Press Archives

On June 30th Jan Vogler kicks off a European tour with the Baltic Youth Orchestra and conductor Kristjan Järvi, featuring works related to the countries of the Baltic Sea region:

June 30 - Gdansk, Poland: Sala Koncertowa
Baltic Youth Orchestra and Kristjan Järvi (conductor)
Pärt: Pro et Contra
Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33

July 2 - Copenhagen, Denmark: Tivoli
Baltic Youth Orchestra and Kristjan Järvi (conductor)
Pärt: Pro et Contra
Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33

July 5 - Pärnu, Estonia: Oistrach-Festival
Baltic Youth Orchestra and Kristjan Järvi (conductor)
Eller: Prelude
Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33

July 8 - St. Petersburg, Russia: Mariinsky opera, White Nights Festival
Baltic Youth Orchestra and Kristjan Järvi (conductor)
Pärt: Pro et Contra
Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33

On June 18th, watch for the release of "My Tunes II" (Sony Classical), which features works by Saint Saëns, Paganini, Mendelssohn, Fauré, Glasunov, Kreisler, Wagner among others. Order it HERE.

Spectacular concerts and record revenue draw outstanding press and public acclaim

In a fitting conclusion to 'Russlandia', the spectacular 33rd edition of the Dresden Music Festival, the public was treated to a wonderful open-air concert featuring David Krakauer's "Klezmer Madness!," a fascinating mix of Klezmer, jazz, rock, funk, soul, blues and hip-hop. The Intendant of the Dresden Music Festival, Jan Vogler, is delighted with the result: "We are very happy with the enthusiasm of the audience and the wonderful atmosphere throughout the Festival. The beautiful weather of the final weekend made parting from 'Russlandia' a little easier for us."

A dedicated champion of new music, Jan has recently premiered a piece by American composer John Harbison, and will premiere a new cello concerto by Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian.

On April 24, Jan Vogler will give the world premiere of a new work by Tigran Mansurian, to be broadcast live on radio and 3sat Television. Commissioned and performed by the WDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Semyon Bychkov, the concert falls on the anniversary of the 1915 Turkish massacres that wiped out over a million Armenians. “Ubi Est Abel Frater Tuus” (Where is your brother Abel?) is a single movement concerto comprising the three parts of a traditional requiem – Kyrie Eleison, Dies Irae and Agnus Dei – which depicts the story of an Armenian family during those troubled times. In a recent interview for The Independent, the composer stated that “If a few words must be said about this piece, I would be content if attention were brought to the silences, especially of the silence underlying the question “Where is your brother Abel?”, as well as my feelings of respect toward this silence, and the absence of pathetic gestures, loud cries, shouts and calls in the music.” Mansurian has dedicated his work to Jan Vogler and Semyon Bychkov.

On April 8 2010 Jan Vogler premiered Pulitzer laureate John Harbison’s double concerto for cello and violin in Boston, together with violinist Mira Wang, the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of the Moritzburg Festival in August 2009 (artistic direction: Jan Vogler) have been the European premieres of two works by John Harbison (2009 composer-in-residence): Abu Ghraib for violin and cello and the piano trio No. 2.

Jan Vogler gave an interview for mundoclasico.com, about the Dresden Music Festival 2010. Please read it here: http://www.mundoclasico.com/2009/documentos/doc-ver.aspx?id=cf09cdad-c988-4f34-a6f6-16a708e02709

"Wang and Vogler played with lovely tonal warmth and focused commitment, but also with an easygoing poise, as though this piece had already entered their repertoire."
The Boston Globe, 9 April 2010
http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2010/04/09/bso_unveils_new_harbison_for_husband_and_wife/

"Two Bach experts perform the music of the young Johann Sebastian Bach. Both Jan Vogler and Martin Stadtfeld are much the same age as when Bach composed these works and apart from their in-depth knowledge of Bach’s work, there is a virtuosic energy and sense of performance that must have been very close to what Bach intended for the time. I found this CD enthralling, they are works that are seldom heard yet you feel as though you are present at the first performance and want to applaud. (...) If you are a Bach fan this is a must. "
ClassicFM South Africa, 8 February 2010

Jan Vogler and The Knights have published their new album, "New Worlds". It is their second album for Sony Classical and features works by Copland, Dvorak, Ives, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Osvaldo Golijov. The CD was released in Germany in January 2010 so watch for international release dates soon!

