Janina Fialkowska's 2015 release on ATMA Classique is a selection of Edvard Grieg's Lyric Pieces, drawn from the full set of 66 miniatures, which were published between 1867 and 1901. Her choice of the most popular character pieces reflects a common practice among pianists to fit a representative sample on a single disc, necessarily leaving out less familiar numbers along the way. As a result, her CD of 25 tracks is comparable to other highlights albums that typically feature such favorites as the Berceuse, Butterfly, March of the Trolls, Sylph, Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, Evening in the Mountains, and Remembrances. While Fialkowska's long career has yielded many fine recordings of Chopin, Schubert, and Liszt, this sensitive exploration of Grieg is a welcome addition to an impressive catalog that has been focused almost exclusively on the early Romantic period.© TiVo

This double-album release from the specialist Palazzetto Bru Zane label, better known for opera but doing fine here with orchestral music, landed on classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2023, and this is really no wonder. The album puts together many attractive features, beginning with fine work from the beefy (34 violins) Orchestre National de Lyon under conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider. The album comprises a little history of the French tone poem from the third quarter of the 19th century to the second decade of the 20th, and it includes many works that will be unfamiliar to all but specialists, along with a few hits (Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre, Op. 40, Paul Dukas' L'apprenti sorcier ["The Sorcerer's Apprentice"] in a brisk, colorful performance, Emmanuel Chabrier's España, and perhaps Franck's Le chasseur maudit). As for the rest, there are no fewer than four works by women composers: Lili Boulanger, Augusta Holmès, Mel Bonis, and Charlotte Sohy; the Danse mystique of the latter is perhaps both the most obscure and the most compelling. Several works by better-known male composers also seem well worth removal from the historical scrap heap; sample Ernest Chausson's hushed Viviane, Op. 5, or Vincent d'Indy's Istar, Op. 42, the tone poem Wagner never wrote. Or the title work by Henri Duparc, much more familiar as a song composer. More generally, one is impressed by the cohesion of the program as a whole, even as French styles underwent fundamental change. Most of the composers try to show a mastery of the large orchestra and of the big tune as second subject. This is a highly listenable group of pieces that hearers will be glad to know better.© James Manheim /TiVo

The Orchestre Divertimento and its conductor, Zahia Ziouani, often juxtapose European repertory with music from other parts of the world. Ziouani, who is of Algerian background, has a particular interest in the music of that country. She could not have found a composer whose works were more congenial to such a project than Camille Saint-Saëns, who visited Algeria no fewer than 18 times and composed a Suite algérienne, Op. 60, that is heard here, broken up and interspersed with Arabic music. What makes Ziouani's project unique is that there are not two types of music here but three. Many of the Saint-Saëns works are preceded by improvisations in the classical Arabic idiom, on oud, qanun, a traditional viol, derbouka, and the riqq drum. These are quite a musical distance from Saint-Saëns, but Ziouani introduces contemporary Arabic songs, of a semi-popular nature, as an intermediate step. The sets are mostly in related tonalities. This is an ingenious idea that sheds light on both Saint-Saëns, on what he heard when he heard Algerian music, and on the nature of contemporary popular traditions that are rooted in the classical music of the world. The Saint-Saëns performances themselves are entirely creditable, and the album is well recorded at a couple of different locations. A unique release that makes one want to hear more from this distinctive ensemble. © James Manheim /TiVo

