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Karol Szymanowski: Piano Works
Krystian Zimerman
Classical - Released September 30, 2022 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Booklet
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Diapason d'or -
Choc de Classica
Recordings by Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman are a rare event, and eagerly awaited by his many fans. They surely won’t be disappointed with this new opus that brings together Szymanowski, Zimerman and legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein.Returning to his roots, Krystian Zimerman pays tribute to his compatriot Karol Szymanowski on the 140th anniversary of the composer’s birth. This selection of little-known works testifies to the importance of Szymanowski within the piano repertoire. A long twenty-eight years separate Zimerman's recording of Masques, Op. 34 (made in 1994 in Copenhagen) from the rest of the programme, which was recorded in 2022 in the exceptional acoustics of the Fukuyama Concert Hall near Hiroshima.Nevertheless, the considerable lapse of time between these recordings doesn’t detract from the album's coherence. This is thanks to Zimerman's fluid, clear and readable sound, which—as we know—leaves nothing to chance. This fascinating recording reveals various facets of Szymanowski's compositional genius and features both his mature and early works, all of which were influenced by the great Chopin.Composed during the First World War whilst staying at the family estate in Ukraine, the three parts of Masques evoke Debussy, Scriabin and Stravinsky. However, each movement is overlaid with the orientalist perspective so typical of the Polish composer. A few carefully chosen Préludes and Mazurkas stand alongside the splendid Variations on a Polish Folk Theme for piano, Op. 10, composed by a young Szymanowski still in the process of mastering his mother tongue. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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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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Schumann, Beethoven, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Ravel...
Leonard Bernstein
Symphonic Music - Released June 25, 2018 | Les Indispensables de Diapason
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Karol Szymanowski: Piano Works
Krystian Zimerman
Classical - Released September 30, 2022 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Booklet
Recordings by Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman are a rare event, and eagerly awaited by his many fans. They surely won’t be disappointed with this new opus that brings together Szymanowski, Zimerman and legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein.Returning to his roots, Krystian Zimerman pays tribute to his compatriot Karol Szymanowski on the 140th anniversary of the composer’s birth. This selection of little-known works testifies to the importance of Szymanowski within the piano repertoire. A long twenty-eight years separate Zimerman's recording of Masques, Op. 34 (made in 1994 in Copenhagen) from the rest of the programme, which was recorded in 2022 in the exceptional acoustics of the Fukuyama Concert Hall near Hiroshima.Nevertheless, the considerable lapse of time between these recordings doesn’t detract from the album's coherence. This is thanks to Zimerman's fluid, clear and readable sound, which—as we know—leaves nothing to chance. This fascinating recording reveals various facets of Szymanowski's compositional genius and features both his mature and early works, all of which were influenced by the great Chopin.Composed during the First World War whilst staying at the family estate in Ukraine, the three parts of Masques evoke Debussy, Scriabin and Stravinsky. However, each movement is overlaid with the orientalist perspective so typical of the Polish composer. A few carefully chosen Préludes and Mazurkas stand alongside the splendid Variations on a Polish Folk Theme for piano, Op. 10, composed by a young Szymanowski still in the process of mastering his mother tongue. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, Hamlet, The Tempest...
