Gernsheim: Piano Music, Vol. 1 Jens Barnieck

• Friedrich Gernsheim (1839 - 1916): Piano Sonata No. 2 in E-Flat Major:
• 1 Piano Sonata No. 2 in E-Flat Major: I. Allegro molto 04:48
• 2 Piano Sonata No. 2 in E-Flat Major: II. Adagio 04:49
• 3 Piano Sonata No. 2 in E-Flat Major: III. Allegro molto 02:26
• 4 Piano Sonata No. 2 in E-Flat Major: IV. Allegro vivace assai 04:45
• Piano Sonata No. 3 in D Minor:
• 5 Piano Sonata No. 3 in D Minor: I. Adagio molto – Allegro appassionata 09:31
• 6 Piano Sonata No. 3 in D Minor: II. Agitato assai 04:56
• 7 Piano Sonata No. 3 in D Minor: III. Adagio 05:39
• 8 Piano Sonata No. 3 in D Minor: IV. Poco andante – Allegro agitato 07:00
• 6 Preludes, Op. 2:
• 9 6 Preludes, Op. 2: No. 1, Un poco lento e sostenuto 02:51
• 10 6 Preludes, Op. 2: No. 2, Andante espressivo 02:57
• 11 6 Preludes, Op. 2: No. 3, Allegro energico 02:35
• 12 6 Preludes, Op. 2: No. 4, Andantino 04:14
• 13 6 Preludes, Op. 2: No. 5, Allegretto vivace e leggiero 01:59
• 14 6 Preludes, Op. 2: No. 6, Allegro molto agitato 02:34
• Total Runtime 01:01:04

Info for Gernsheim: Piano Music, Vol. 1

Friedrich Gernsheim (1839–1916), born in Worms, on the Rhine, grew up to be one of the most formidable musicians of his age: composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. Even as a teenager, Gernsheim was attracting attention as a virtuoso-composer, earning comparisons with Mozart. These two early piano sonatas – restored by Jens Barnieck from Gernsheim’s manuscripts – combine youthful freshness with praeternatural assuredness, showing awareness of Schumann and anticipating Brahms. By the time of the Six Preludes, written a decade later, Chopin has become the dominant star in Gernsheim’s firmament.

Jens Barnieck, piano

Jens Barnieck
German pianist Jens Barnieck was born in Wiesbaden, Germany and has performed in major concert halls and festivals, including the European Festival Week, Passau, Music Festival Saarland, Jazz- and Classik Days Tübingen, Fluxus at 50 in Wiesbaden, Long Night of Culture Kaiserslautern, Gallery of Old and New Masters Schwerin (Germany); Roaring Hooves, (Mongolia); Ravello Festival, (Italy); Ecole Normale Supérieur, Paris, (France); Performing Tangier, (Morocco); 2 Days and 2 Nights of New Music in Odessa, (Ukraine); Almeida Theatre, (London); North American New Music Festival, Buffalo; ReViewing Black Mountain College, Ashville, North Carolina; at Lincoln Center and in Steinway Hall, New York City; Harvard University, the German Consulate in New York City, (USA).

As an active accompanist and chamber musician he has worked with musicians like Sarah Leonard (soprano), Julia Oesch (mezzo soprano), Kurt Ollmann (baritone), Stephan Breith (First solo cellist State Theatre of Hessia and Festival Orchestra of Bayreuth), Michael Höfele (oboist, Hessische Rundfunk Orchestra and Festival Orchestra of Bayreuth), Florian Juncker (trombone).

Jens has made numerous radio and television recordings and interviews for stations like ARTE, 3Sat, Südwestrundfunk, Saarländischer Rundfunk, Bavarian Radio, Deutsche Welle (Germany), NBC, WNED-FM Buffalo (US), Omroep Gelderland (The Netherlands), RAI (Italy) etc. He performs together with Julia Oesch as “Duo Songways.” A CD with works by Richard Wagner (Wesendonck-Lieder), Friedrich von Flotow (first recordings of the songs) and Patrício da Silva (first recording of the short opera „It’s Never too Late to Lie“ after a libretto by Irene Dische and dedicated to Julia Oesch and Jens Barnieck) is available on www.booklooker.de. Solo piano recordings are available on common download sites like amazon, iTunes, spotify, CD Baby etc.

Because of his interest in new music and cultural cross over, Jens has collaborated with international composers such as Luis Hilario Arévalo, Vykintas Baltakas, Marino Baratello, Carl Christian Bettendorf, John Cage, Gloria Coates, Mayako Kubo, Felix Leuschner, Patrício da Silva, Stefano Gianotti, Piotr Grella-Mozejko, Erik Oña, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Bruce Stark, Karmella Tzepkolenko, Kevin Volans, Christian Weidt, Philip Wharton u.a.

He was part of the International Spinet Project of German visual and performance artist Birgit Ramsauer. Together with Frank Mehring, professor for cultural sciences and American studies at Radboud University in Nijmegen (The Netherlands), he regularly performs in multimedia settings, e.g. “Vogue Mexico”: Diary of German-American painter Winold Reiss (1886-1953) or “Soundtrack of Liberation”: Dutch Liberation Songs after the Second World War.

Apart from concertizing, Jens Barnieck publishes articles and artists biographies: „Between Two Worlds - A Time at Camp Catawba: Tui St. George Tucker“ (together with Wheeler Sparks in: REAL – Research in English and American Literature; Stefan L. Brandt, Winfried Fluck und Frank Mehring, eds., Narr Verlag Tübingen 2010), „progressive 21: Interviews with composers Carl Christian Bettendorf, Ludger Brümmer and Philip Wharton“ (in: Musik-Kontexte-Festschrift for Hanns-Werner Heister; Thomas Phleps und Wieland Reich, ed.; Verlagshaus Monsenstein und Vannerdat, Münster: 2011), Ruth Crawford Seeger (in: „Annäherungen XII“; Clara Mayer, ed.; Furore Verlag Kassel 2001), „Willst du dein Herz mir schenken – Ruth Crawford Seeger“ (in: Ruch Muzyczny; Warsaw, Poland 2008), Pariser Tagebuch: Misato Mochizuki und Mayako Kubo im Gespräch (in: Viva Voce Nr. 68, Magazine of the Archive Women and Music; Frankfurt am Main, 2005), Karmella Tsepkolenko (in: VivaVoce No. 74, Magazine of the Archive Women and Music; Frankfurt am Main, 2006) or „Charles Ives – durch das Leben in 114 Liedern“ (in: Charles Ives - Amerikanischer Pionier der Neuen Musik; Hanns-Werner Heister, ed.; vol. 23 of the Atlantic Texts of the Atlantic Academy Rhineland-Palatinate; Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2004).

Jens Barnieck studied at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Detmold with Prof. Gregor Weichert (Künstlerische Reifeprüfung). Formative was his time studying at the State University of New York at Buffalo with American pianist and composer Yvar Mikhashoff (Master in Musical Performance cum laude). Master classes with Peter Feuchtwanger, London and Prof. Renate Kretschmar-Fischer, Detmold gave precedent-setting impulses.

The Cultural Ministery of the German government and the Federal State of Hessen selected him for scholarships at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France and the German Study Center in Venice, Italy. Jens Barnieck received a grant from the cultural foundation of the city of Taunusstein and was also artist-in-residence at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Together with organist Thomas Wächter and the support of the local vr bank, he founded the concert series “tonAARt”.

Booklet for Gernsheim: Piano Music, Vol. 1