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

Although he now lives in Israel and was mostly trained there, pianist Boris Giltburg is a representative of the pure Russian school -- powerful, brilliant, and sweeping. Rachmaninov ought to be his métier, and so it is. For clean passagework at the highest possible skill level, Giltburg is a pianist to turn to now, and where the excitement is built into the piano writing, so to speak, the spirit of Rachmaninov himself will seem to breathe in his playing. Sample the Prelude in C minor, Op. 23, No. 7, which begins with almost impossible speed and then adds multiple counterpoints; few pianists can hold the whole structure gently in hand the way Giltburg can. The famous prelude that announced Rachmaninov to the world, the Morceau de Fantaisie in C sharp minor, Op. 3, No. 2, has plenty of monumental power. Where Rachmaninov offers programmatic mystery, or approaches Chopin's rarefied world, Giltburg is merely good, not great. But go see him if he's in your town on tour with these: he's the type of player to bring the crowd to their feet, and this recording is as good a place as any to start with him. Giltburg benefits from fine sound engineering at the entirely acoustically appropriate Wyastone Estate concert hall.© TiVo

The cycle of Chopin’s Preludes, Op. 28 and the 2 posthumous preludes No. 25 in C-sharp minor, Op. 45 and No. 26 in A-flat major, B. 86 are based on contrasts. Contrasts of expression, dynamics, rhythm and colour, revealing romanticism in its full element of emotional instability, but at the same time the cycle reveals a coherence which comes from the fact that the preludes have been built around the twenty-four keys, twelve major and twelve minor, chasing the ideas of fullness which are present in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, that inspired Chopin during that winter. The fact that his musical idols were Bach and Mozart perhaps explains his classic quality ever present in his ultra-Romantic music. Chopin's first Prelude in C Major, for example, clearly mirrors the C Major Prelude of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier and on the other hand Chopin’s counterpoint, which is so Bachian, revealing sometimes elements that bring back Mozart and his way of designing the melodic lines of his operas where the sopranos sing melodies as if they were being transported by the wind. © Quartz Music

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

The whole of my work as a composer draws on and represents a continuation of the tradition of the forms and language of 20th century expanded tonal music. Initiated since the age of fourteen by Nicolas Bacri in organicity, the balance between counterpoint and harmony in form, I have gradually forged my identity around a poetic language influenced by other arts (most notably modern and contemporary painting and post-war French poetry). In this sense, my Lettera Amorosa flute quartet is inspired by literature, named after the homonymous collection by René Char, itself influenced by Monteverdi's madrigal. This first album is an opportunity for me to revisit six years of composition, choosing six pieces from my first ten works. As I write this presentation of the disc, in January 2022 (whilst writing my Opus 16 and Opus 17), I am aware that I am entering a second period of composition, in which my language is evolving: I now give more importance to the notion of 'musical gesture' and am working on integrating dissonance as a tool of expression. The Quasi Variazioni, Op. 7, which opens the programme, marks a turning point in the evolution of my first compositional period. In contact with my first instrument, I took a more abstract look at my use of harmony for the first time, with the idea of making it more distended and distant from tonality than it had been in my first opuses. Next on the album is the Sonata for Violin and Cello, Op. 8, the first work I composed for the violin. Recording it myself puts me back in the role of performer-composer, where the two sides influence each other. The writing is lyrical and French-inspired, reminiscent of the music of Maurice Ravel, which is very dear to me. Throughout the two contrasting movements that make up this sonata, the fusion of the two string instruments develops and intensifies to the point of creating the sonic illusion of a string trio, through the extensive use of double strings. These first two works, composed at the same time, form a diptych that I would like to present in mirror image of the three works that follow, centered around the flute. Greatly influenced by Maurice Duruflé's Requiem, I composed my Impressions liturgiques, Op. 2 for flute and piano at the age of fifteen. It was through this work that my interest in composing for the flute grew and led me to compose Mosaïque and Lettera Amorosa in particular. Mosaïque, composed at the table, presents a fusional duet between the flute and the clarinet in three brief tableaux, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes dreamy and concluded with a mischievous and virtuoso finale. Lettera Amorosa, which lends its name to the album, concludes the triptych around the flute and brings the flute together with a string trio. Composed of four movements, the quartet reflects the different impulses inspired by the phrases of the four poems by René Char. Last, but not least, a tribute to Nicolas Bacri with my 12 Preludes for piano, Op. 1, which I perform myself. The reflection of a first period with various facets, the Preludes are already evolving towards a sound material where the musical poetry personalises my musical language. The last Prelude, the longest and most tormented, turns towards a more chromatic writing, announcing my Poem, Op. 5. In performing three of my works, I was fortunate enough to be joined by extraordinary musicians who brought their soul and personality to my music. Thank you to Dana, Caroline, Hermine, Ionel, Joë and Paul for their friendship, talent and commitment. Our shared musical experience and love of contemporary music, and in particular the committed relationship we all have to creation, all come together to make this record a powerful symbol for me, a first milestone in my life as a composer. © Elise Bertrand/Klarthe Records