The first volume of Cécile Chaminade’s piano music on Piano Classics won the same kind of universal accolades as the rest of Mark Viner’s fast-growing catalogue of albums for the label. His masterful advocacy is helping her to regain the reputation she enjoyed during her lifetime, when she could count Queen Victoria among her legion of ardent fans, in a long and fruitful career capped by becoming the first female composer to be awarded the "Legion d’honneur", in 1913 – when she still had more than 30 years of productive music-making ahead of her. The reason for Chaminade’s popularity is the charm, tunefulness and general accessibility of her music. It touches a ready chord with every music lover, and the fancy titles and not overly virtuosic piano writing made that her works became drawing room favorites of the epoch. Chaminade is principally remembered today as a composer of salon music, but she began her career writing on a much grander scale and with loftier expressive ambitions, both for the piano and in other genres. Such ambitions leave a mark on the set of six Etudes de concert which Mark Viner has compiled from different opus numbers (distinct from the Op. 35 set recorded on Volume 1), beginning in dazzling style with the flashing runs of the Etude romantique, Op. 132 and ending with the no-nonsense counterpoint of the Etude scolastique, Op. 139. Au pays dévasté, Op. 155 is one of Chaminade’s most profound conceptions, among the most serious of her late works, published in 1919 in the wake of the First World War, which she had spent as a nurse to wounded soldiers away from the front line. However, there is also plenty of Chaminade the charmer here, at the peak of her powers in the Six Pièces humoristiques – the first and last of which receive their world premiere recordings here. The album opens with Ondine, among her most supple and delicately textured tone-poems, and closes with the irrepressibly cheeky Lolita, a "caprice espagnol" worthy of Carmen herself. Further highlights in between include a swaying and sensuous Danse créole, Op. 94 and the offbeat, coquettish Guitare, Op. 34. Under Mark Viner’s fingers, Chaminade casts the same spell here as she did over audiences across Europe 150 years ago. © Piano Classics

"Four oeuvres, four pianos" might be a better way of looking at the cover of this album by Alexander Melnikov: Schubert is played on a (simply stunning) Viennese Graf fortepiano from around 1835, Chopin on an Érard grand piano from 1837, Liszt on a Bösendorfer from 1875 and Stravinsky on a modern-day Steinway - the only work which is not played on an instrument contemporary to its composition, as Petrushka dates from 1911, and most certainly not from 2014 like the Steinway in question! The differences between the four instruments are not immediately obvious, but Melnikov's project is to demonstrate just how closely art and instrument follow one another: the Wanderer Fantasy benefits from the clarity of the Graf fortepiano which, while it lacks powerful volume, offers a startling palette of different sounds for the artist to explore. Chopin's twelve Études Op. 10 on the Érard – still within a few years of the Graf – increased the power of the sound in particular, but at the cost of reducing the range of colours in the palette. With the Réminiscences de Don Juan by Liszt, the Bösendorfer unleashes real pianistic thunderbolts, which almost overshadows the content! Finally, Petrushka on the Steinway takes us back into a rather more familiar territory. This is a concept of pairing from Melnikov, whose fondness for historical instruments is well-known. © SM/Qobuz

Was so lovely a recording of such sweet-souled music expected from modernist virtuoso Leif Ove Andsnes? Was it expected that the sharp-cornered and hard-edged Andsnes -- the player whose Schumann is tart, whose Brahms is bitter, whose Chopin is cruel -- could have played Grieg's delightful and delectable Lyric Pieces with such beauty of tone, gentleness of touch, suppleness of phrasing, and such deep and abiding affection? Sure. Andsnes has recorded works of Grieg before, notably on a splendid disc of Lyric Pieces for Virgin, and this EMI recording of more Lyric Pieces is cut from the same soft, silken cloth. But as splendid as that disc was, this one is even better. Not only has Andsnes matured as a player -- listen to his restraint even in such showstoppers as March of the Trolls -- but he is playing Grieg's piano in Grieg's living room in his home at Troldhaugen. In other words, he is playing the instrument upon which these pieces were written played in the room in which they were written. Grieg's Steinway is a mellow-toned instrument with a singing middle range and a ringing upper register, and it perfectly suits his music. As do Andsnes' performances. From the early delicate Arietta (1867) through the sensuous Notturno (1883) and the aching Homesickness (1893) to the shimmering Evening in the Mountains (1898), Andsnes seems in complete sympathy with Grieg's exquisite miniatures. And when Grieg does ask for virtuoso technique as in the rapturously joyous Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, Andsnes, the model of a modernist virtuoso, tears through it with ecstatic abandon.© TiVo

