According to the German Music Industry Association (BVMI), this is the first time that this has been decided in proceedings on the merits. The ruling is in line with the current case law of the Munich Higher Regional Court, according to which Vodafone must block access to the illegal website kinox.to.

According to the BVMI, structurally infringing websites generally have no legal notice and no address that can be delivered. The operators are interested in offering infringing content in order to generate high internet traffic and advertising revenue by placing banner ads and so on.

From July 20 to 23, 2019, the StradivariQuartett invites you to attend the StradivariCLASS for the second time. What began a year ago with over 30 young musicians taking part will be extended next summer. The members of the renowned Stradivari Quartet Xiaoming Wang and Sebastian Bohren (violin), Lech Antonio Uszynski (viola), Maja Weber (violoncello) and Per Lundberg (piano) will teach masterclasses tailored to the needs of professional and amateur musicians. In addition to the instrumental subjects, solo singing can also be studied. This year, master classes for string chamber music ensembles will be offered for the first time. All master classes take place on the premises of the cantonal school "Kollegi Schwyz".

Participants in the StradivariCLASS will have the opportunity to be judged by a jury on July 18 and 19, 2019 as part of the StradivariCONTEST. They can look forward to attractive prizes and the opportunity to perform at the prizewinners' concert at the Seehotel Waldstätterhof Brunnen. All participants in the StradivariCLASS will also receive a pass for 5 concerts at the StradivariFEST Gersau.

Following the StradivariCONTEST and the StradivariCLASS, the StradivariFEST will take place in Gersau and the surrounding area from July 24 to 28.
 

With the exclamation Hear it New! as a subtitle, National Sawdust, an organizer from Brooklyn, opened this year's Classical:NEXT. Industry representatives met for the eighth time in the De Doelen concert hall in the city of Rotterdam for four days of intensive exchange. This mixture of international trade fair, conference and concert formats offers the diverse "classical music" sector topics and space. Personal contact, intensive networking and the opportunity to discover new initiatives are what make this conference so attractive for the more than 1,300 participants, regardless of whether they represent institutions with small or large budgets. The joint "Swiss Music" stand offered a large number of Swiss labels, ensembles, festivals and associations the opportunity to present themselves internationally. As in previous years, it was organized by the Fondation Suisa, Pro Helvetia and the Swiss Performers' Cooperative.
For the first time, a Higher Music Education Pre-Conference with representatives of the music industry, one of the rare encounters between education and market providers in the classical music sector. The involvement of universities is essential; the network meeting of the European Association of Conservatoires (AEC) was chaired by John Kieser, New World Symphony (CAN).
 

The dense conference program included in-depth discussions about the ongoing challenges of the digital market. For example, many institutions and ensembles are still faced with the question of how to achieve successful digital marketing. Streaming the live concert (London Symphony Orchestra)? CD production or a monthly track for fans (National Youth Choir GB)? Podcast, app, rehearsal videos or professional multi-media presence including curated backstage offerings? Clever communication should reach new (younger) listeners, support fundraising (good storytelling is essential for successful crowdfunding) and not neglect the loyal fans.

The goal of all communication efforts is still undisputed: The "live concert" should remain the centerpiece in the future. Critical voices on issues relating to the dark social web or algorithms that cannot be influenced were not heard here.
 

One focus was on panels on diversity and gender equality. The exchange format "Women in Music Breakfast" (Southbank Centre London) was very much focused on the topic of gender equality. Composers Brigitta Muntendorf and Anna Meredith spoke with Gillian Moore about the obstacles to professional development and ways to overcome them. Both musicians work as multimedia artists, have developed their own ensembles and formats due to a lack of other opportunities and rely on established groups of fans and supporters.

Lydia Connolly (HarrisonParrott) asked whether equality was already in sight on the concert platform. Even though success stories such as those of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Alondra de la Parra and Simone Young are now familiar to a wider audience: In the UK, 5.5 percent of all classical concert programs (listed by the Royal Philharmonic Society) have been and still are conducted by female conductors - a frustrating finding. James Murphy rightly emphasized that it is not time for a change and that those responsible must finally get out of their comfort zones and act if they do not want to continue to push the same old products and programmes onto an oversaturated market as relics of a patriarchal system.

