“Alle Menschen werden Schwestern” (All humans become sisters) is a masterpiece by Ukrainian composer Marina Baranova. At the request of the sisters Anouchka and Katharina Hack, she was inspired by Beethoven and Schiller and developed this work with profound emotional expressiveness on the basis of the “Ode to Joy”, which is completed by a cello cadenza to form an independent work.
The starting point was Beethoven‘s “Ode to Joy”. Although the famous melody remains recognizable, the theme sounds in a minor key and unfolds a profound emotional expressiveness, which is completed by a cello cadenza to form an independent work.
The CD entitled “Alle Menschen werden Schwestern” was released in 2024 on the Berlin Classics label (11929879), recorded by Anouchka and Katharina Hack.
Born to a married couple of pianists in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Marina Baranova became acquainted with the piano at an early age. Even before she began her actual training at the age of five, Marina Baranova showed an astonishing talent for improvisation, and her first attempts at composing also date from this time. Thorough instruction in the ideals of the “Russian School” laid the foundation for her outstanding pianism, which she perfected during her studies with Vladimir Krainev at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media at the end of the 1990s. After a series of awards at international competitions and spectacular debuts with major orchestras and chamber music partners, she realized that a “classical pianist‘s career” would only allow her to exploit part of her musical personality. She once again became intensively involved in improvisation, which gradually turned into composing.
To date, her music, influenced by classical music, jazz, minimal music and the capacity for synaesthesia, can be heard on six other highly successful albums