Philipp Maria Rosenberg (p), Florian Kolb (b) and Lucas Johnson (dr)

base their new album on the hit songs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. If you strip away the facade adapted to the entertainment bands of the post-war period and Schlagerparade evenings, you will come across true gems that collectively form a European counterpart to the Great American Songbook. Rotwelsch therefore shakes off the burden of the aryanized Heile-Welt presentations of the Third Reich and the idealized post-war era, unleashing these fundamentally lean melodies that unfold masterfully in terms of dramaturgy.

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"The world has always rewarded the most ingenious endeavor so miserably! Whoever has had bad luck in life will finally get used to it." In Carl Millöcker's successful operetta "The Beggar Student" (1882), as in many other operettas, beneath the somewhat outdated linguistic level of today lies an underdog mentality, biting satire, deep emotions, and above all – wonderful melodies.

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Rotwelsch aims to bring the melodies of operetta and veristic opera into the present with the same subtlety, finesse, and integrity that Keith Jarrett's trio displays when appropriating the Great American Songbook. A particular challenge is to transfer the melodic arcs that once inspired stars like Richard Tauber, Fritz Wunderlich, or Callas to excellence onto the hammers of the piano and make the strings sing. Through sophisticated harmonization, the melodies take on new colors and serve as an ideal basis for improvisational practice. Sometimes the pieces bathe in emotional, warm harmony; sometimes they celebrate the swing that many of the livelier couplets already inherently possess. The bass and drums leave plenty of room for the development of the melodies by contributing to the reduced atmosphere and focusing on the resonant, clear sound.