According to Australian conductor Nathalie Murray Beale, rejecting attributions (for example as a "black female composer") is not expedient and costs too much energy. Role models are essential, women should talk about how (difficult) the path to success is - keeping quiet does not help, the public should be sought and used to repeatedly name the inequalities.

In the panel "Composer Gender Equality", Claire Edwardes, Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring (Australia), also explained that there is simply no reason not to design contemporary music formats and programs in a balanced way. But here, too, reality shows (see Donne Women in Music 2018) that the leading orchestras and concert halls consistently perform only around 5 percent works by female composers.
 

The conference was complemented by show cases (touching: "Duets with Jim" by Dutch singer Andrea van Beek; full of verve: the Stegreif-Orchester Berlin), evening concerts (special: "Stalin's Piano" with Sonya Lifschitz and Robert Davidson) and club programs (including a Swiss act: reConvert).

This year's Innovation Awards went to the PRS Foundation for its international "Keychange" initiative to achieve a 50:50 situation in music institutions and festivals, Umculo, a Berlin-based initiative for opera productions with South African communities, and the Chilean collective Resonancia Femenina.

The next Classical:NEXT will take place from May 13 to 16, 2020.
 

In the first round of calls for proposals, three calls for proposals were carried out in the area of selective production funding in 2019: in the fields of music, theater/dance and programs by cultural event organizers. A jury of experts from within and outside the canton assessed the applications received and awarded a total of CHF 230,000. The grants go to the following projects:

Theater/Dance (8 applications)
- BAZOOKA BANDI: "Raffzahn Jack und die Rächer der Gartenbausiedlung", 40,000 francs. Patric Gehrig, Julia Schmidt. With: Jürg Plüss, Blind Butcher, Saskya Germann, Michael Eigenmann, Corinne Odermatt, Madleina Cavelti, Sonja Eisl, Bureau Substrat

- Dlaboha and the rope team: "Cytology 1/3 - the performative primal cell", 40,000 Swiss francs. Damiàn Dlaboha. With: Christine Glauser, Moritz Achermann, Lion-Russell Baumann, Judith Florence Ehrhardt, Timo Keller, Gilda Laneve, Elke Mulders, Jules Gisler

- I-Fen Lin: "takes place now", 40,000 Swiss francs. I-Fen Lin. With: Beatrice Fleischlin, Sebastian Elias Kurt, Kim Emanuel Stadelmann, Patrik Zosso, Kevin Schneeberger, Laura Ritzenfeld

Music (21 applications)
- Alois: Release and promo, 20,000 francs. Martin Schenker, Florian Schneider, Lukas Weber, Pascal Eugster. With: Dominik Meuter, Moritz Flachsmann
- GeilerAsDu: Album "Fyre Festival Diaries", 20,000 francs. Luzian Rast, Mike Walker, Fabrizio Zihlmann, Jwan Steiner, Raphael Fluri
- Tanche: Album "Tanche", 20,000 Swiss francs. Christian Zemp, Jonas Albrecht, Elischa Heller, Chadi Messmer

Programs from cultural event organizers (10 applications)
- Konzertkeller im Schtei: "im Schtei im Exil", 20,000 francs. Marco Sieber, Erich Brechbühl, Remko van Hoof, Marcel Gabriel. With: Helen Sieber, Miriam Wicki, Markus and Cornelia Brechbühl, Cyrill Bühlmann, Silvia Fleischlin, Andreas Steiner, Roger and Claudia Bühlmann, Lukas and Martina von Dach, Denise Gabriel, Maria Joller
- aha Festival Association: "aha Festival", 30,000 francs. Christoph Fellmann, Ana Matjasevic. With: Patrick Brigger, Cornelia Kazis, Valentin Groebner, Mikael Krogerus, Julia Reichert

Calls for tenders for selective production funding in June 2019
The second round of calls for proposals for 2019 has already begun and concerns the fields of music, theater/dance, annual programs of publishers as well as contributions to the fine arts and applied arts: graphics and design. A total of CHF 350,000 is available, distributed as follows:

- Grants under the Music call for proposals are awarded for publications that appear from January 2020 and the associated costs for promotion and distribution. A total of CHF 60,000 is available.