I wish you a happy 2010, full of music!
It is always an exciting moment when a new musical year begins. Between christmas and New Year’s Eve I always take time for myself and try to collect the energies for all upcoming concerts and projects. Going through my calendar for 2010, anticipation rises. Antipation of concert highlights like the world premiere of the double concerto by John Harbison with the Boston Symphony and James Levine, of the world premiere of Tigran Mansurian’s cello concerto with the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Semyon Bychkov, or of duo recitals with wonderful partners such as Hélène Grimaud or Martin Stadtfeld.
But I am looking forward just as much to my two festivals, the Dresden Music Festival and the Moritzburg Festival. Both projects inspire me greatly and give me the opportunity to influence the musical life in Germany. Being the host for colleagues from all over the world means a lot to me, and everytime very special moments arise: In the encounters with both the musicians and the audiences.

Jan Vogler and Martin Stadtfeld went to the studio together for the first time, to record Bach's cello sonatas, originally for viola da gamba and harpsichord [Sony].
Just released in North America!

After last year’s motto »New World«, the theme of the Dresden Music Festival in 2010 will now be »Russlandia«, focusing on the music of Russia. It will be the second festival under Intendant Jan Vogler.

Jan Vogler: »In 2010, the Dresden Music Festival will introduce a unique survey of Russia’s music. Especially in the 20^th century, the tension between East and West became a creative impetus for ingenious Russian composers and interpreters. Twenty years have passed since the >Iron Curtain<  came down and it is now time to approach the works by Russian composers and their modern interpreters from a different angle: from the centre between East and West.«

The program 2010 as well as a video summary of the press conference on 29 October can be found on www.musikfestspiele.com.

Cellist Jan Vogler is looking ahead to a very active new season which he started with a performance of Strauss’ Don Quixote at the Edinburgh International Festival together with the BBC Scottish Symphony and Donald Runnicles.

On 8 April 2010 Jan Vogler will premiere Pulitzer laureate John Harbison’s double concerto for cello and violin in Boston, together with violinist Mira Wang, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and James Levine. Highlights of the Moritzburg Festival in August 2009 (artistic direction: Jan Vogler) have been the European premieres of two works by John Harbison (2009 composer-in-residence): Abu Ghraib for violin and cello and the piano trio No. 2.

Also in April 2010, he will premiere the new cello concerto by Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian. The concert date is 24 April, Armenian commemoration day of the Turkish genocide between 1915 and 1917. It will be the opening concert of the MusikTriennale Cologne 2010, together with the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Semyon Bychkov.

Next to numerous recitals with pianists Hélène Grimaud (25 October Dresden, 28 October Munich) and Martin Stadtfeld, Jan Vogler will be guest of the Pacific Symphony (Grant Llewellyn), Cincinnati Symphony (John Storgårds) and Singapore Symphony Orchestras (Christoph Poppen) this season, among others.

Sony will release two new CDs within the next months: Bach’s gamba sonatas with Martin Stadtfeld, and Dvorak’s Silent Woods, the second CD with The Knights orchestra from New York. The Knights opened the Dresden Music Festival in May 2009, the first festival under Jan Vogler’s direction, to great critical acclaim.

The next Dresden Music Festival will run from 19 May-6 June 2010, the Moritzburg Festival 2010 from 7-22 August.

Welcome to Jan Vogler’s new homepage! On these pages, you will find not only the cellist’s detailed biography but also his discography, sound bites, current press clippings, photos, video clips, as well as selected concert dates and other news, regularly updated. We look forward to your visits!

The violin has more glamour, the viola more soul, the bass more thundering power. But the cello remains the most versatile member of the string family, and there could hardly be a more inviting introduction to its charms than "My Tunes" (Sony Classical), a new disk by the German cellist Jan Vogler. Vogler's intense and febrile sound is restrained by classical discipline and enriched by a searching musical intelligence. His accounts of short works by such disparate composers as Bach, Tchaikovsky, Elgar ("Salut d'Amour"), and Henry Mancini ("Moon River") are brisk, eloquent, and immaculately detailed. (...)

Russell Platt

CD Feature/ Jan Vogler: "Concerti Brillanti"
World premiere recordings in all their timeless glory: Vogler lends a furious and unadjusted note to the music.

