: the choice of Baroque arias and chorales by the master composers Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and George Frideric Handel gives the horn the role of the human voice, allowing it to trace the melodic flow and imitate the sound of the voice. Klieser is accompanied by the CHAARTS Chamber Artists ensemble, founded in 2010 in Zurich, Switzerland. The musicians are able, in harmony with Klieser’s soft timbre, to breathe new life into the Baroque works with their modern instruments.
What is really important for his album however is not virtuosity, but tonal expression, according to Felix Klieser: “It needs to be easy to put into action. The songfulness and the expressive range of sound should always be at the heart, always be the focus.” Listeners are being told a story that is open to any interpretation at all, and this allows them to immerse themselves in a purely musical world. “They don’t have to know what is happening content-wise, just let themselves be led by the music.”
From the point of view of content, the stories told in the arias could hardly be more different. They tell of praise and worship, of horrible fates and freedom lost; problems that were in existence when the works were composed and that are still relevant to this day. “When we play music that is very old, we are communicating with means of expression that people had long before there were such things as smartphones, or airplanes or cars – and yet the subject of music back then was no different to today. That seems to be something that can still move us today, and I find that fascinating.”
The universal, connecting element attributed to music that still seems up-to-date across the centuries is not down to the language of words. It lies in the language of its sound and the associations, emotions and stories that are being related. “You don’t need years of music training in order to connect with music. As a performer, it’s not important what you’re trying to communicate, but the fact that you succeed in getting your message across,” says Klieser, who is an expert in that language like no other. Through Beyond Words he has created a sphere beyond the language – he speaks through music and melody alone.
About The Artist
Felix Klieser is an exceptional artist in several aspects. At the age of 5, he took his first horn lessons, at the age of 13 he enrolled as a junior student at the University of Music and Theater in Hannover. In 2014 Felix Klieser was awarded the ECHO Classic prize in the category best young artist and published an autobiographical book about his fascinating life story. In 2016 he received the prestigious Leonard Bernstein Award of the Schleswig- Holstein Musik Festival.
Particular highlights in season 2020/2021 are performances with the London Mozart Players, the Camerata Salzburg, the Philharmonisches Kammerorchester Berlin, the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Tours with the CHAARTS Ensemble and the chamber orchestra Festival Strings Lucerne are going to take Felix Klieser to Switzerland, to the Prinzregententheater in Munich and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. During the festival season, he will also perform at the Gezeitenkonzerte, the Mosel Music Festival, the Staufener Musikwoche and the Enescu Festival Bucharest. Moreover, Felix Klieser will perform Benjamin Britten’s rarely performed Serenade for tenor, horn and strings with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta under the musical direction of Candida Thompson and the tenor Ilker Arcayürek in February. In December he will be the soloist of the Audi Christmas Concert. Furthermore, Felix Klieser will be a guest at the renowned Seoul Arts Center several times, where he not only gives the big year-end concert with the Korean Symphony Orchestra but will also be heard with a recital program. Together with pianist Martina Filjak and violinist Andrej Bielow, Felix Klieser will play in St. Gallen, Offenburg, Meran and Hong Kong. His other chamber music partners include the Amaryllis Quartet, the Zemlinksy Quartet, the pianist Boris Kusnezow and Klieser’s long-time piano partner Christof Keymer.
In March 2019 Felix Klieser’s recording of the complete Mozart horn concertos with the Camerata Salzburg (with the label Berlin Classics) was released, represented in the Top 10 of the German classical music charts for 3 months. His debut album Reveries with works for horn and piano, which was released in 2013 and was awarded the ECHO-Klassik, was followed in 2015 by Horn Concertos, Klieser’s first orchestral CD with works by Mozart and the brothers’ Joseph and Michael Haydn, which he performed together with the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn under the musical direction of Ruben Gazarian. In September 2017 he published his third CD Horn Trio, recorded with the violinist Andrej Bielow and the pianist Herbert Schuch at the Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) in Munich, on which the horn player not only devotes himself to the profound trio for horn, violin and piano by Johannes Brahms but also to lesser-known works for this exciting line-up.
In the past season Felix Klieser already appeared as soloist with the Camerata Salzburg as well as the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, the Fondazione Orchestra Sinfonica Milano Guiseppe Verdi (Milan), the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, the Festival Strings Lucerne, the Slovenska Filharmonija (Bratislava), the chamber orchestra of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Saarländisches Staatsorchester, the Magdeburgische Philharmonie and the Kammerakademie Potsdam. He has also made chamber music appearances at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Glocke Bremen, the Essener Philharmonie, the Beethovenhaus Bonn, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, the Oxford Chamber Music Festival, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival and the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival.
From 2008 till 2011 he was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Germany (Bundesjugendorchester), where he frequently performed at major venues such as Berlin Philharmonie, Beethovenhalle Bonn, Köln Philharmonie and Philharmonie am Gasteig Munich. He also participated in numerous productions by Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) and has undertaken tours to Austria, Switzerland, Italy and South Africa.
Click here to purchase this new album.
Click here to learn more about Felix Klieser.
Photos: Gregor Hohenberg
Source: Hasko Witte/Büro Für Künstler