Antal Doráti
Symphonic Music - Released December 23, 2015 | Les Indispensables de Diapason
Booklet
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Diapason d'or
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Debussy/Ravel/Ysaÿe: Violin Sonatas/Prokofiev: 5 Mélodies
David Oïstrakh
Classical - Released January 1, 1966 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Consolations
Saskia Giorgini
Solo Piano - Released June 9, 2023 | PentaTone
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Pianist Saskia Giorgini found both critical and commercial success with her 2022 recording of Liszt's Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, and this 2023 release, which immediately climbed onto classical best-seller charts, follows directly on the earlier album, with the same Bösendorfer piano and the same recording location, the Lisztzentrum in Raiding, Austria. Listeners will not be disappointed, for Consolations has all the virtues of her first Liszt album and adds a few more. The wonderfully controlled lyricism of the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses recurs in the heavily programmatic title work, where Giorgini's playing hints at the presence of all kinds of stories. She plainly excels in the religious, late Liszt, and there are two wonderful examples here, the Deux Legends, portraits of St. Francis of Assisi praying to the birds, and of St. François de Paule. These are difficult works that combine mysticism with Lisztian virtuosity; annotator Mark Berry is right to stress that Liszt did not fully renounce the virtuosity in his later years, but that is not all. Giorgini is just as good in the flashy Three Caprices-Valses and the reflective Liebesträume, the best-known music on the album. In the Valse-Impromptu, she has an uncanny way of suggesting the feeling of spontaneity that seems to have marked Liszt's own playing. Will Giorgini go on with Liszt? She certainly has the technical and emotional wherewithal to do so and to take on more famous works than these.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Debut Recital
Martha Argerich
Classical - Released January 1, 1995 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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The Qobuz Ideal Discography
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Bartók, Janáček, Szymanowski
Piotr Anderszewski
Classical - Released January 26, 2024 | Warner Classics
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Booklet
After well-received albums devoted to Bach and Schumann, pianist Piotr Anderszewski turns to music of his native Eastern Europe on this 2024 release, which made classical best-seller charts early that year. Anderszewski is known for his artfully curated and constructed programs, but this one is not so cohesive; the excerpts from Janáček's On an Overgrown Path set were recorded in 2016, while the short pieces by Szymanowski and Bartók were added in 2023. The Janáček works, though short, are of a slightly different kind from the other pieces, which are real miniatures. When Anderszewski gets to those, however, he hits his stride. Especially interesting are Bartók's 14 Bagatelles, Op. 6, presented in full. These aren't heard overly often. Anderszewski says that "the works recorded on this album carry within them a spirit of rebellion," which doesn't quite fit these short pieces, but then on his second try, he comes much closer: "No room here for stylization or decorum; they draw upon the very roots of music." Early works composed in 1908, they contain ideas that Bartók would explore over his entire career. They have folkish accents but also intensive exploration of mode and rhythm. Anderszewski's careful style is ideal here, and the listener hearing the whole set will become increasingly engrossed. Hardly less appealing are the six pieces from Szymanowski's 20 Mazurkas, Op. 50, which explore the folk dance model in a less radical but no less detailed way. For the lover of Eastern European music of the early 20th century, which is finally and rightfully finding a consistent place on concert programs, this is a recording that will merit multiple hearings.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Dvořák: Piano Trios Nos. 3 & 4
Christian Tetzlaff
Chamber Music - Released October 5, 2018 | Ondine
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Gramophone Editor's Choice
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Ravel, Berkeley, Pounds: Orchestral Works
Sinfonia Of London
Symphonies - Released February 9, 2024 | Chandos
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Booklet
The three works on this release are connected by chains on teaching and influence, beginning with Ravel's quietly elegiac Le tombeau de Couperin. Composer Lennox Berkeley asked to study with Ravel; he was turned down and referred to Nadia Boulanger, but he was strongly influenced by Ravel nonetheless, as is apparent in the delightfully deceptive lightness of the Divertimento, Op. 18 (1943), heard here, which was dedicated to Boulanger. Berkeley, in turn, was the teacher, in the late '70s, of Adam Pounds, who was born in 1954. In later life, Pounds has composed a group of numbered symphonies; the Symphony No. 3, which here receives its recorded premiere, was composed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Pounds explicitly designates the Elegy third movement as an "hommage to Anton Bruckner," and its long melodic lines are indubitably Brucknerian, but the stamp of the tradition embodied by this album is also apparent, and the fascinating effect is one of Bruckner's language being shrunk down to neoclassic dimensions (the symphony, as a whole, is just over half an hour long). The work is a highlight here and deserves wider performance. However, conductor John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London are ideal in this music in general, with a refined string sound that is kept under perfect control. Those who love neoclassic music will find some unique manifestations of it here in ideal performances.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 - Variations on a Theme of Corelli