- Contributions totaling CHF 120,000 from the call for proposals in the area of theatre/dance are intended to support professional theater and dance professionals and their productions, which will be staged for the first time from January 2020.

- The call for annual programs from publishers serves to promote annual programs from publishers with a cultural focus (in the fields of literature, music, art, design, comics and photography) in 2020 and 2021. A total contribution of CHF 40,000 is available.

- Grants totaling 70,000 francs can be awarded in the call for proposals for fine art. The Applied Arts call for proposals awards work grants totaling CHF 60,000 to artists in the fields of illustration and animation.

The City of Zurich has set four cultural policy priorities for the years 2020 to 2023: It wants to improve framework conditions, make cultural funding more flexible and test new forms of funding, strengthen the overall view in funding and improve cultural participation.

For example, the city wants to provide more affordable rehearsal rooms for musicians. Individual institutions are to receive higher contributions so that they can continue to fulfill their mission in the future. In order to gain greater scope for attracting private funding, the Tonhalle Gesellschaft Zürich is to be transformed into a non-profit public limited company.

According to the city's press release, cultural promotion also wants to be able to react more quickly and flexibly to new developments. Flexible and contemporary funding instruments should "stimulate innovative, creative thinking and action". Cultural promotion must also review its funding instruments, processes and criteria. This will take place in the next mission statement period with the participation of young artists in a process with an experimental and laboratory-like character. The aim is to test new forms of funding quickly and easily.

The City of Zurich wants to strengthen the overall view of the funding landscape. Institutional and project-related funding are combined and complement each other. The "Dance and Theater Landscape Zurich" project, which the culture department carried out in 2017/18 with the broad involvement of stakeholders, is a model for this. As a result of the project, the City Council intends to introduce a new funding system for dance and theater in the 2020-2023 period. At its heart is concept funding, which will be used to award grants with different durations. This will give new initiatives better opportunities and strengthen the independent dance and theater scene.

The focus on "Strengthening participation, living diversity" from the last mission statement period 2016-2019 will be continued: cultural offerings in Zurich should appeal to as many different groups in society as possible. Among other things, greater promotion of cultural initiatives in the outer districts is planned.

The municipal council will decide on many of the planned measures, and in some cases a municipal vote will be required.
 

A breathing noise, a few flickering sounds, a suppressed scream, an expressionist ostinato figure: Giorgio Battistelli is a master at creating an unmistakable atmosphere with just a few sounds, and in his music theater piece I Cenci announces in the very first bars something of the oppressive feeling that will spread through the auditorium over the next five quarters of an hour. The plot of the four-person play, which premiered in English at the Almeida Theatre in London in 1997 and has now had its Swiss premiere in Lugano, is as succinct as it is brutal. It is set in Renaissance Rome and centers on the corrupt and morally depraved Count Cenci. He rapes his daughter Beatrice, who murders him with the support of her mother and fiancé and is ultimately executed. The evil story is based on real events from 1599, when there was a laughing third party, the Pope. He took advantage of the family's ruin to get his hands on Cenci's fortune, with whom he had business connections.

The material inspired Shelley to write a play in 1820 and Stendhal to write a novella in 1837 in his Chroniques italiennes. Antonin Artaud based his four-act play on these two sources in 1935 Les Cenciand this in turn served Battistelli as a model for his libretto. Artaud exaggerated the story to monstrous proportions, and the fragmentary, short sentences that Battistelli distilled from the original text sometimes seem like stabs to the living flesh. Artaud's idea of a "théâtre de la cruauté", which is intended to bring out the affects in their raw state and freed from all conventions, remains omnipresent in Battistelli's artificial reading. Count Cenci, portrayed by Roberto Latini as a coolly calculating monster, is a libidinous egomaniac who imagines the rape of Beatrice (Elena Rivoltini) as the destruction of her ego. When he monologues about his feelings, he takes over the narrative perspective and we descend with him into the deepest abysses of his psyche. It is at such moments that Artaud's terrifyingly precise view of the evil in man comes to the fore.
 

