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Alkan: Paraphrases, Marches & Symphonie for Solo Piano, Op. 39
Mark Viner
Classical - Released January 29, 2021 | Piano Classics
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The latest volume in a revelatory Alkan series from an English pianist with a string of critically acclaimed albums of rare repertoire from the Golden Age of the piano virtuoso to his credit. Perhaps the most enigmatic figure in the history of music as a whole, let alone the 19th century, Charles-Valentin Alkan remains one of the most intriguing and alluring names among the pantheon of pianist-composers. According to Franz Liszt, Alkan possessed the finest technique he had ever seen yet preferred the life of a recluse. The outstanding masterpiece of the album is the Symphonie for solo piano which Alkan drew from his set of 12 Studies, Op. 39. It opens with an Allegro which is one of the composer’s most darkly impassioned conceptions, in which declamatory rhetoric, passionate outbursts and towering climaxes are all bound by a tightly organised structure. The piano writing is distinctly orchestral in nature, hence the ‘symphonic’ designation, demanding that the intrepid soloist make his or her way through towering conglomerations of sometimes ten note chords, thick, chordal tremoli and volleys of double octaves: only fully accredited virtuosi need apply! The Symphonie is placed on this album as the climax to a sequence of grand marches conceived on a similarly grand scale. They include the Three Cavalry Marches, Op. 39, which find Alkan at his most concise, in the Berliozian No. 1, his most eccentric (the trio of No. 2) and whimsical (No. 3). Like them, the Marche funèbre, Op. 26 bears witness to Alkan’s ability to channel a latent and, at times, menacing power through material of the slightest substance. The following Marche triomphale, Op. 27 is a massive, swaggering affair, in contrast to the ruminative melancholy of the opening paraphrase Op. 45 on a poem by Legouvé set in a cemetery and cast in Alkan’s most elegiac vein. A profound sadness also inflects the opening section of the composer’s ingenious instrumental setting of Psalm 137, ‘By the waters of Babylon’. The booklet contains an excellent essay on Alkan and his works by the artist himself. © Piano Classics
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Chopin & Debussy: Piano Works
Ivan Moravec
Classical - Released January 1, 1993 | Vox Box
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Glenn Gould in Concert: Salzburg 1959 (Bach); Moscow 1957 (Bach); Lenningrad 1957 (Bach, Beethoven)
Glenn Gould
Classical - Released September 3, 2012 | Sony Classical
Booklet
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WAVES: Music by Rameau, Ravel, Alkan
Bruce Liu
Classical - Released November 3, 2023 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Jean-Philippe Rameau, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Maurice Ravel: three centuries of French music meet face-to-face to pass the baton in this record that is so admirably interpreted by the young Bruce Liu. For his first studio album Waves (Deutsche Grammophon), the Chinese pianist and winner of the 2021 Chopin Piano Competition at 24 years old, undertakes the delicate mission of constructing and presenting a vast panel of sonoric textures and approaches, unique to each composer and their time. With the valued assistance of technician Michel Brandjes, Liu has managed to erect a monument of subtlety and variations that carefully house the pieces that he interprets. As he himself explains in the liner notes: Rameau’s writing (“Gavotte et six doubles,” “Les Sauvages”) lends itself to a sound that abounds in bursts of rage and passion, contrasting with the misty impressionism of Ravel and his “Miroirs.” Somewhere between the two, “Barcarolle” and “Festin d’Esope” serve as the bridge that certain Romantics sought between baroque music and their own. Bruce Liu revels in the flexibility of his playing, which is precise and adapts to older and more recent repertoire alike. His interpretation of Ravel’s “Miroirs” is particularly admirable for its skillful use of sonoric layers and its sense of time – and, notably, of silence – and brings to mind another beautiful version - that of Pierre-Laurent Aimard, also released on Deutsche Grammophon. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz
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Bach: Goldberg Variations Reimagined
Rachel Podger
Classical - Released October 20, 2023 | Channel Classics
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One may well wonder why (or whether) a non-keyboard version of Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, arguably at the apex of the entire tradition of keyboard music, is at all needed. However, Baroque violinist Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque member Chad Kelly, who "reimagined" the work (arranged is not a strong enough word), offer several justifications for their deployment of the Variations across various kinds of chamber music here. "Despite what many respected and respectful commentators have propagated," Kelly says, "it is not a sacrosanct work of pure, absolute and abstract art." Kelly seeks to use the varied settings to clarify Bach's counterpoint, to examine the musical influences that were in the air when Bach wrote the work, and to "be idiomatic to the historical instruments used in its performance and to the individual styles and genres referenced in the work." All this involves rewriting certain passages. That is a lot to ask, but generally, Kelly and Podger make it work. There are just 18 tracks, with several variations often combined into a little suite. This tends to deemphasize the tripartite structure of the variations, with a canon every third variation. Listeners can make up their own mind about that, but most will be impressed enough by the smooth Baroque winds in the slower variations, especially the crucial Adagio Variation 26, that they will be won over by this unorthodox effort. This release made classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Hamelin: New Piano Works
Marc-André Hamelin
Classical - Released February 2, 2024 | Hyperion