Boris Giltburg
Classical - Released May 11, 2018 | Naxos
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Gramophone Editor's Choice
While Israeli-Russian pianist Boris Giltburg’s career is taking off all over the world, he has felt very close to Belgium ever since he won first prize in the 2013 Queen Elisabeth Competition. After several recordings for EMI (Warner), here he gives a studio rendition of the Third Concerto, and the Variations on a Theme of Corelli by Sergei Rachmaninov, on his tenth album for Naxos, which completes his often-unique approach to the Russian pianist-composer. The Études-tableaux and the Second Concerto divided opinion, with some seeing him as a "new Glenn Gould" (sic) who would do away with routines, while others drew attention to the total indifference of his style. Boris Giltburg's technique is such that he can give free rein to his imagination while taking care of the minute details of one of the most difficult concertos in the repertoire. Fascinated by the manufacture of instruments, in 2016 he took up the new 102-key piano from French manufacturer Stephen Paulello, a thrilling instrument which the musical world has been eagerly anticipating for a long time, and which proves that, just like in the 19th century, the piano can still evolve towards other sounds. For this Concerto n° 3, recorded at Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall, Boris Giltburg returns to his dear Fazioli piano and is joined by Mexican conductor Carlo Miguel Prieto at the head of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Aram Khachaturian: Symphony No. 3 · Suite No. 3
Robert Schumann
Classical - Released April 17, 2023 | CPO
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Prokofiev: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5
Gianandrea Noseda
Concertos - Released February 1, 2014 | Chandos
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Booklet
Many of Sergey Prokofiev's musical inspirations were French, and a light French touch often works well in his piano pieces. With the field open to a new generation for the composer's five piano concertos, this one merits strong consideration. The sparkling Piano Concerto in D flat major, Op. 10, is perhaps the highlight of the whole set here; Bavouzet and conductor Gianandrea Noseda with the BBC Philharmonic achieving a bright, almost ebullient atmosphere. The Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26, cut from the same cloth but with a greater quotient of acidic dissonant humor, is very nearly as good. There's hardly a weak spot throughout: the technically perilous and still-edgy Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16, which occasioned a scandal at its premiere, keeps its threatening quality, and the less common Piano Concerto No. 4 in B flat major, Op. 53, composed for a one-armed pianist, is entirely competent, and the delicate finale of the neo-classic Piano Concerto No. 5 in G major, Op. 55, is gorgeous. Strong studio sound and excellent, personal booklet notes from Bavouzet himself are added attractions. Highly recommended.© TiVo
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Ravel: Ma Mère l'Oye, Tombeau de Couperin, Shéhérazade
Les Siècles
Symphonic Music - Released April 13, 2018 | harmonia mundi
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Diapason d'or -
5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
Recording Ravel's music on period instruments is the kind of thing that might raise a smile... until you realise just how much the production of instruments has changed in less than a hundred years: it's the return of catgut strings, skin drum heads, the French basson (and not the German system bassoon which is used across all the world's orchestras today), shaper tips, trumpets and trombones of French manufacture. At the head of his orchestra Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth gives a new, orthodox, historically-informed version of Ma Mère l’oye (complete ballet), the Tombeau de Couperin and Shéhérazade, the long-neglected "ouverture de féérie" [Fairy Overture] which is pure Ravel. This return to the roots is clearly easier and more straightforwardly authentic for this period of music history, because, unlike earlier works, we possess recordings which date back to the 1920s, and even earlier, which can tell us about the style, the colours, the phrasing and the tempo. But it isn't enough just to have all this historical information to hand to make something interesting. What makes this record thrilling is that all the musicians in the Siècles are excellent, and François-Xavier Roth is a talented artist himself, who knows this music inside out. At which point, his complete recording of Stravinsky's Firebird has already struck us with its quality. This rediscovery of Ravel resounds with clarity and finesse; it is a feast of well-defined timbres which cuts against the "beautiful sound" which prevails in orchestras around the world today. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Amy Beach: Piano Music
Martina Frezzotti
Classical - Released October 25, 2023 | Piano Classics
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Lutosławski: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released February 7, 2020 | Ondine
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Booklet
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Diapason d'or
