Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda (1801-1866)
Ouverture n° 3, op. 55
Ouverture n° 7, op. 101
Ouverture n° 10, op. 142
Concertino pour violon n° 5, op. 133
Concertino pour violon n° 1, op. 15

Ariadne Daskalakis, violon
Kölner Akademie
Michael Alexander Willens, direction

Le praguois Kalliwoda appartient par la chronologie à la fin du premier romantisme. Bien qu’admirées par Schumann, par exemple, ses œuvres regardent plus vers le style antérieur de Spohr que vers les orages désirés par la génération née autour de 1810 (Schumann, Liszt, Wagner). Ses ouvertures sans programme sont brillantes, séduisantes, mais ne cherchent pas la grandeur de celles de Beethoven. Et ses concertinos pour violon montrent son peu de goût pour les développements et la grande forme. En trois brefs mouvements chacun, ils enchaînent tournures virtuoses et pyrotechnie brillante, bien dans la lignée de Spohr ou Rode. CPO avait déjà fait découvrir quelques unes des sept symphonies de Kalliwoda. Sous la baguette alerte de Michael Alexander Wilems et l’archet espiègle d’Ariadne Daskalakis, cette musique fraîche et joyeuse nous touche immédiatement et ne risque pas d’occasionner de migraine. Un disque euphorisant. (Richard Wander)

Owing to a number of CD recordings, Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda, a Bohemian composer who spent most of his professional life as the court chapel master in Donaueschingen, is now known to experts as an insider’s tip between the earlier generation represented by Beethoven and the following generation represented by Schumann and Mendelssohn. Kalliwoda was perhaps the most important mediator between classicism and romanticism, and our new series featuring his overtures and violin concertos most firmly substantiates this judgment. Kalliwoda occupied himself with the overture genre throughout his life. He composed no fewer than twenty-four overtures – which may be a record for the nineteenth century. Kalliwoda was very much interested in making available works that were completely tailored to the function of the opening of a symphony concert: they were supposed to capture the audience’s attention. Accordingly, they had to offer something captivating and exciting without staking a claim to too much individual weight. In their dimensions his violin concertinos, in principle violin concertos reduced in size, are distinguished by highly virtuosic violin figurations, which are outstandingly mastered by our interpreter Adriana Daskalakis. An American by birth with Greek roots, she is valued internationally as an artist with a critical understanding of music and a profound knowledge of musical language and its historical development.