Battistelli has artfully split the stage narrative into text, music and scene. By dispensing with singing - the four performers have pure speaking roles - he has created a melodrama that is given a spatial dimension through the use of microphones and live electronics. While the speaking roles distance the action, as in epic theater, the emotional potential of the drama unfolds primarily in the music. It comments on and deepens the spoken word in an effective way, but without any overheating. Battistelli has also included image projections as a further element.

Carmelo Rifici's production benefited from the conceptual openness of the original and tended towards multimedia theater. In Francesco Puppini's video projections, which ran simultaneously on several screens, the actions mentioned in the text and only hinted at in the play were shown as film sequences in black and white. We followed the camera through long corridors, staircases and corridors of rooms in a deserted palace - a clinically clean, nightmarish scene in which the master of the house wandered around like Minotaur in his labyrinth, stalking his daughter and finally hunting her down like a frightened deer. To brighten up the dark perspective at the end, a solo dancer (Marta Ciappina) was allowed to dance her poetic circles as an epilogue in Lugano - Beatrice was not supposed to die.

The spatial sound carefully modeled by Fabrizio Rosso (sound direction) and Alberto Barberi and Nadir Vassena (live electronics) made a decisive contribution to the dramatic intensification and spatial expansion of the action. It arched over the entire auditorium, with a total of over two hundred settings pre-programmed. The voices and instruments were discreetly amplified, transformed in places and moved around the room. Cenci's ominous footsteps in the empty palace circled above the rows of spectators. Francesco Bossaglia at the conductor's desk kept the complex musical progressions firmly under control at all times.
 

The very well-attended performance in the large hall of the new LAC was a co-production of the LuganoInScena theater association, which had engaged the professional actors, and the Concert series 900presente. The Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, provided the sixteen instrumentalists, all advanced students, as well as the extensive technical team involved in the sound and visual realization.

With Battistellis I Cenci The project was a challenging one, especially when it came to the delicate room acoustics. The fact that it was so successful and that a performance of impressive cohesion was ultimately achieved is due not least to the harmonious cooperation and great commitment of all those involved.

Such public performances of contemporary works have been a significant enrichment of musical life in Ticino for several years. The Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana is continuing the series this year with a performance of Shostakovich's Seventh in a co-production with the Zurich University of the Arts. This will be followed next April by a staged performance of Luciano Berio's Coro for forty voices and instruments, followed by a tour of western Switzerland.
 

© LAC Lugano

The building is planned as a timber construction. The spatial program includes four sound rooms that can be tuned like an instrument. There are also two outdoor stages for outdoor music experiments. The Klanghaus is to be built on the current site of the Seegüetli Hotel on Lake Schwendi above Unterwasser. Compared to the hotel, the Klanghaus will be built further away from the lake. The demolition of the hotel and the special architecture will enhance the landscape conservation area on Lake Schwendi.

60 to 80 participants can use the sound house per course day. Three groups can work undisturbed at the same time. The general public will be able to experience the Klanghaus as part of guided tours. Workshop concerts are also planned, and it will be possible to use the rooms for educational, club and company events on the subject of sound.

The canton is planning the Klanghaus as the client. Klangwelt Toggenburg will operate the house at its own expense. The total cost of the project is 23.3 million francs. Klangwelt Toggenburg will finance CHF 1 million of this. A credit requirement of 22.3 million francs remains for the canton. In 2016, the first project to build the Klanghaus Toggenburg failed in the final vote of the St.Gallen cantonal parliament.

The ZKN was founded by the lawyer Florian Schmidt-Gabain and the literary scholar Thomas Strässle, who lead the ZKN as President and Vice President, and are supported by an Advisory Board consisting of Lionel V. Baldenweg, Michael Haefliger, Beatrix Ruf and Julia Voss. The ZKN is organized as an association based in Zurich, Switzerland.

On November 21, 2019, the opening conference of the ZKN will take place at the Kunsthaus Zürich. Topics include the estates of Hilma af Klint, Emil Bührle and Max Frisch. The estate of Charlie Chaplin, who composed his own film music - something that is often little known - will also be presented. Kate Guyonvarch, the director of the Chaplin Office Paris, will give a talk on the subject.