"If you listen to recordings from the 1970's and 1980's", Jan Vogler told us in our interview with him, "you will be surprised how few interpretations will still convince you." It is an interesting opinion amidst the talk of how futile it is to even try to reproduce the magic of the supposedly "golden years" of classical music releases today - and a first explanation why "Concerti Brillanti" sounds so succinctly and unmistakably like a 21st century album.

If you bundle this train of thought with the always positvely critical and ever-inquisitive mind of Reinhard Goebel (conducting the Münchner Kammerorchester on this occasion), then you end up with a recording which doesn't even waste a second copying the sound of abovementioned recordings from the 1970s and 1980s, but instead sails towards uncharted waters. The combination of digital precision and thrust when it comes to production, absolute clarity in the instrumental timbres and of organic layering in the arrangements make the CD a fresh and lively statement of unfiltered energy. When Vogler travels back a full 300 years in musical history, he expects the methodes, insights and techniques of an instrumentalist to not stand still either and to go hand in hand with the most up-to-date technology in order to be able to express his inmost convictions. And then, in this particular case, there may even have been a second reason for this approach:

"Concerti Brillanti" contains three world premiere recordings and it seems as though Jan Vogler wanted them to shine in all their timeless glory, rather than present them as yet another stuffy discovery from the vaults. The elegance and romance of Friedrich Hartmann Graf, the lean splendour of Johann Adolph Hasse as well as the creative opulence of Johann Michael Haydn now seem to speak to us from our own time and as immediate as any contemporary composition. The slow second movement of the "Concerto in A Major" by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach especially (the only previously documtened work on display here), is as brooding and halucinogenic as any movie score. Vogler is always in the centre of attention, but his interpretations are marked by a strong respect for the texture of a piece and for playing an assigned part in its overall purpose. In the Largo of the Bach-Concerto, his concrete melodic lines prevent the track from sliding down into oblivion, preparing for the upbeat resolution in the finale. Elesewhere, he lends a furious and unadjusted note to the music, lest it should turn too sweet or provides ragged edges where it risks becoming overly smooth. And just as often, surprisingly perhaps for a solo recording, he takes a step back and joins the ranks of the Münchner Kammerorchester, whipping it forward with powerful propulsion.

In his versions, it is hard to believe these concertos have never been performed in a studio before. "Concerti Brillanti" is a disc which does not need several spins before making sense, even though it does win with each listen. Jan Vogler may not hold many recordings from the past in high esteem. But this disc has a good chance of still convincing audiences in twenty to thirty years from now.

Tobias Fischer

NEW YORK - Though celebrated German cellist Jan Vogler's forthcoming series of Philadelphia concerts looks like an intelligently devised sortie - two Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia performances, a Curtis Institute master class, and a chamber music recital in the spring - it's just a less-anonymous version of visits he's made for years.
"I go to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra. Many friends of mine went to the Curtis Institute and stayed," he said the other day. "Now I hope there will be friendship between the people of Philadelphia and me."

And it's probably overdue. Vogler has been an important American presence, particularly in the Northeast, for years. His breakthrough recording - the Dvorak Cello Concerto on Sony Classics - was made with the New York Philharmonic. He has an increasingly active chamber music relationship with Canadian pianist Louis Lortie, with whom he'll play an April 13 recital presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society at the Independence Seaport Museum, where he played about 15 years ago in a Music from Marlboro ensemble. More immediately, he plays the C.P.E. Bach Cello Concerto today and tomorrow with the Chamber Orchestra at the Kimmel Center.

Now 42 and the father of two children, Vogler bounces between his Central Park West apartment and his residence in Dresden. Though at a point in life when some famous musicians find practice time harder to come by because of family duties or weariness with the profession for which they've trained since childhood, Vogler discusses his cello as if it is a benevolent addiction.

"I love to play the cello so much. I need contact with it almost every day," he says. "I start my day playing one of the Bach suites. If I go for a week without playing, I'm not as even, emotionally. I try to develop sounds that go further than we expect a piece of wood would produce. I'm perfectly content to do that my whole life."

Vogler is of a generation of musicians trained in the isolation of the former East Germany, but among the few to graft that onto the ultra-American Marlboro Music School and Festival that would have been out of reach before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It was at Marlboro, where he spent several summers through 1991, that he met his Boston-based wife, Mira. As a geographical compromise between Boston and Dresden, they moved in 1997 to New York - "a great city to find out what I like and what I feel."

