Bernhard Sekles: Chamber Music

Bernhard Sekles (1872-1933) was one of the leading figures in German music in the first decades of the twentieth century, prominent as composer, educator and administrator. In 1928, as director of the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfurt, he established the first academic programme in jazz studies, an act of courage and conviction that unleashed furious attacks from the Nazi press. His own music, banned during the Third Reich, has been virtually forgotten, although he composed in all major genres, including opera, symphony, lieder and chamber music. As the works on this recording illustrate, Sekles' music finds room for diverse elements — including Neoclassicism, Brahmsian Romanticism and jazz — and can be refreshingly quirky.

Solomia Soroka, viola, violin
Noreen Silver, cello
Phillip Silver, piano