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Marc-André Hamelin, by general acclaim, one of the great virtuosos of the day, here attempts to recapture the compositional as well as technical spirit of the pianistic giants of the past. Liszt, of course, was a pianist-composer, but he was not the only one. Hamelin issued an album of his own etudes in 2010, but in these "New Piano Works," mostly composed during the 2010s, he is even more adventurous. Many of these works are variations of one kind or another, and Hamelin starts off with his own Variations on a Theme of Paganini, previously essayed by Liszt, Rachmaninov, and several others. These variations introduce not only the usual high level of virtuosity but also the eclectic range of references in most of these works; he quotes Rachmaninov's set and also alludes to Alkan, Chopin, Brahms, and others. The variation form is ideal for Hamelin's project, for he can drop in quotations and allusions the same as a 19th century virtuoso would. His Variations diabellique sur des thèmes de Beethoven is a wickedly humorous exegesis on Beethoven's Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120. There are hints of jazz in some of Hamelin's variations, and these flower fully in the Suite à l'ancienne, which annotator Francis Pott proposes as a tribute to the jazz-classical fusionist Nikolai Kapustin; he composed a similar Suite in the Old Style. Hamelin concludes with an explosive Toccata on l'Homme Armé, the medieval tune that served as the basis for numerous Renaissance masses. So Hamelin's range of references is wide, but it is never random, and the listener who missed the subtler allusions will still enjoy the music. This is a bold, highly entertaining re-creation of the role of the classic virtuoso, idiomatically and clearly recorded at London's Henry Wood Hall. This release made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Beethoven: Diabelli Variations
Mitsuko Uchida
Classical - Released April 8, 2022 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Gramophone: Recording of the Month
The late Beethoven recordings of pianist Mitsuko Uchida have been career makers, and it is cause for celebration that she has capped them with the 33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120, a work that perhaps poses deeper interpretive challenges than any of the late sonatas. The Variations often show a kind of rough humor, and a performer may pick up on that, or the player may deemphasize the humor and seek out the epic qualities of the Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109, and Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111. Uchida does neither. The outlines of her usual style, high-contrast and a bit dry, are apparent, but she does not let them dominate her reading. What Uchida realizes is that the abrupt transition from humor to the deepest existential ruminations is part and parcel of Beethoven's late style, and she works to hone the particular character of each Beethoven variation. Her left hand, as usual, is strikingly powerful, and this brings out many striking details (consider the stirring variation 16). The trio of slow minor variations toward the end are given great seriousness but are not in the least overwrought; Uchida achieves an elusive Olympian tone through the final variations. There is much more to experience here, for each variation is fully thought out, but suffice it to say that this is one of the great performances of the Diabelli Variations.© TiVo
Beethoven: The Complete Piano Variations & Bagatelles
Ronald Brautigam
Classical - Released September 6, 2019 | BIS
Booklet
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Ariabesques - WDR Big Band Plays Bach
Niedecken
Jazz - Released May 26, 2023 | Jazzline
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Soaked in Colour. From Purcell to Queen
Isabel Pfefferkorn
Classical - Released June 2, 2023 | Fuga Libera
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Beethoven: Variations
Angela Hewitt
Classical - Released September 1, 2023 | Hyperion
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Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos. 3, 7 & 8
Antje Weithaas
Classical - Released October 27, 2023 | CAvi-music
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Schubert: Lieder with Orchestra
Munich Radio Orchestra
Classical - Released October 6, 2023 | BR-Klassik
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One might react to this album with initial annoyance and ask whether it is really necessary to hear orchestrated versions of Schubert's supremely pianistic songs. It may come as a surprise, then, to find that most of these Lieder with Orchestra were arranged by great composers. They include Benjamin Britten, Jacques Offenbach, and Max Reger, who took on the job because, he said, he hated to hear a piano-accompanied song on an orchestral program. Perhaps the most surprising name to find is that of Anton Webern, but his arrangements are not the minimal, pointillistic things one might expect; he wrote these arrangements as a way of studying Schubert's music, and they are quite straightforward. Indeed, it is somewhat difficult to distinguish the arrangers simply by listening to the music; Schubert's melodic lines tend to suggest distinctive solutions. Perhaps Reger's are a bit more lush than the others, although his version of Erlkönig, D. 328, is one of the few numbers here that just doesn't work (there is no way to replicate the percussive quality of the accompaniment). As for the performances as such, Benjamin Appl is clearly an important rising baritone, and he has a wonderful natural quality in Schubert. An oddball release like this might seem an unusual choice for a singer in early career, but he contributes his own notes, and he seems to have undertaken the project out of genuine enthusiasm for the material. At the very least, he has brought some intriguing pieces out of the archives and given them highly listenable performances. The Munich Radio Orchestra, under the young Oscar Jockel, is suitably restrained and keeps out of Appl's way. This release made classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Beethoven: The Complete String Quartets
Smetana Quartet
Chamber Music - Released August 28, 2020 | Supraphon a.s.