The first half of his life sounds like the black-and-white portion of The Wizard of Oz. He began playing cello as a kid and performed his first solo concert at age 16. His primary teacher was his father in a family so steeped in music - and so strict about it - that he was told mistakes weren't permitted in adulthood. Any. Just recently, when recording his newest disc, Concerti Brillanti, he nearly walked out of the studio because he was so disappointed in himself. What saved him is his current belief - "perfection as an aim is important, but as a result, it is not" - that is another milieu, another hemisphere, from where he came from.

"My whole life opened up after the wall came down. But I believe that focus on one thing can be good. Most of my childhood we had no TV, few movies, no tennis, no bowling. We were going to the theater almost every night or hearing concerts, practicing a lot and discussing music. At the conservatory in East Berlin, and we had a lot of talks about [Hermann] Hesse and [Stefan] Zweig, to understand these writers, as well as music."

His young-adult turning point, one that normally would have been a catapulting experience in the West, felt more like graduate school - he became principal cellist of the Dresden Staatskapelle, one of Germany's great orchestras. Vogler was all but drafted for the coveted position: He was invited to audition, though he was only 20 and knew little more than music for cello. They loved his playing, and he got his own apartment - a big deal then.

What followed, though, were what he called "quiet years."

"Dresden was a dark city. Not much going on," he says. "I was studying opera scores. I practiced a lot. I continued my musical education. I definitely wouldn't have been a soloist if I hadn't had that time. It's impossible to understand music if you only study the cello repertoire. It's too isolated. That time saved me from a crisis. I wasn't thrown into the market like many colleagues who finish studying, play their instruments well, and then start playing concerts all over the place."

The dissolution of East Germany led him to Marlboro, where he played alongside the likes of Joshua Bell, and discovered any number of other approaches to music, all significant yet hard to single out. Now, he views any given piece through a broad set of references. Many believe their study of a piece begins and ends with the score; Vogler explores what was happening in the composer's life and all that was around him. Even in discussing his recent disc of cello encores titled My Tunes, his transcription of "Moon River" comes with a detailed explication of the film for which it was written, Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Vogler approached the rather larger Dvorak Cello Concerto with burning conviction that the Czech composer, who began it while living in New York, was absorbing all kinds of American influences, as opposed to writing from a place of nostalgic sentiment heard in his more Czech-based work. Taken together, Vogler's result is some of the toughest Dvorak on disc. Where most players linger over a phrase, Vogler turns the musical corner and is on to the next.

"We all know that Dvorak had a lot of anxieties in New York. He was scared of the the big city . . . those facts we know," he says. "If you look deeper in the piece, it's not the same mood of pieces written in Bohemia. There's more passion and fire and rhythm."

For the C.P.E. Bach Cello Concerto he plays with Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, his research into the royal courts that composer inhabited brought him to a very different approach: passion that burns from within precision. "Even the 16th notes have to be played so that they're very alive. Very different from Vivaldi. This is like Steve Reich or Philip Glass . . . where every note has to be placed in the right timing."

The piece is on his Concerti Brillianti disc, which, curiously, shows Vogler and a cockatoo on the cover, skeptically eyeing each other. A play on his name, since vogel is German for bird? Actually, no: "It's the idea of the masked 18th century. In these [royal] courts, everybody was dressing up and pretending to be something or somebody . . . It was a big theater . . . [and] very irritating when you compare it to our democratic times now. We thought this cover looked very baroque.

"But it's not my job to do this kind of work. I do what's inside the disc."

David Patrick Stearns

The Secret of Dvorak's Cello Concerto

The title of this new CD may sound hokey at first but it turns out to be completely justified.

What the enterprising young German cellist Jan Vogler has done here is to explore the melodic and compositional roots of Antonin Dvorak's immensely popular Cello Concerto (Op. 104). In doing so, he postulates an intense secret romantic link between the composer and his sister-in-law, expressed by the inclusion of thematic material from his love song "Lasst mich allein," a particular favorite of hers.

Add to this scenario the fact that she lay dying in Prague while he was writing the concerto in New York, and you have material for both a great concerto and a romantic movie.

To illustrate Vogler's theory, the disc begins with the song itself, sung beautifully by Angelika Kirchschlager, accompanied at the piano by Helmut Deutsch, followed by rapturous performance, by Vogler and the New York Philharmonic under David Robertson, of the concerto in which melodic fragments of the song are embedded.

