A Golden Christmas Felix Klieser & Wiener Concert-Verein

• John Rutter (b. 1945): Deck the Halls:
• 1Rutter: Deck the Halls01:42
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750): Weihnachtsoratorium, BWV 248 - Teil 3:
• 2Bach: Weihnachtsoratorium, BWV 248 - Teil 3: VIII. Arie. "Schließe, mein Herze dies selige Wunder"04:26
• Adolphe Adam (1803 - 1856): Cantique de Noël:
• 3Adam: Cantique de Noël03:50
• Mykola Leontovych (1877 - 1921): Carol of the Bells:
• 4Leontovych: Carol of the Bells01:14
• Thomas Helmore (1811 - 1890): Veni, veni Emmanuel:
• 5Helmore: Veni, veni Emmanuel03:39
• George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759): He Shall Feed His Flock:
• 6Handel: He Shall Feed His Flock04:18
• Johann Sebastian Bach: Weihnachtsoratorium, BWV 248 - Teil 1:
• 7Bach: Weihnachtsoratorium, BWV 248 - Teil 1: VIII. Arie. "Großer Herr und starker König"04:14
• Engelbert Humperdinck (1854 - 1921): Hänsel und Gretel:
• 8Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel: Abendsegen02:36
• Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643 - 1704): Pastorale sur la Naissance:
• 9Charpentier: Pastorale sur la Naissance02:34
• Dieterich Buxtehude (1637 - 1707): Das neugeborne Kindelein:
• 10Buxtehude: Das neugeborne Kindelein06:55
• Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 - 1767): Machet die Tore weit, TVW 1, 1074:
• 11Telemann: Machet die Tore weit, TVW 1, 1074: II. Arie. "Jesu komm in meine Seele"03:59
• George Frideric Handel: Tochter Zion:
• 12Handel: Tochter Zion01:23
• Heinrich Kaminski (1886 - 1946): Maria durch ein' Dornwald Ging:
• 13Kaminski: Maria durch ein' Dornwald Ging01:58
• Max Reger (1873 - 1916): Es kommt ein Schiff, geladen:
• 14Reger: Es kommt ein Schiff, geladen02:10
• Friedrich Silcher (1789 - 1860): Adeste Fideles:
• 15Silcher: Adeste Fideles02:40
• Franz Xaver Gruber (1787 - 1863): Stille Nacht:
• 16Gruber: Stille Nacht03:04
• Total Runtime50:42

Info for A Golden Christmas

Horn player Felix Klieser loves snow and the freezing cold, even if he doesn't get much of it at home in Hanover. Ever since his childhood, winter has been his favourite time of year - and not just for climatic reasons: "Even today, I'm an absolute Christmas fan and can't think of anything better than coming back from a walk in the snow to a warm house and slowly thawing out with a cup of hot chocolate. Little lights, tins full of biscuits, a visit to the Christmas market - this time of year is definitely my highlight!" enthuses the horn player.

The desire to record an album of Christmas music has therefore existed for many years. He often financed his studies by performing in the Christmas Oratorio. As is well known, the Advent season is always a boom time for brass players. Freely adapted from Bach: "Tönet ihr Pauken, erschallet ihr Hörner!" But the idea was repeatedly postponed, other recordings came along. It actually took 10 years with six albums released before he was able to fulfil this wish. In the meantime, Felix Klieser has built up an international career and has made the horn sound more frequently again as a soloist instrument on the big stages. It's time to fulfil a wish, as Christmas is also known for: And so the album title "A Golden Christmas" incorporates the colour of the horn not entirely by chance.

Felix Klieser has selected enchantingly beautiful melodies for his new album, which, like its predecessors, will be released by Berlin Classics. These include the heartfelt plea "Jesu, komm in meine Seele", an aria from Telemann's cantata "Machet die Tore weit", the old Advent carol "Maria durch ein Dornwald ging" and "Stille Nacht", which crowns every Christmas Eve. Alongside solemn carols such as "Adeste Fideles" or the yearning "Es kommt ein Schiff geladen", there are lively pieces such as the classic "Tochter Zion", a melody from Handel's oratorio "Judas Maccabäus", or the old English carol "Deck the Halls".