The long-awaited new album from Daniil Trifonov is finally here! It comes fully dedicated to the music of Rachmaninoff, and, more specifically, to his three cycles of variations for piano. First of all, we have the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, a late work composed in the summer of 1934, which stands as one of Rachmaninoff’s great scores, alongside the Third Symphony, The Bells, the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom , and the Symphonic Dances. For this recording the Philadelphia Orchestra, working under the leadership of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, focus on the young Russian virtuoso with rapt attention, who then proceeds with another of the Russian composer’s great cycles, the underappreciated Variations on a Theme by Chopin , whose main theme resumes on the opening bars of the 20th Prelude of Op. 28, in C minor. Rachmaninoff designs from a highly polyphonic basis a work of rare complexity, and shape, through its harmonies. He has Chopin in mind, of course, for his lyrical side (Variations 6 and 21), but also J.S Bach (Variation 1), and Schumann – for the big Finale – whose epic touch ghosts the Symphonic Studies Op. 13. This partition, which allowed Trifonov to remove some passages, is believed by some performers to be an immense lyric poem in which notes turn literally into words (notably Jorge Bolet, and his magical phrasing, for Decca in 1986!). Others wish to unify it, like the young Trifonov himself, whose gesture is aimed primarily at a sense of fluidity. After a relatively brief, bright, tribute to Rachmaninov composed by the pianist himself, the album closes with the famous Variations on a Theme by Corelli, which is in fact the theme of "La Follia", which was used ceaselessly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, all over Europe. © Qobuz

Unfortunately no, dear reader, there is no such thing as a cycle of “24 Preludes” by Rachmaninoff; however there are indeed 24 Preludes: a collection of ten Op. 23 from 1903, 13 other Op. 32 from 1910 and one isolated Prelude from the Morceaux de fantaisie Op. 3 (Fantasy Pieces) from 1893. In total: 24 Preludes, in which as a simple count shows Rachmaninoff − much like Chopin and of course Bach − illustrated all major and minor tones. Deliberately random, or the involuntary drive to create a reasonably coherent cycle? Contrary to his two illustrious predecessors, Rachmaninoff didn’t order his Preludes according to a specific tonal plan: the musician’s fantasy develops bit by bit. Nikolai Lugansky – described by the famous magazine Gramophone as “the most innovative and transcendent interpreter of all” (so much for the others…), truly an extraordinarily deep and polyvalent pianist – decided to present the Preludes in the order prescribed by partitions, rather than reorganising them according to some hypothetical tonal logic, without knowing if Rachmaninoff would even have recommended or even considered it, particularly as the constant alternation of moods, independently of any tonal consideration, gives the piece a sense of perfect coherence. Finally it’s worth mentioning that Lugansky offers a very “original” interpretation of this divine music, which may feel like a re-discovery to some listeners. © SM/Qobuz

In 1765, Johann Christian Bach, who had settled in London, established with his friend Carl Friedrich Abel the prestigious "Bach Abel Concerts". Surrounded by some of the most talented artists of their generation, Margaux Blanchard and Sylvain Sartre invite us to rediscover the music that enlivened the luxurious London salons of the late 18th century. A chance to be admitted, for a moment's listening, into the very select Bach Abel Society. © Mirare

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