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Rubinstein Archive

BALAKIREV: Piano Sonata in b-flat minor; Reverie; Mazurka No. 6 in A-flat Major; Islamey; LISZT: Sonata in b; LYAPUNOV: Etude 1 “Berceuse” 12 Etudes d’execution transcendente – Louis Kentner, p. – Appian Recordings

BALAKIREV: Piano Sonata in b-flat minor; Reverie; Mazurka No. 6 in A-flat Major; Islamey; LISZT: Sonata in b; LYAPUNOV: Etude 1 “Berceuse” 12 Etudes d’execution transcendente – Louis Kentner, p. – Appian Recordings

by | Dec 19, 2016 | Classical Reissue Reviews

APR resissues the Columbia shellacs of Louis Kentner, 1944-45, in Liszt, Balakirev, and Lyapunov. BALAKIREV: Piano Sonata in b-flat minor, Op. 5; Reverie; Mazurka No. 6 in A-flat Major; Islamey; LISZT: Sonata in b; LYAPUNOV: Etude 1 “Berceuse;” 12 Etudes d’execution transcendente, Op. 11 – Louis Kentner, p. – Appian Recordings APR 6020 (2 CDs) 70:41, 72:19 (9/2/16) [Distr. by Naxos] ****:  Executive producer Michael Spring, along with audio engineer Andrew Hallifax, deserves credit for this APR reissue of rare performances. Hungarian piano virtuoso Louis (Lajos) Kentner (1905-1987), whose records of Balakirev, Liszt, and Lyapunov from 1939-1949 come back to us in sterling remasterings. The Balakirev Piano Sonata (1900-1905), here in its first recording (2 June 1949), proffers a hybrid work of unorthodox construction, rife with exotic colors and folk motifs, a novel fusion of Chopin and Eastern doxology. Despite the often improvisatory gestures and sudden shifts of tempo and mood, Balakirev injects strong periods of strict counterpoint, as well as knotty figurations more than reminiscent of his most popular piece, Islamey. The music contains a plethora of warm, tender gestures, many of which lie high in the piano keyboard and remind us of Chopin’s Berceuse. The more explosive passages, […]

Kaleidoscope = MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition; RAVEL: La Valse; STRAVINSKY: Three Movements from Petrushka – Khatia Buniatishvili, p. – Sony

Kaleidoscope = MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition; RAVEL: La Valse; STRAVINSKY: Three Movements from Petrushka – Khatia Buniatishvili, p. – Sony

by | May 29, 2016 | Classical CD Reviews

A personal recital devoted to the art of keyboard coloration marks this Buniatishvili program from 2015. Kaleidoscope = MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition; RAVEL: La Valse; STRAVINSKY: Three Movements from Petrushka – Khatia Buniatishvili, p. – Sony 88875170032, 57:00 (3/11/16) ****:
 If slinky dresses and a Hedy Lamarr persona guarantee a virtuoso piano keyboardist, Khatia Buniatishvili has it made. Certainly, she possesses the fingers for this particular program (rec. 23-26 August 2015), which she chooses to approach from a personal, salon perspective. The Mussorgsky’s opening Promenade announces her introspective intentions, to explore the Hartmann visual panorama in musical terms that define Mussorgsky’s love for his departed friend. Rubato and graduated pedaling define the opening Promenade, while the succeeding grotesquerie, Gnomus, receives a fiercely percussive patina. The Old Castle intones its ancient bells slowly in the left hand, and for some, in too funereal a spirit, one close to Ravel’s hanged figure in Le Gibet. Disputatious children pick up the tempo in the Tuileries, Buniatishvili’s brisk articulation decidedly less mannered. The ox-cart Bydlo marches in, its plodding tempo one step away from having become the Dies Irae, since for Buniatishvili, a way of life passes away forever. The chicks from “Trilby” […]

Grand Romance = MOSZKOWSKI: Caprice espagnol; Etincelles; La Jongleuse; SCHUETT: A la bien-aimee; Canzonetta in D Major; HENSELT: If I were a bird; Petite Valse in F Major; PADEREWSKI: Nocturne in B-flat Major; CUI: Causerie; BORTKIEWICZ: Lyrica Nova; SCHLOEZER: Etude in E-flat Major; LEVITZKI: Valse in A Major; SGAMBATI: Gavotta in A-flat Minor; RUBINSTEIN: Reve Angelique; SCHULZ-EVLER: Arabesques on “The Blue Danube”; CHASINS: Rush Hour in Hong Kong – Jeffrey Biegel, p. – Steinway & Sons

Grand Romance = MOSZKOWSKI: Caprice espagnol; Etincelles; La Jongleuse; SCHUETT: A la bien-aimee; Canzonetta in D Major; HENSELT: If I were a bird; Petite Valse in F Major; PADEREWSKI: Nocturne in B-flat Major; CUI: Causerie; BORTKIEWICZ: Lyrica Nova; SCHLOEZER: Etude in E-flat Major; LEVITZKI: Valse in A Major; SGAMBATI: Gavotta in A-flat Minor; RUBINSTEIN: Reve Angelique; SCHULZ-EVLER: Arabesques on “The Blue Danube”; CHASINS: Rush Hour in Hong Kong – Jeffrey Biegel, p. – Steinway & Sons

by | Jul 24, 2013 | Classical CD Reviews

With 16 selections of virtuoso showpieces, Jeffrey Biegel and his Steinway D provide more than an hour’s worth of elegant, even dazzling, salon vehicles from the Romantic sensibility.