In case we didn't get the point, the song is then repeated in a cello-and-piano version before we hear Kirchschlager sing "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" and "Wilt Thou Be Gone, Love," both by Stephen Foster, whose music was a substantial influence on Dvorak. As if to prove that the folkloric influences in the concerto are not entirely American in origin, the disc concludes with the song cycle, "Ziguenerlieder (Gypsy Songs)" in versions shared by Kirchschlager and Vogler, with Deutsch again providing sensitive accompaniment.

Anyone who thinks this is errant pedantry has only to listen to the way in which these technical and emotional connections are made by the music itself. In fact, one listener found hints of the "New World" symphony as his ear and brain became tuned to Vogler's (and Dvorak's) wavelength.

Richard Storm

Cellist Jan Vogler's time is divided between two very different cities: New York and Dresden. And, as he tells Dennis Rooney, that's just the way he likes it.

'I consider the day the Berlin Wall came down the luckiest of my life, because otherwise I could not lead the life I do today without leaving my family deserted in East Germany.'

Jan Vogler is speaking of having two homes, one in Dresden and the other on Manhattan's Central Park West, where he was shortly after Christmas when we met.

'I keep two places because I play so much in Germany. But I love New York. It is my passion to live here and I seem to work best here. New York is the perfect environment in which to be creative, which makes studying and practising great here.' He has led this transatlantic existence since 1997, when he decided to devote himself full time to a solo career, something unimaginable in the East Germany in which he grew up, which he describes as a trap for anyone with ambitions for a solo career. The more usual goal, he says, was to 'study hard and then get the best possible post.'

Vogler enjoyed a leg up in reaching his goal. Both his parents were musicians in Berlin, where he was born in 1964. His mother was an orchestral violinist and his father assistant principal cellist of the orchestra at the Komische Oper. At six Vogler was handed a cello. 'My father thought I looked like a cellist,' he says. 'My brother was taller, so he became the violinist.
I liked the cello from the beginning. I doubt that I would have liked any instrument more.'

Vogler's father taught him until his mid-teens. He says that being instructed by a parent is 'terrible'. 'Your parent either overestimates your abilities or the opposite. The latter was the case with my father. His intention was to give me a good foundation, but he was incredibly strict. He made me learn all the scales in thirds and octaves. He would call out: "D flat major, in thirds" and I had to respond as if he had pushed a button. Since I practised at home, he could hear all my mistakes then and in the lesson too. Later, I was able to work with people who were less strict, but my father really helped me to understand how things work, so that when something goes wrong I can analyse the problem and correct it.'

At 18, by then a pupil of Josef Schwab, Vogler made his debut in a Berlin recital. 'Of course I played an elaborate and, by my standards today, stupid programme: the Arpeggione Sonata followed by Locatelli, and in the second half, the Prokofiev Sonata and the Brahms F major.' At 19 he spent a summer in Marlboro. 'Siegfried Palm heard me in a class and said that he must get me to Marlboro. I didn't think it possible because the Iron Curtain was still in place. But he made Felix Galimir hear me during a tour. Three months later, I was in Marlboro. That's where I learned my English - I didn't speak a word when I arrived. I loved America right away and I'm very grateful to it for giving me, after my strict training, the freedom to be individual and "let it out". That was why I grew so attached to America and made a tremendous effort to live here.'
That day was still far in the future, but Vogler discovered at Marlboro that much of an older style of European music making had survived there and elsewhere in the US. 'I met Feuermann's widow and I discovered that players like Galimir preserved a style that was to an extent also preserved in East Germany, which remained connected to the old German tradition. In West Germany, cellists like Navarra and Tortelier began to teach shortly after the end of the war and encouraged students there to adapt to the French school. Now I'm happy that didn't happen to me, but at the time we were rather jealously looking over the Wall because we had only the Leipzig school of Klengel (who had taught my grandfather). We were resistant to the Russian school. Frankly, East Germans weren't exactly well treated by the Russians, so we never valued Rostropovich as highly as he was valued in the West. When we heard the younger Russian players, we were impressed but it wasn't what we were longing for. I found that when I came to Marlboro.'

Not long after his summer in Marlboro, Vogler's performing career began in earnest when, in 1984, he was appointed principal cellist of the Dresdener Staatskapelle. At 20 he was the youngest person ever to hold that position. 'Because I lived in East Germany, I had opportunities with orchestras that I would never have had in the West. I was invited to audition. There was no application, no tape. Anyone familiar with how orchestral auditions are conducted today would find it astounding. Each candidate was heard on a separate day. I was asked to perform the Haydn D major Concerto and the Dvorak, both complete, with the orchestra.