Chasing the Butterfly is the result of a couple of creative people seeing a confluence of ideas and working to produce something unique and unexpected. Pianist Sigurd Slåttebrekk and producer Tony Harrison worked together on a recording of Grieg's Piano Concerto in 2005. The desire to look at the work as if it were a new piece led them to examine the recordings that Grieg himself had made of some of his Lyric Pieces in 1903 in Paris, the composer performing his own works, which at the time would be considered new (or relatively new) music. The next question was "What would those pieces have sounded like on Grieg's own piano?" Lief Ove Andsnes had already used Grieg's piano at Troldhaugen to record some of the Lyric Pieces. What Slåttebrekk and Harrison decided to do was attempt to re-create Grieg's recordings, to capture the music as Grieg would have played it in his own home, in 21st century sound, meaning not just using the same pieces, but also trying to replicate the same tempos, dynamics, and shadings. Slåttebrekk realized that merely listening to Grieg play and then precisely imitating him would not do. He tried to absorb the way Grieg played, the way he handled different types of passages and sounds, to create performances that sound natural and musical. Slåttebrekk succeeds in this, as can be heard in the full Sonata, Op. 7. Grieg was only able to record half of the last movement, but Slåttebrekk gives us the complete work, sounding very fresh and organic. The same is true of the Ballade, Op. 24. There is a brightness and momentum in his playing that makes it come alive. In the Andante moderato movement he uses sensitive phasing and rubato, but not so much that the sense of direction is ever lost. To prove how closely Slåttebrekk comes to Grieg's original, the Grieg recordings are also included, as is a track Harrison put together of the Wedding Day at Troldhaugen that weaves Grieg's and Slåttebrekk's performances. The second disc contains the Piano Concerto recording with Michail Jurowski and the Oslo Philharmonic that started it all. It has some of the same sparkle as the solo pieces and is not treated as monumentally heavy or forcefully as most pianists do. This distinctive release -- something of a twist on period performance practice -- is recommended for any fan of Grieg's music. © TiVo

Saint-Saëns composed many original works for the violin. He also took the art of arrangement to new heights of refinement, believing his transcriptions were independent of their models, following the precedent of composers such as Liszt. This album presents early or alternative duo versions of some of Saint-Saëns’s most popular works, in which the declamatory style of the originals - such as the ever-popular Danse macabre or the habanera-infused Havanaise - is made more intimate and subtle. Composed for the exclusive use of Queen Elisabeth of Belgium in 1918, the Air de Dalila here receives its world premiere recording. © Naxos

Piano Classics presents the first volume in a major new series which promises to become the most comprehensive recorded survey of a central but now little-known figure in 19th-century Italian music. Born in Rome in 1841, Giovanni Sgambati cut an impressive but relatively familiar figure as a prodigious young virtuoso until, as a 21-year-old keyboard lion in the making, he was introduced to Franz Liszt. The encounter changed Sgambati’s life. Liszt, perhaps the single most influential figure in European musical life in the middle of the 19th century, took the young Sgambati under his wing, and his faith was richly repaid. Still in his 20s, Sgambati conducted the Italian premiere of the Dante Symphony and even the premiere of the first (lengthy) part of the Christus oratorio. There is an irony that the single piece through which his name has travelled worldwide is a piano Melodie, a sensuously achieved transcription of the Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice. Guaranteed to hush a rapturous audience into silence, it became the much-loved encore piece for the late Nelson Freire, among others. Too little of Sgambati’s music for his own instrument is known beyond the Melodie. This neglect is being redressed in style by the Italian pianist Gaia Federica Caporiccio, born in Florence in 1988. The first volume of a projected complete series of Sgambati’s piano works proceeds in mostly chronological fashion. Thus the curtain is drawn back with a flourish in the Gothic, Bachian arpeggios of the Prelude and Fugue Op. 6. The two Etudes de concert Op. 10 already show Sgambati’s gift for sketching a tone-painting while focusing on a particular piece of technique. While Sgambati made considerable use of patterned keyboard figurations to seize an audience’s imagination, he was scarcely less adept than Schumann or Chopin at outlining a mood and then drawing a veil over it. Thus there are no sonatas or even long-form ballades here, but a series of evocative impromptus, lyric pieces and nocturnes, each of them memorable in their own right, adding up to an absorbing portrait of a young pianist-composer with Romantic-era Europe at his feet. © Piano Classics

