Piano

For his new recital published on the Decca label, Benjamin Grosvenor has chosen Franz Liszt, whose music has followed him since his childhood thanks to his grandfather's initiation. Dedicated to the pianistic monument that is the Sonata in B minor, the English pianist's programme aims to bear witness to the various aspects underlying the Hungarian composer's creation with emblematic compositions (Petrarch's Three Sonnets), original ones (Lullaby), as well as the extraordinary power of re-creation that Liszt distilled in his paraphrases; here we find the Reminiscences of Norma after Bellini and his arrangement of Schubert's Ave Maria.Every concert and every recording of Grosvenor's music is long awaited and desired, so rich is his personality and his extraordinary pianistic mastery. His recent album devoted to the Frédéric Chopin Concertos confirmed the pre-eminence of this pianist within a well-to-do brotherhood.His vision of the famous Liszt Sonata is immediately among the most inspired. Like a bird of prey, Grosvenor knows how to wait for the right moment to pounce on the chords with diabolical precision and contained rage, in a dramatic Mephistophelian tension. At the same time, the fluidity of his piano opens the door to the twentieth century and particularly to Ravel's world so dependent on the Liszt lesson. It is known that Brahms had fallen asleep when Liszt played his Sonata to him after a probably drunken dinner. Nothing probable here with this powerful evocation of life and death. Magisterial! © François Hudry/Qobuz

Recorded 2020 Salle Molière, Palais de Bondy, Lyon (France)

Johannes Brahms composed only a small number of original works for piano four hands, but arranged almost all of his chamber music and orchestral works for this instrumentation. He played most of them immediately after their completion with Clara Schumann and greatly appreciated her opinion. In his Hungarian Dances Brahms brilliantly transformed original Hungarian melodies and rhythms into multi-coloured orchestral works. The Blüthner grand piano from 1867 shows how Brahms made perfect use of the entire keyboard in his writing for four hands. The various registers appear completely transparent and clear. It is not generally known that Brahms was a great admirer and friend of Johann Strauss. And he loved waltzes! Thus Brahms also created an instrumental version of his Liebeslieder-Walzer for piano four hands. Robert Schumann’s last theme, which he wrote for his so-called "Ghost Variations" immediately before being admitted to a mental hospital, is used by Brahms in his homage to Schumann, which was written immediately after his death in 1856: the Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 23 for piano four hands, which ends with an impressive funeral march. For the piano duo Wyneke Jordans & Leo van Doeselaar it was an obvious choice to conclude their series with recordings of four-handed piano works by great German composers on period instruments with Brahms. © Passacaille

Recorded 2015, Strasbourg, Festival Musica (live) : October 4, 2014 [Graphein] - September 24, 2015 [Corps] - October 28, 2016 [Action painting]

« One hot summer day, I headed due south from London and crossed France and Spain on my road bike. Challenging it was, yet beautiful, emotional and colourful all at once — while pedalling thousands of kilometres, the journey brought me closer to my innermost core. Upon my return home, I wished to express all the intense feelings and sensations I experienced on the road in my own way — the language of music. The metamorphosis was already underway when I became aware of the duende and after digging a bit deeper, I immediately sensed that it was this feeling which touched me on my journey, giving me strength and letting me connect with people and their land more profoundly ». « There is a duality at play between the repetition of recording and the spontaneity and unpredictability of duende — and to summon duende, the process had to be as free and fluid as possible: all sessions built up to a final complete ‘recital’-take to capture the spirit of live creation. This was masterfully recorded by Jean-Martial Golaz — a magician of sound who effortlessly played the timeless acoustics of La Salle de Musique, La Chaux-de-Fonds to create a soundscape from another time. We intuitively found the golden balance to bring out the whispers of burning wind to the cries of flamenco from the old Steinway dating back to 1966 — the very same piano on which the great chilean pianist Claudio Arrau recorded Debussy’s Images in 1979. The soul of the piano was both conjured up and tamed by Corinne Wieland — a consummate piano technician. My gratitude goes out to both of them — this team gave me the wings to take off and be free.» Teo Gheorghiu / © Claves Records