As I waited to make my entrance in the Dvorak, I listened to the horn solo being played by Peter Damm, the principal then and a celebrated musician in East Germany. "What could be nicer," I thought, "than to play this concerto once with this orchestra?" So I played very freely. It was like a concert. I had prepared all summer. My father, who had access to all of them, urged me to examine every important orchestral solo just in case. I could play them all by the time I went to Dresden but I certainly was not expecting anything. When the conductor of the audition, Hans Vonk, came to me afterward and told me that I had been given the job, I was very surprised.'

Vogler recalls his arrival in Dresden after his appointment.

'At 20, I felt very much an adult. I had been pushed hard by my teachers. After I played my debut recital when I was 18, I was told repeatedly that my student days were over and that I was now a grown-up. As principal in Dresden, I sat among grey-haired men, many of whom wore beards, but - I'm not being immodest - they didn't scare me. Now, when I look at photos from that time, I ask myself how they could have taken that matchstick-thin boy walking in with his cello at all seriously. I was very confident in my playing, maybe a little overconfident, because when I arrived I had no experience with orchestral playing. I remember playing Der Rosenkavalier for the first time; one rehearsal for each act and then the performance. I learned my part but, except for my solos, I had no idea how to integrate it with the rest of the orchestra. Having studied all those solos probably saved me in the beginning, because when I played a solo I sounded good, but when the cello section saw me, they must have realised that I needed a lot of guidance. Even so, I was devoted to mastering my new job. I cancelled all my concerts for the first year, which then seemed to me such a long time.'

Dresden in those days, recalls Vogler, was 'very dark'. 'It had a lot of buildings that still showed traces of bombing and fire. There was nothing to do but play, read, listen to records and study the cello.'

He recalls the solitude of those days with gratitude. 'I think that everyone needs such a quiet time to build up the reserves for the rest of one's life.' As principal in Dresden, he had the opportunity to perform all the major concertos with the Staatskapelle and also to tour. Once, he replaced Heinrich Schiff in the Schumann Concerto with the Berlin Radio Symphony, which led to a meeting with the elder artist. 'Someone had sent him a tape of that performance and he invited me to a masterclass. What I found most valuable about Heinrich was his freedom in individual performance. What he does with a cello nobody else does. I always felt that when he sat at the cello it was an experience to see how far a piece could be adapted to his individual physical characteristics. He had a vision about energy on the cello.'

In 1988 Vogler made his US debut in Chicago, playing the Strauss Romance with the Staatskapelle and Vonk. He toured the US again in 1996, performing the Schumann Concerto with Giuseppe Sinopoli. His growing reputation as a soloist and the demise of the East German state led to his decision to resign from the Staatskapelle in 1997 in order to devote himself entirely to a solo career. That same year he established part-time residence in New York. The following year he made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in the complete Beethoven cello sonatas. Other New York appearances within the past two seasons have included the New York premiere in Carnegie Hall of the Concerto by H.K. Gruber, with the composer conducting, and a performance with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein in Avery Fisher Hall, playing the Adagio movement of the Burger Concerto and the infrequently heard Korngold Concerto.

European and Asian tours have been supplemented by a series of concerto and sonata recordings for Berlin Classics. In 2002 Vogler received an Echo Award (Germany's equivalent of the Grammy) as best instrumentalist, and last year he began to record for the German branch of Sony Classical. The first release was of Faure and Schumann piano quartets with colleagues from the Moritzburg Festival. Last month, Sony Classical released two works of Richard Strauss: the Romance (which Vogler premiered) and Don Quixote, with the Dresdener Staatskapelle conducted by Fabio Luisi.

Apart from his solo work, Vogler is busy with activities surrounding the Moritzburg Festival. He founded the event in 1993 to foster a collaboration between musicians and composers of international stature and gifted younger musicians from Europe and America. These collaborations continue well beyond the festival season (which takes place in Dresden in August), with concerts performed throughout the world. In New York festival artists were heard in three Carnegie Hall programmes last September. Moritzburg embodies some of Vogler's ideas about integrated aspects of performance.

