VILÉM VEVERKA RELEASES AN ALBUM OF BAROQUE OBOE CONCERTOS

The CD (SU 4188–2) also features superlative internationally renowned artists:
Barbara Maria Willi, Dominik Wollenweber and Ensemble 18+

Watch album teaser: http://y2u.be/kI0ExX-fKnk

If you ask oboists about the golden age of their instrument, they will in all likelihood refer to the first half of the 18th century. It was the time when a plethora of music for the oboe was written – solo and trio sonatas, concertos, cantatas… No court orchestra could make do without the instrument. Many of these pieces were created by the three most feted late-Baroque composers: Antonio Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, and his friend G. P. Telemann, who is deemed one of the most prolific composers of all time.

Although dating from the same period, the works by the three creators represent three very different worlds. Yet that which they have in common is their virtuosity and the associated high technical demands placed upon the soloist. The leading Czech oboist Vilém Veverka is indisputably a virtuoso possessing the necessary skills and qualities. On the new album, he has breathed new life into concertos by the three Baroque masters.

Besides the classicist Ensemble 18+ and the fabulous German harpsichordist Barbara Maria Willi, Vilém Veverka invited along as a special guest to participate in this dream project his former teacher and colleague Dominik Wollenweber, a member of the Berliner Philharmoniker, one of the finest contemporary oboists and professor at the prestigious Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin.

“The driving force behind the origination of my new album was the endeavour to create a recording with such performance parameters that would make it stand out within the context of the world’s best contemporary production. Although we played modern instruments, another of our major ambitions was to present to the most demanding listener an album that would aesthetically match authentic performance on period instruments,” says Vilém Veverka.

With this new album, Veverka has confirmed his position among the most acclaimed oboists on an international sca­le.

Vilém Veverka first drew attention at the 1996 Concertino Praga International Radio Competition, yet his artistic development was significantly influenced by his being a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugend Orchester and his subsequent study with the prominent German oboist Dominik Wollenweber at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, which he linked up to by two years spent with the Berliner Philharmoniker. One of his greatest successes was victory in the prestigious International Oboe Competition of Japan (Sony Music Foundation, Tokyo).

Vilém Veverka has mainly made recordings for Supraphon, which recently released his album featuring the complete cycle of Georg Philipp Telemann’s Twelve Fantasias and Benjamin Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, which has met with great acclaim both at home and abroad.