CDs
as soloist:
as musical director:
Max Volbers | recorder
Alexander von Heißen | harpsichord, organ
release: 6. September 2024
For his first album as a Berlin Classics Artist, Max Volbers is travelling to 18th century London together with Alexander von Heißen (harpsichord, organ), where it was mainly musicians from abroad without whom musical life there would have been unthinkable...
works by G. F. Handel, G. M. Alberti, J. C. Pepusch, G. Sammartini, J. Paisible, G. S. Carbonelli, A. Corelli and others
‘cleverly curated works’
"(...) incredible musicality, the great virtuosity on both sides, which is not an end in itself, but always aimed at the interaction."
Bernhard Schrammek, Radio3 (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, review here)
"Every interpretation sparkles with a wealth of ideas and technical brilliance, the ensemble playing is precise, creative and joyful."
Thilo Braun, SWR Kultur (review here)
"The CD contains many sound colours, lively ones, dancing ones, melancholy ones. Two up-and-coming artists at the height of their abilities!"
Lars von der Gönna, WAZ 11.9.24
Volbers und von Heißen verstehen es, historische Musik lebendig werden zu lassen. (…) Das Spiel ist stets von Präzision, technischer Meisterschaft und musikalischem Einfühlungsvermögen geprägt. (…) Mit „Foreign Masters“ legen Max Volbers und Alexander von Heißen ein Album vor, das sowohl Alte-Musik-Enthusiasten als auch neugierige Hörer begeistern dürfte. Der kluge dramaturgische Aufbau, die Virtuosität und die Vielfalt der Instrumente machen diese Aufnahme zu einem wahren Kleinod.
Dirk Schauß, Onlinemerker (review here)
"(...) He goes into medias res with such freshness and daring as well as sensitive sound listening that it is pure delight. (...) In terms of articulation, Max Volbers is familiar with all the finesses for a richly varied and detailed interpretation and plays out these possibilities with relish in interaction with the keyboard instrument. (...)
With 'Foreign Masters', Max Volbers presents an attractively programmed album - with plenty of scope for unfolding for himself and his harpsichord partner Alexander von Heißen. This makes the trip to London really fun."
Dr. Matthias Lange, klassik.com (review here)
“Max Volbers avoids the recording's unmistakably baroque tone becoming monotonous, especially by using ten differently tuned and crafted recorders, with which he achieves a refreshing wealth of tonal colour.
Not to mention the flawless technique and creative intelligence of the flautist in homogeneous interplay with his partner on the harpsichord. An original and high-quality addition to the highly competitive offerings on the media market."
Pedro Obiera, Aachener Zeitung 20.09.24
"Next to Dorothee Oberlinger and Maurice Steger, the superstars of the recorder, there is still plenty of room, and the young Max Volbers conquers it with sheer dazzling verve. (...) Alexander von Heissen on the harpsichord provides equally virtuosic and skilful accompaniment. A dream team."
Nürnberger Nachrichten, 1.10.2024
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
Max Volbers | recorder & direction
Alfia Bakieva, Jonathan Ponet | violin
Martin Schneider | Viola
Robert Smith | cello, viola da gamba
Axel Wolf | archlute
Alexander von Heißen | harpsichord
Elisabeth Wirth, Felix Gutschi, Jonathan Volbers | recorder
Anne-Suse Enßle | baroque bassoon & recorders
Arisa Yoshida | contrabass
Piotr Furmanczyk | recording producer & video
Theresa Pewal | photography
"Max Volbers (...) proves himself to be a recorder player of calibre who knows no technical limits: in terms of articulation alone, he offers a feast for friends of everything that is possible on the recorder. (...) he has a considerable instrument-specific and at the same time interpretative musical ability that goes far beyond this sphere in the narrower sense, which has rightly led him to (prize) heights at a young age." - Dr. Matthias Lange, klassik.com
"For the concertos and consort pieces, Volbers invited like-minded colleagues; solo, he delivers circus-ready virtuoso art. The delightful way in which his legato playing in the Purcell Variations transforms into glissando, with all the intermediate steps, is supreme mastery." - Eleonore Büning (RONDO)
"With his incredibly colourful and virtuoso debut album, he is certainly doing the very best advertising for his instrument." - Rainer Baumgärtner, rbb (album of the week)
With his debut CD "Whispers of Tradition" on GENUIN, recorder player Max Volbers presents "a stylistically very diverse program, with two concerti, a premiere, music with variable continuo instrumentation and consort. These are either the composer's own paraphrases, series of variations, arrangements, pastiche and so on - or, as in the case of the Dieupart Suite, arranged for the recorder by the composer himself. The piece "Please enter the Underground" was written by Thanos Sakellaridis for Elisabeth and me. What all the pieces have in common is a joy of discovery and a desire to create new repertoire for the recorder." Together with 11 musician friends and with a total of 26 different instruments - archlute, harpsichord, violin, viola da gamba and, of course, a wide variety of recorders - the winner of the German Music Competition 2021, who studied with Dorothee Oberlinger, among others, explores the possibilities of expanding the recorder repertoire and shows on the recording "in what different formations the recorder can act, and also what the roles are that it takes on."
Perfect Noise, 2024
"Scenes of Horror" is a kind of baroque chamber of horrors with music by George Frideric Handel, Attilio Ariosti, Antonio Vivaldi and Carl Heinrich Graun. As you can imagine, it wasn't just the baroque librettists who took sadistic pleasure in making their characters suffer: It was also a mischievous pleasure for us to chase Laila Salome Fischer through this programme and thus from one nightmare to the next.
kultura-extra.de (5/5 stars)
"With the ensemble Il Giratempo, the singer has congenial instrumentalists at her side. When she takes a break, the recorder of its leader Max Volbers, who also plays the harpsichord, takes over her role.
Laila Salome Fischer masters the colouratura with admirable ease, but also adds dramatic expression. Her vocal colouring comes close to that of a countertenor and, as we suspect, a castrato. The fact that she, who sings major opera roles from the 18th to the 20th century, but also operettas in major European theatres, knows exactly how to interpret baroque music is one of the special qualities of these recordings." - Thomas Rothschild - 7 February 2024Das Opernglas
"In Max Volbers and the Il Giratempo orchestra, she (Laila Salome Fischer) has found like-minded partners who accompany her with exuberant temperament and great precision. In the two purely orchestral pieces, the overture to "L'Olimpiade" by Antonio Vivaldi and the concerto "La notte", also by Vivaldi, they demonstrate the drama and power of these often all too innocuously played pieces. No friend of baroque music should miss this magnificent album." - Review by J. Gahre, issue 2/24
onlinemerker.com
"Montezuma's lament "Ah, d'inflessibil sorte" is therefore all the more poignant and immediate in this recording. The brilliant ensemble I Giratempo under Max Volbers is also able to convince in Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto "La Notte" in G minor with sophisticated dynamics and chromatic vigour. The eerie mood is captured here in a gripping way." - Review by Alexander Walther