More info: www.zkn.ch

In contrast to other European countries, Great Britain almost defiantly stuck to the traditional tonal, mostly four-movement symphony even after the Second World War. Of the large number of British works in this genre, however, almost only those by Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Walton were able to establish themselves on the continent. The symphonies of such outstanding composers as Arnold Bax, York Bowen and Michael Tippett are hardly noticed in this country, let alone performed. The fact that one female composer - Ruth Gipps - has also achieved remarkable things in this field is likely to have escaped the attention of even most connoisseurs of British music. Chandos has now released a CD with her 2nd and 4th symphonies and two short orchestral works, which is highly commendable because it closes a real gap in the repertoire.

Ruth Gipps (1921-1999), whose music is entirely in the English tradition in terms of form, harmony and sound, is half Swiss. Her mother Hélène Johner studied as a budding pianist in Frankfurt, where she met her future husband Bryan Gipps. She came from Basel and her mother was Caroline von Weissenfluh from Meiringen. Ruth showed exceptional talent for music as a child: her first published piano piece, The Fairy ShoemakerShe began composing at the age of eight. As a young woman, she studied composition with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob, as well as oboe with Léon Goossens. She was so versatile that in 1945 she not only played in the orchestra at the premiere of her first symphony by the City of Birmingham Orchestra, of which she was then a member as oboist and cor anglais player, but also performed Alexander Glazunov's first piano concerto as a soloist. She later founded the London Repertoire Orchestra, which she conducted for decades, an ensemble designed to give young professional musicians the opportunity to get to know the symphonic repertoire. She was also an esteemed composition teacher at three music academies.

All the works on the CD are well worth hearing and are interpreted with virtuosity, color and power by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under the direction of Rumon Gamba. Gipps' music is traditional, but not at all outdated: emotional depth is combined with the joy of opulent orchestral sound, as well as an excellent knowledge of all orchestral instruments, with expressive solos entrusted to the concertmaster, oboe, cor anglais and horn in particular. The dedicatee of the 4th Symphony from 1972, Sir Arthur Bliss, wrote to the composer: "I have been studying the symphony, and the more I do the more I like it." One can only agree with this.

The twelve fun one-minute pieces by Don't Feed the AnimalsOuverüre, ten animal pictures and epilogue for children's orchestra, are suitable as interludes for a performed story. The scampering hedgehog, which pauses shyly at fermatas, the frog's croaking in rubbing small seconds, busy quavers for the ants, trills and tremolo glissandi for the busy bees, the swan hovering in alternating three-quarter and four-four time, the four squirrels scampering in pizzicato leaps and sixteenth-note scales ... It's all cleverly conceived, well distributed among the parts and - with a certain amount of rehearsal - easy to play.

The 14 canons and 6 string trios that Egon Sassmannshaus composed for the Early start in the Steicherensemble provide a variety of keys from a B flat to two sharps. Even a minuet in A minor joins the small baroque dances.

In the Christmas booklet of the same series, 10 Baroque festive dances in simple keys - major and minor - frame 17 of the best-known German Christmas carols in deliberately simple four-part settings for the youngest string groups.

George A. Speckert: Don't Feed the Animals. 12 pieces for string orchestra, score and set of parts (1st, 2nd, 3rd violin, the latter also for viola, cello), BA 10648, € 13.95, Bärenreiter, Kassel

Egon Sassmannshaus: Früher Anfang im Streicherensemble, score for violin, viola (or 2nd violin) and cello, BA 10688, € 12.95, Bärenreiter, Kassel

id., Christmas, score for two violins (one piece for three violins), viola (one piece for two violas) and cello, BA 10689, € 12.95

The composer Christian Gottlieb Müller (1800-1863) is probably quite unknown to many musicians. Perhaps the fact that he was Richard Wagner's teacher may lend him a little more luster. And this is certainly not without good reason: the score of the 15-minute bass trombone concerto from 1832 (already printed by Breitkopf & Härtel at the time) testifies to the good craftsmanship that Müller had acquired through his intensive study of Beethoven's works. The orchestration (2 woodwinds, 2 brass, 2 trp, timp, strings), the key (E flat major), the cadenza-like beginning of the solo instrument, the virtuosity in the 3rd movement and many other features (e.g. melodic line in octaves between flute and clarinet in the 2nd movement) are reminiscent of the 5th piano concerto by his idol Ludwig van Beethoven, written around 20 years earlier.