'We aim to identify players with a common approach to phasing, colour or any of music's many other qualities. In that way we can build interpretative "families",' he says.

Vogler himself has a very clear idea of how he wants to sound.
'It was always in my mind what a cello should sound like. I wanted to sing on it, and I had the idea of this very transparent, singing but penetrating sound. My sound ideal was placed somewhere between Feuermann, Piatigorsky and Leonard Rose.'

He plays a 1712 Giuseppe 'filius Andrea' Guarneri. 'A friend who was principal in the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra owned it and had a love-hate relationship with it. I only loved it: it seemed to do everything I wanted. It sings, it's extremely penetrating and transparent, rather bright. My friend kept complaining about it screaming, of being scared by it. One day he told me that he had decided to sell it and had already put it with a dealer. I was horrified, but he hadn't thought that I could possibly have afforded it. Me, an East German and the Wall only recently down? But I went to the Dresdener Bank and had a long talk, telling them of my future plans. Someone there must have liked me: they lent me the money. I bought it and everyone thought I was crazy.
I was the first East German musician to do such a thing. But when I played it in Dresden for the first time, in Don Quixote, it was like a new world for me.'
The cello, says Vogler, is 'a very mature partner. It has its own life.' He admits that he talks to the cello, 'mainly when I practise. If I try something three or four times one way, the cello tells me: "try it like this." In the end, I give up maybe 20 per cent of my ideas because the cello has a strong character. I believe in teamwork; you need a partner for everything. Whatever surrounds you is stronger than you. That's why I need lots of practice time, so I know that the cello and I have talked about every bar and agreed. Then, on stage, I can just go.'

Saint Saëns violin concerto no. 3 in b-minor op. 61, cello concerto no. 1 in a-minor op. 33, La muse et le poète op. 132 Mira Wang (violin), Jan Vogler (cello) Hannover Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Thierry Fisher (Conductor) Berlin Classics 0017432BC

Jan Vogler principal cellist of the Dresden Staatskapelle at th eage of 20 has for the past five years devoted himself to a solo career, drawing critical acclaim on concert tours of Europe and North America. His account of the Saint Saëns first cello conserto includes a number of unscripted rubatos and changes of pulse, each playing an important role in shaping his affectionate view of the music.
Apart from a moment of wayward intonation at the opening of the final section, Vogler is technically immaculate; the tricky little cadenza at the score's mid point is perfectly negotiated. He is so obviously enjoying the work that at times there is a reluctance to observe the composer's pianissimo markings, through he is in the company of almoust recorded version.

Mira Wang's performance of the Third Violin Concerto is equally compeiling, the virtuos elements of the score never allowed to divert attention from the gracefulness of the music. She takes an uncommonly tender view of the slow movement and accomplishes the finale's pyrotechnics with such ease that it is the music's happiness that remains in the mind.

The two soloists come together in the delightful La muse et le poète, a title added later at the request of the composer's publisher, the violin being the muse with the cello as the poet. Wang's silvery Strad and Vogler's Andrea Guarnerie could hardly be more ideally cast.

Microphones a tittle too close to the woodwind robs them of really quiet playing, but this is a disc of clear and lucid quality. Recommended.
David Denton

Although the competition in Jan Vogler's chosen repertoire is tough, he more than holds his own with the best in the catalogue. There are, of course, differences of emphasis, partieularly in other versions of Schubert's Arpeggione: Maisky (on DG), for instance uses more rubato, opting for greater intimacy and a more obvious sense of vocalisation while Rostropovieh on Decca takes a generally more expensive view. Vogler, partnered by the fine Bruno Canino, seems to follow the latter, his greatest strength lying in an intense and eloquent shaping of the vocal melodies.

The Brahms Sonata is released swift on the heels of Schiff's outstanding Philips recording, and they are not dissimilar in approach. Again, Vogler s distinetion comes in his searing delivery of line and a compelling intensity. The finale is also a triumph, partieularly with regard to the inherent balance problems, and Vogler s part is clearly articulated with a careful pacing of the coda that loses nothing in drama. The ensuing collection of Brahms song transcriptions continues the underlying idea ofthe vocal qualities in the Arpeggione, and bears the stamp of authority, having been published in Brahms s lifetime by Simrock. Serving as an appropriateiy lyrical foil to the finale of Brahms s Sonata, these Lieder have variety and transcribe weil for the cello, particularly the poignant Minnelied op.71 no.5.