The tragic fate of composer Oskar Böhme long went unresearched. His music suffered a similar fate. On this album, the trumpeter Matthias Höfs is joined by The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in a performance of his most ambitious works that aims to win a hearing both for his striking and sensitive music and for the story of his life. The Trumpet Concerto – which is the only Romantic 19th-century concerto for trumpet – is presented here in Matthias Höfs’s own orchestration. It is a challenging work that holds the attention with its dramatic narrative and powerful cadenzas. The "pieces" on this album display the full stylistic spectrum of Böhme’s oeuvre. Entsagung is memorable for its soft tone colours that admirably bring out its restrained sorrow. Soirée de St. Petersbourg evokes the image of the city at night with its illuminated palaces and glittering canals. His Russian Dance is heard on this album in a version for mixed ensemble. The musical language that pervades this piece illustrates Böhme’s fateful affinity with his adopted homeland. The furious haste of La Napolitaine, Tarantella once again proves the capability of the fully fledged trumpeter. The ambitious Trumpet Sextet in E-flat minor brings to a close our journey through selected works of Oskar Böhme. For many years little or no information was available about the composer. Oskar Böhme was born into a family of musicians near Dresden in 1870; he studied in Germany and Hungary and then emigrated to Russia, where he even changed his nationality in order to improve his chances of a place in one of the great orchestras. Despite his efforts to achieve perfect integration into Russian society, his German origins proved fateful when the Bolsheviks seized power - after years of persecution, he was executed for "anti-Soviet activities" on October 3, 1938. © Berlin Classics

Having completed his studies at the Brussels Conservatoire and won first prizes at several distinguished competitions for young musicians, Matthieu Idmtal quickly became known as a specialist in the music of Alexander Scriabin. His debut on record was dedicated to a sequence of the Russian composer’s Etudes and Preludes, and it won him golden reviews: "I have listened to Sofronitsky, Gilels, Richter and Ashkenazy – great Scriabin players all. Young Matthieu Idmtal has the potential to join that lofty group". (American Record Guide) His Scriabin recital was followed by an equally well-received album of the Violin Sonatas by Edvard Grieg, in company with his regular violin-recital partner Maya Levy. The natural sequel is this focus on the Norwegian composer’s solo output. Grieg composed seven books of Lyric Pieces across the course of his career: songs without words that amount to a diary of his compositional evolution as well as testament to enduring preoccupations such as the artistic transformation of folksong and the evocation of natural phenomena such as sunlight and the movement of water. Idmtal’s sequence ranges across all seven books, and does not shy away from established classics such as the Arietta and Wedding Day at Troldhaugen. However, he also includes several lesser-known and introspective masterpieces such as the Vanished Days and Homesickness from the Opus 57 set. Even by their side, however, the Piano Sonata, Op. 7 is an almost forgotten masterpiece. Grieg wrote it at the age of 22, recently graduated from the conservatoire in Leipzig, yet even within the first movement’s opening exposition there are shapes and harmonies that instantly identify the composer’s artistic fingerprint. This Sonata reflects the ambitions and character of the young Grieg: high-spirited, virtuosic, impetuous, and permeated with brusque mood swings. Cast in a compressed version of the traditional four-movement form, it encompasses many changes of mood, sometimes very abrupt, as if the composer was overflowing with musical ideas and inspiration. It makes an ideal introduction to the familiar world of the Lyric Pieces as well as a notable debut for Matthieu Idmtal on Piano Classics. © Piano Classics