The composers range from the North German Baroque master Dieterich Buxtehude to the British composer John Rutter, who was born in 1945. The album thus covers a wide range and includes different eras and styles. Felix Klieser receives musical support from the first-class Wiener Concert-Verein. Founded in 1987 by members of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the chamber orchestra upholds the tradition of Viennese classical music on the one hand and cultivates contemporary repertoire on the other. It is the perfect line-up.

The experienced arranger Wolfgang Renz, with whom Felix Klieser had already worked on his album "Beyond Words", was chosen to arrange the works. As was the case with J.S. Bach, the so-called "parody method" is used to create completely new pieces and contexts from works that have already been composed. This is why Bach's Christmas Oratorio is also a must on this album and is represented on the new album with two arias: "Schließe mein Herz dies selige Wunder" and "Grosser Herr und starker König".

Felix Klieser succeeds in transferring baroque arias, choral works and songs so sensitively to the horn that his instrument literally sings the melodies and its multi-layered tone colours effectively imitate the human voice. He has already demonstrated this masterfully on his aria album "Beyond Words". He uncompromisingly trusts in the universal language of music and its effect. "The idea is that everyone can develop their own ideas while listening to the music," says Felix Kieser. "That's the exciting thing about it: there's no 'right and wrong'. Everyone associates something different with the music." Even without knowing the text or the symbolism, you can simply enjoy this music and feel a sense of security with the swaying 12/8 time of the aria "He shall feed his flock" from Handel's oratorio "The Messiah" or the "Abendsegen" from Humperdick's opera "Hansel and Gretel".

"A Golden Christmas" is intended to act as a light in dark times and put us in a festive mood. This was no easy task, as the recordings were made in the middle of summer in Vienna, which made it impossible to imagine snowy winter landscapes, candles and open fires. But the musicians knew how to help themselves: "We brought some Christmas decorations with us, unwrapped some biscuits and off we went," reports Felix Klieser with a grin, providing an audio guide to this album.

Felix Klieser, horn
Vienna Concert Society

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.

Highlights of the 2021/2022 season are the beginning of Felix Klieser’s two-year residency with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and his US debut as part of an extensive tour with the Basel Chamber Orchestra and tenor Ian Bostridge in spring 2022. Among others Felix Klieser will be performing with the London Mozart Players at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest and with the Festival Strings Lucerne in the Munich Prinzregententheater. Other highlights of the season are appearances at music festivals such as the Gezeitenkonzert, the Staufener Musikwoche and the Moselmusik festival. Felix Klieser will present his current album Beyond Words with transcriptions of baroque vocal works in several concerts with the CHAARTS Chamber Artists before his new recording with the Zemlinsky Quartet will be released on the Berlin Classics label in early 2022. In December he will be the soloist at this year’s Audi Christmas Concert in Ingolstadt.

In exciting chamber music projects, the young horn player will appear in various line-ups at the Brahmstage Baden-Baden, the Beethovenhaus Bonn, the Schubertiade Hohenems, the Dubrovnik Music Festival and the Heidelberger Frühling. His chamber music partners include the Danish String Quartet, Sebastian Manz, Andrej Bielow, Martina Filjak, Boris Kusnezow, Tanja Tetzlaff, Dag Jensen, Dominik Wagner and Klieser’s long-time piano partner Christof Keymer.

As a member of the project ensemble “The Impossible Orchestra” of the conductor Alondra de la Parra, Felix Klieser will play in the first edition of the Pax Festival in Mexico in the summer of 2022. The cast of the virtual orchestra created during the corona pandemic includes Rolando Villazón, Alisa Weilerstein, Edicson Ruiz, Albrecht Mayer and Maxim Vengerov. In Mexico, the musicians of the “Impossible Orchestra” can be seen live together for the first time after their digital success. The contemporary composer Rolf Martinsson is dedicating a horn concerto to Felix Klieser, which will be premiered and recorded with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern in spring 2022.

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.

On social media, Klieser likes to let his audience participate in his everyday life as an artist and also take a look behind the scenes at concerts. His horn “Alex”, a model 103 from the Alexander Brothers (Mainz) leads a life of its own on Instagram and Facebook and can be seen cooking, reading and vacationing. Felix Klieser has been teaching his own horn class at the Münster University of Music since 2018. He regularly passes on his knowledge in master classes.

This album contains no booklet.