Both on the concert platform and in the recording studio, pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar is a completist. Following complete cycles of piano sonatas by Beethoven and Mozart, he presents here 12 great piano sonatas by Franz Schubert – the composer’s 11 finished sonatas and the seminal fragment D. 840. Pienaar relishes in these revelatory works, their extraordinarily detailed possibilities of characterisation, their call for immense energy and abandon, and navigating the vast dreamscapes that unfold in the course of this six-hour musical journey. © AVIE Records

Composed simultaneously in February 1785, Concertos K. 466 and K. 467 are virtually twin works, but dissimilar twins. His recent masonic experience may well have rubed off on Mozart’s creativity, for we can detect, dare I say it, “live”, a sudden deepening of his comprehension of the human tragedy in the first movement of Concerto K. 466 in D Minor, along with K. 491 in C Minor the only concertos in minor key. The breathless syncopes at the very beginning seem to anticipate Schubertian “Angst” in the face of the inexorable approach of death. Introspection bore Mozart towards the heights of expressive maturity. He was able to attain a degree of calmness in the Romanze, albeit interrupted by an agitated interlude. The final movement brings this masterpiece to a conquering, joyful conclusion. In contrast, in its first movement, the optimism of Concerto K. 467 expresses the need for bravery to maintain the grandeur of humanity notwithstanding the various inroads made by failing courage to gain the ascendancy without ever achieving it. The highly celebrated, divine Andante is in and of itself a purifying panacea. Truly, an angel passes. The derisive tone of the Finale is surprising but it brings us back to earth, perhaps to remind us that there is much work to be done before we can ascend to the Olympus of Spirituality and that, in the meantime, we should partake of earthly pleasures! © Cyprien Katsaris/Piano 21

Lang Lang would have called it Piano Book. But Cartier’s new muse decided to add a touch of mystery. Once again surfing on the wave of neo-classical-ambient piano initiated by the likes of Nils Frahm and Alexis Ffrench, one of the most famous personalities in the classical world has decided to bring her audience a collection of inescapable pieces. The works have a subtle feel and a gently melancholic character, captured in an acoustic recording (in the Grande Salle Pierre Boulez at the Philharmonie de Paris) where the recording’s fluffy character has deliberately been enhanced. Labyrinth is a playlist of some of the classical repertoire’s greatest hits. We find the likes of Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, J.S. Bach's Badinerie, Rachmaninov’s Prelude No. 4 Vocalise, Couperin’s Les barricades mystérieuses and Liszt’s Consolation No. 3.Throughout the 18 pieces, which include at least two lesser-known pieces (Villa-Lobos’ Valsa da dor and Pärt’s Pari intervallo), Khatia Buniatishvili doesn’t force contrasts. Instead, she plunges the listener into another dimension. Style is no longer the Georgian pianist’s concern. Emotion becomes abstract. There is only one spirit; that of her travelling soul.Nothing - and no one - will be able to compete with the profoundly philosophical character of this new concept album. “The labyrinth”, says the artist “is our fate and creation; our impasse and deliverance; the polyphony of life, senses, reawakened dreams and the neglected present; unexpected and expected turnings of the said or unsaid... The labyrinth of our mind.” © Pierre-Yves Lascar/Qobuz

In 2019, at the age of 22, Alexandre Kantorow became the first French pianist to win the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition. Before then he had released three acclaimed albums, awarded distinctions such as "Diapason d'or de l'Année" and Gramophone's "Editor's Choice" and earning Kantorow descriptions ranging from 'Liszt reincarnated' to 'a firebreathing virtuoso with a poetic charm and innate stylistic mastery'. The present recital, his first release since the Tchaikovsky Competition, offers plenty of scope for virtuosity, poetry and charm, always filtered through an acute stylistic consciousness. The programme is constructed around three rhapsodies, a genre whose improvisatory character corresponds perfectly with the spirit of Romanticism but here interpreted by three highly distinct artistic temperaments: Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and Béla Bartók. © BIS Records

This box set assembles the complete Beethoven symphonies, patiently transcribed for piano over a quarter of a century and recorded for harmonia mundi by a glittering array of soloists in the late 1980s. Liszt’s assiduity in this task reminds us of his spiritual, well-nigh religious admiration for the older composer, a genius ‘consecrated in art’ whose ‘conscientious translator’ he wished to be, thanks to the latest pianistic advances. Traduttore or traditore? Judge for yourself: Liszt does not make simple reductions or arrangements, but totally rewrites the works, as if they had been originally conceived for the piano! © harmonia mundi