The Concertino was long considered lost, especially the orchestral version. Only a rather flawed, handwritten piano reduction from the 1950s kept the memory of the work alive. It was not until 2004 that a complete set of orchestral parts surprisingly emerged, forming the basis for the present score. The individual parts are available as rental material, the score and a proper piano reduction are for sale. A truly pleasing alternative to Ernst Sachse's Bass Trombone Concertino - not least for orchestral auditions.

Christian Gottlieb Müller: Concertino for bass trombone and orchestra in E flat major, edited by Nick Pfefferkorn, score PB 33001, € 36.00, Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 2012/2018

When a work of the repertoire is published in a new edition, especially one labeled "Urtext", there are two possibilities in (only a perceived) 95 percent of all cases: Either the editorial decisions compared to previous editions have to be looked for with a magnifying glass (in which case there are usually market considerations behind the edition - and yes: there is a Musik.biz, and that is unquestionably a good thing), or there really is something new, sometimes even spectacular, to discover. This may only concern a single note or an accidental (from Beethoven to Berg), but sometimes there are entire passages that were once lost in the haste of production or in the maelstrom of tradition.

In this respect, the present new edition of Dvořák's String Serenade also arouses curiosity: in addition to the usual minor corrections and additions, it features new bars: There are 34 in the scherzo and as many as 79 in the finale. They can be found in the autograph, but were not included in the printed score published by Bote & Bock in 1879. Admittedly, they were included in the 1955 volume of the complete edition (albeit in the appendix, and were thus once again lost in IMSLP, a repeated gravis defectus). Robin Tait has made a virtue of this necessity and chosen the autograph as the main source for the new edition, thus also integrating the passages that fell by the wayside during printing into the main text (and yet, as a concession to modern practice, has provided them with a vide-note). This means that it can now be freely explored, although Dvořák himself, as a recognized master, never later demanded a new edition. I used the recording with the Orchestre d'Auvergne under Roberto Forés Veses - and yes, the editors at the time may (?!) have made a good decision. But the discussion is open.

Antonín Dvořák: Serenade in E major op. 22 for string orchestra, edited by Robin Tait, score, BA 10423, € 22.95, Bärenreiter, Prague 

The teacher's handbook for the new teaching aid from the publisher Helbling Wind class guide comes with the weighty volume of more than 450 densely printed pages. The textbook impresses with a wealth of extremely varied and stimulating material. In addition to the teacher's book, it includes student booklets for all wind orchestra instruments, play-alongs and online aids that can be accessed via a code, as well as a CD-ROM with a wealth of additional material.

The Wind class guide was jointly developed by five authors, all of whom teach music at secondary school level and have experience in working with wind classes as well as in school music. The aim of the new teaching aid is to combine the playing practice that dominates wind band classes today with the content of school music lessons (music theory, ear training, creating and inventing music). The teaching material is not aimed at a specific age group. It is suitable for use from intermediate level upwards. The teacher's book explains the concept, the underlying ideas and objectives as well as the methods used in the work with the classes in detail.

The teaching part begins with a preliminary course, which takes place without instruments and extends over 3 units, i.e. approx. 6 lessons. This is followed by Basics with instrumental methodology and then the lessons with the instrument, which are divided into two volumes with 23 and 18 lessons respectively (1st/2nd volume). Each lesson offers material and fully prepared lesson plans for 2 lessons.

This concept is based on 3 lessons of extended music lessons per week, divided into 2 lessons of regular music lessons with the whole class and 1 lesson of instrumental lessons in small groups. If less teaching time is available, it may be difficult to complete the two volumes within 2 school years.

In terms of content, the teaching material places great emphasis on teaching music theory. The basics are introduced thoroughly, but also in an extremely varied and playful way, with lots of suggestions for partner or group work. At the same time, the theoretical content is linked to practical playing on the instrument and used for creative tasks. Pupils are always encouraged to engage in practical activities. On average, there are one or two short pieces of music per lesson (chapter), which is rather few. In most cases, the pieces are accompanied by additional suggestions for interpretation, presentation or reflection as well as links to theory. For many pieces, additional four-part class arrangements with a 2nd part, a bass part and an upper part "for experienced players" are available on the accompanying CD-ROM, which allows for individualization of the requirements through internal differentiation.