In 1966, Pierre Boulez conducted the world premiere of Witold Lutoslawski’s Second Symphony. Boulez was then the head of the NDR orchestra in Hamburg and the city welcomed a series dedicated to contemporary music. The following year, the piece was performed fully in Katowice, Poland, conducted by the composer. Lutoslawski was a brilliant man: he spoke many languages, including French, and was an excellent conductor. First influenced by Bartók and French impressionist music, Witold Lutoslawski then forged a much more cutting-edge style based on the Second Viennese School. He invented the “aleatory counterpoint,” which remains his trademark. It can seem odd that Lutoslawski chose the frame of the symphony to express this new language. Nevertheless, it is with this form, that everyone thought dead, that he radically explored his aleatory techniques, specifically in the two movements of his Second Symphony. Melody and Rhythm are replaced by tones, harmony and texture and the music is continuously pulsed. Lutoslawski’s Second Symphony saluted Beethoven’s Fifth. His Third Symphony went further, developing the two-part structure of the previous and adding a long and abundant epilogue which left room for a few melodic elements during its elegiac final rising. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Janáček: Piano Works
Lars Vogt
Classical - Released February 5, 2021 | Ondine
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Booklet
Pianist Lars Vogt’s new solo album release is dedicated to the piano works of Leoš Janácek (1854-1928), one of the most original voices among the 20th century composers. This album includes three of the composer’s most well-known and most extensive solo piano works. These works by Janácek are marked by deep melancholy and passion. They manifest the composer's rich inner world through a musical language that remains to be timeless. On an Overgrown Path is a piano cycle which took many shapes during a period of a decade when the composer was slowly sketching the work. The first book containing ten pieces was published in 1911. Already the same year Janáček started drafting a second book which was never completed during the composer’s lifetime: a collection of 5 pieces for the second book was published in the 1940s. These short and fragmentary pieces with evocative titles are filled with deep and mysterious atmosphere. Janáček’s popular In the Mists is a short cycle of piano pieces written in 1912, immediately after the completion of the first book of On an Overgrown Path. These melancholic pieces are hinting towards the harmonies of Debussy without ever losing their essentially Janáčekian characteristics. Piano Sonata, "1. X. 1905 - From the Street" is what remains of an originally three-movement piano sonata premiered in 1906. The work was inspired by the killing of a young worker during a demonstration in Brno on 1 October 1905. The composer was not satisfied with the score and destroyed it later regretting this impulsive act. Fortunately, first two movements of this deeply intensive work were re-discovered and published in 1924. © Ondine
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Debussy, Attahir, Ravel
Quatuor Arod
Classical - Released October 27, 2023 | Warner Classics
Hi-Res
Booklet
The Quatuor Arod has demonstrated versatility in its catalog thus far, devoting albums in a range running from Mendelssohn to the Second Viennese School. The same versatility is present on this release. True, the Debussy String Quartet, Op. 10, and the Ravel String Quartet in F major are cut from the same cloth; Ravel modeled his quartet on Debussy's, but these works require a multiplicity of voices, with Debussy striving to infuse his new coloristic thinking into an arch-classical form. Sample the intense finale of Ravel's quartet for a taste of the sharp profiles this young group brings to each movement. Perhaps the biggest draw here is a work by a composer, Benjamin Attahir, of whom most listeners outside France will be unaware. His five-movement quartet Al' Asr, he says, "is the afternoon prayer. I tried to transcribe musically the atmosphere of this specific moment of the day. Raw light, overwhelming heat, iridescence of the air in contact with the surface of the ground -- so many images that accompanied me when writing this piece." It also refers to a brief verse from the Quran. The work successfully merges these specific references with the formal quartet structure, including a final fugue that marks a new take on the Romantic usage of this form to signify spiritual transcendence. There is much to ponder on this release, which continues to promise great things from its performers.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1, Italian Capriccio, Waltz
Paavo Järvi
Classical - Released October 8, 2021 | Alpha Classics
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Booklet
During the golden age of recorded classical music, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich was never on the top rung of world orchestras, but under conductor David Zinman, it took great strides forward, and the process has continued under the experienced hand of Paavo Järvi. The group's cycle of Tchaikovsky symphonies has been a pleasure, and perhaps this installment, featuring the Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13 ("Winter Dreams"), is the best. This was an early work, but Tchaikovsky esteemed it greatly over his entire life, and it does seem to carry his personality even more than some later pieces do. The key to it is to avoid looking forward to the weightier developments of the later symphonies, and Järvi accomplishes this beautifully, holding the whole thing, to paraphrase John Le Carré, like a thrush's egg in his hand, and he has honed the orchestra to a fine edge. Hear the silky strings at the beginning of the second movement ("Land of gloom, land of mist") or the delicate interplay of the winds in the Allegro scherzando giocoso. "Delicate" might be a good word for the entire performance, even in the heftier Italian Capriccio in A major, Op. 45, and in the excerpt from Eugene Onegin that rings down the curtain. This is a performance that's absorbing without turning on the usual Tchaikovskian emotion, and it's a virtuoso example of the conductor's art. Warm sound from the Tonhalle Maag is another attraction.
© TiVo
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