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The Smetana Quartet are a true legend. For over four decades (1945-1989), the ensemble gained critical acclaim and enthused audiences all over world, particularly in the UK, USA and Japan. They attained perfect chime and extraordinary flexibility in voice leading, resulting in part from their playing the entire repertoire by heart. The quartet performed Beethoven’s works throughout their existence – following Smetana, he was the composer on whose music they focused the most and whose complete quartets were in their repertoire from 1974 onwards. They explored some of Beethoven’s pieces for several years before including them in their concert programmes. In collaboration with a Supraphon team, in 1976 the ensemble embarked upon a colossal project, which in 1985 came to fruition with the release on Nippon Columbia of a recording of the complete Beethoven string quartets. Even though the past decade has seen significant changes pertaining to interpretation and technology, the Smetana Quartet’s account of Beethoven’s works is by no means a “museum exhibit”, with their vivacity and dynamism still enthralling today’s listeners. The recording, carefully digitally remastered from the original analogue tapes, is the very first release beyond Japan. Lovers of perfect sound are afforded the opportunity to listen to it Hi-Res 24 bit/192 kHz. © Supraphon
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Debussy: Préludes, Livres 1 & 2
Vestard Shimkus
Classical - Released March 31, 2023 | ARTALINNA
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Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
Glenn Gould
Classical - Released January 28, 2013 | Sony Classical
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Bach: Goldberg Variations BWV 988
András Schiff
Classical - Released August 18, 1986 | ECM New Series
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Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1-9
Bernard Haitink
Classical - Released September 12, 2006 | LSO Live
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Booklet
Beethoven's nine symphonies -- what can one say? The greatest body of orchestral works ever composed? Probably. The most performed body of orchestral works ever composed? Certainly. The most recorded body of orchestral works ever composed? Absolutely. Not only has virtually every conductor recorded a Beethoven cycle, some of them have gotten to record it multiple times: Abbado, Bernstein, Solti, Karajan, and Haitink, among others. What does this proliferation tell us? Usually nothing about the music that hasn't been heard before, but sometimes something about what the conductor thinks about the music. These performances with the London Symphony Orchestra recorded in 2005 and 2006 tell what Bernard Haitink thinks about the greatest body of orchestral works ever composed. And what does Haitink think? Pretty much nothing that hasn't been thought before. His tempos are neither too fast nor too slow, but straight down the moderato. His dynamics are neither too loud nor too quiet, but right in the mezzo. His textures are clear and lucid. His colors are blended and smooth. His interpretations are solid and sincere. But what does Haitink tell us about what he thinks about Beethoven's symphonies? Pretty much nothing except that he is an experienced conductor with a superb baton technique who keeps his opinions to himself. The London Symphony's playing is enthusiastic but too often ragged around the edges for comfort. LSO Live's recording is transparent but the perspective seems to shift from work to work -- sometimes the strings are too far away, other times the brass are too close.© TiVo
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Beethoven : Bagatelles
Tanguy de Williencourt
Classical - Released February 7, 2020 | Mirare
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5 de Diapason
With this album, pianist Tanguy de Williencourt offers an original vision of Beethoven. The album includes various pieces, some with a “Webernian” length of 30 seconds to 2 minutes, consisting in skits into the musician’s imagination, like ripped off pages of the genius’ diary. In the time of Beethoven, French was in fashion. As their French inspired name indicates, the Bagatellen were sometimes light, sometimes erotic. Beethoven’s Bagatellen, as a name (more than a form) punctuated the composer’s entire career. Yet, he referred to them as his ‘Kleinigkeiten’, little things. A series of charming and dedication pieces (Für Elise), they, nevertheless, became almost prophetic in 1825, when Beethoven’s language resolutely began to foresee the future. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Honegger: Symphonies Nos 1-5, Pacific 231, Mouvement symphonique No. 3
Serge Baudo, Czech Philharmonic
Classical - Released January 1, 1991 | Supraphon a.s.
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