Using specially marked toolboxes, the pupils are taught specific methods as a craft, how they can work on music independently, practise pieces or acquire musical material. The student booklets are attractively designed with colors and symbols and contain supportive and stimulating pictures and graphics. However, the pages as a whole seem rather overloaded and very text-heavy, which makes accessibility somewhat more difficult.

Wind class guide sets new standards in terms of thematic breadth, the teaching of theory and a general understanding of music, as well as in its methodical and didactic preparation.

Sommer/Ernst/Holzinger/Jandl/Scheider: Leitfaden Bläserklasse. A concept for successful teaching with wind instruments, teacher's volume 1 and 2 incl. CD-ROM and pupils' solution booklets, S7770, Fr. 84.50, Helbling, Belp et al.

The cello literature contains several incomplete works by important composers: Mozart's only work for cello and piano, the Andantino cantabile KV 374 g (Anh. 46), remained a fragment and exists in several foreign additions, of Antonín Dvořák's early Cello Concerto in A major only the solo part and the piano reduction have survived and Othmar Schoeck left the last movement of his Cello Sonata unfinished.

An important discovery can now be added to this (incomplete) list: As part of the Bärenreiter Complete Edition of Camille Saint-Saëns' works, a previously unknown cello sonata has been published for the first time. A letter from the composer from 1919 proves that the work was performed in its entirety during the composer's lifetime. Nevertheless, only the first two of the four movements that were supposedly composed have survived, with the surviving manuscript of the second movement breaking off after 82 bars.

The conception of the sonata dates back to 1913 and Saint-Saëns seems to have struggled with the definitive writing, as he wrote in a letter to his publisher Durand in 1914: "I am working on my duo, which is only progressing with difficulty. What a difficult genre to deal with!"

As in the two sonatas op. 32 and op. 123, Saint-Saëns skillfully plays with rhythmically concise and lyrical passages. Bold harmonic changes are also reminiscent of the tonal language of the 1919 Prière op. 158 for violoncello and organ.

Saint-Saëns' cello oeuvre is given a welcome expansion by this first edition.

Camille Saint-Saëns: Sonata for violoncello and piano in D major (incomplete), first edition, edited by Denis Herlin, BA 10910, € 17.95, Bärenreiter, Kassel

Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Sonata op. 36 is one of the Russian composer's most frequently performed works today. The younger generation in particular, and especially those from the Far East, study this demanding, highly virtuoso piece with passion and dedication.

This was not always the case. Especially in the German-speaking cultural area, this sonata had to fight against a bad reputation in the past. In its Handbook of piano literature Klaus Wolters stated succinctly at the time that Opus 36 had generally received almost only negative reviews. And in a later edition (1977) he no longer mentions it at all. Walter Georgii was annoyed by the "monotonous repetition of motifs". The extensive work is therefore "on the whole not very pleasing" (Piano musicAtlantis Verlag).

Rachmaninov himself was evidently not satisfied with the original conception of his Second Sonata from 1913 and subjected it to a thorough revision 18 years later. He made the piano writing somewhat more transparent and deleted a total of around 120 bars. That's more than 10 pages of music!

Whether he changed the work to his advantage as a result is a subject of constant debate. Vladimir Horowitz solved the problem in his own way and created his own mixed version of both versions with Rachmaninov's consent.

Dominik Rahmer has now published both of the composer's versions in one volume with Henle-Verlag, so that you can easily study the differences bar by bar. As usual with Henle, the music is clearly laid out and easy to read, even in the overloaded first version. The fingerings reveal the skillful practitioner and are by Marc-André Hamelin, who not only knows this repertoire very well.

You can take whatever view you like of Rachmaninov's Opus 36. As in the brilliant Piano Concerto No. 3, the composer's consistent motivic work can also be admired here. All the formal sections are developed from very few musical building blocks and artfully and logically linked together. Once in a somewhat tighter dress (version from 1931), another time in a somewhat more expansive, but perhaps more sensual version (1913).

Sergei Rachmaninov: Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor op. 36, versions 1913 and 1931, edited by Dominik Rahmer, HN 1256, € 19.50, G. Henle, Munich