Steinway Archive
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonatas 109, 110, 111 – Alexandre Tharaud – Erato
Refined and introspective reading of the last three Beethoven Piano Sonatas with both a studio version and a DVD live version filmed in a ruined house.
Rachmaninov: Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 33 and Op. 39 – Steven Osborne, piano – Hyperion
Steven Osborne extends his prodigious gifts into the two sets of Etudes-Tableaux of Rachmaninov. Rachmaninov: Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 33 and Op. 39 – Steven Osborne, piano – Hyperion CDA68188, 61:39 (7/27/18) [Distr. Harmonia mundi/PIAS] ****: When Rachmaninov composed his first set of Etudes-Tableaux in 1911, he still felt the influences of Chopin, Schumann and Liszt, especially in their mastery of small forms that could convey, as Schumann remarked, “the import of whole symphonies.” In his 1930 letter to composer Ottorino Respighi, who intended to orchestrate several of the pieces, Rachmaninov admitted as to having some “program” in mind, but he wished the public to “listen to the music absolutely.” Originally, Rachmaninov composed nine of such tonal-pictures, but he would withdraw three of them: the C Minor would furnish material for his future G Minor Concerto; No. 5 in D Minor would appear posthumously in 1948; the A Minor became transposed to the Op. 39 set of 1917 as No. 6. Even with the forthright opening of No. 1 in F minor, Osborne projects its resolute affect akin to aspects of Chopin, its martial gait and pianistic confidence, marked alternately by diaphanous clouds and Russian bells. The ensuing C Major proffers a […]
DEBUSSY: Images, Books I-II; Children’s Corner; Suite bergamasque; L’Isle joyeuse – Seong-Jin Cho, piano – DGG
Seong-Jin Cho’s Debussy recital for DGG confirms his place in the Debussy tradition set by Gieseking and Michelangeli. DEBUSSY: Images, Books I-II; Children’s Corner; Suite bergamasque; L’Isle joyeuse – Seong-Jin Cho, piano – DGG 479 8308, 72:47 (11/17/17) [Distr. by Universal] *****: South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho (b. 1994) recently appeared for the Steinway Society in the Bay Area, a concert which I attended, so I can well attest to his predilection for the music of Claude Debussy, a product of Cho’s studies at the Paris Conservatory with Michel Beroff. Debussy’s fascination with light has often borne comparison with the paintings of his admired J.M.W. Turner, the master of gradations of visual hues. So, too, the first set of Images (1905) declares its independence from traditional diatonic harmony and embraces modal and whole-tone scales and sonorities of the East, particularly of the gamelan orchestra of Bali and Indonesia. Debussy relishes the blurring of phrase lengths, and he often eschews resolved chords based on tonal harmony. Cho emphasizes the perfect fifth in the bass chords of Reflets dans l’eau, set in D-flat Major, the opening of which suggests a disturbance in standing water whose ripple effects we follow as they undulate […]
Cyprien Katsaris plays THEODORAKIS = KATSARIS: Grande Fantaisie sur Zorba; Improvisation; THEODORAKIS: Prelude No. 7; Melos No. 5; Petite Suite for Piano – Cyprien Katsaris, piano – Piano 21
Cyprien Katsaris plays THEODORAKIS = KATSARIS: Grande Fantaisie sur Zorba – une Rhapsodie Grecque; Improvisation spontanee sur des chansons de Theodorakis; THEODORAKIS: No. 7 from 11 Preludes, AST 44; No. 5 from 12 Melos, AST 541; Petite Suite for Piano, AST 90 – Cyprien Katsaris, piano – Piano 21 P21 057-N, 78:17 (12/5/17) [www.cyprienkatsaris.net] ****: World-premiere recordings by Cyprien Katsaris celebrate composer Theodorakis, whose music for Zorba rings with boundless energy. Cyprien Katsaris (b. 1951), expressing a desire to celebrate his Greek heritage overtly and passionately, embraces the music of Mikis Theodorakis (b. 1925), composer of over 1000 songs, and whose scores for such films as Zorba the Greek and Serpico continue to inspire both music-lovers and serious musicians. In his accompanying notes, Katsaris traces the etiology of his Zorba Fantaisie (after the composer’s own ballet), which evolved slowly, even painfully, mostly between 2005 and 2007, but he completed the project only in the spring of 2017. While Katsaris first intended a keyboard work in the manner of Liszt, a rhapsody of some 15 minutes’ duration, the breadth of the project assumed a monumental course of its own. The Grande Fantaisie, an epic composition that lasts 53 minutes, seems to […]
BACH & CHOPIN: Josep Colom – Confluences – Eudora
BACH & CHOPIN: Josep Colom – Confluences – Eudora SACD 1703, 78:03 (12/1/17) *****: A recital which delves deep into the adjacent musical universes of Bach and Chopin with intelligence and improvisational prowess. (Josep Colom; 1957 Steinway Model D) Readers of these pages might recall a 2016 review of Josep Colom’s debut on the audiophile label Eudora which involved a dialog between Chopin and Mozart. This remarkable pianist is a member of the Chopin Competition committee and his own playing is both critically astute and meticulous without sacrificing the lyrical transcendence which is the heart of the music. Previously, Audiophile Audition had this to say of the unconventional “Chopinesque” treatment of Mozart. If taken separately, the Chopin pieces sound conventionally good. They are gracious readings with command of detail and tone throughout. But the Mozart pieces have probably never been conceived or performed in this fashion. Well-known pieces such as the Fantasy in C minor, K. 475 and Rondo in A minor K. 511 are chosen for their abundant use of chromaticism. By judicious use of pedal and phrasing, we arrive at moment of ambiguity: Is it Mozart or is it Chopin? The graceful cantabile style of both composers amounts […]
CHOPIN: Piano Sonata No. 3; Berceuse; Four Scherzos – Barbara Nissman, piano – 3 Oranges Recordings
CHOPIN: Piano Sonata No. 3 in b minor, Op. 58; Berceuse in D-flat Major, Op. 57; Four Scherzos – Barbara Nissman, piano – 3 Oranges Recordings 3-OR 24, 76:37 [www.threeorangesrecordings.com] ****: Nissman’s latest recorded survey of Chopin contains power, poetry, and majesty. American piano virtuoso Barbara Nissman (b. 1944) extends the legacy of her own record label with some extremely brilliant Chopin, including his last major composition for solo keyboard, the 1844 Sonata No. 3 in b minor. But no less epic, the four scherzos, conceived over a period 1831-1843, challenge both technique and poetic fluency in a manner thoroughly idiosyncratic of the composer’s vocal and dramatic style. Nissman has donned the mantle of the late Gina Bachauer, whose own range of repertory and gripping, consummate technique beguiled and dazzled audiences. The present Chopin recital by Nissman (rec. 1-3 August 2013) derives from the campus of Duquesne University, Pittsburgh. In his own words, Chopin much admired Liszt, both in his own right—albeit with some reservations—as a composer and as a fine interpreter of Chopin himself, particularly of the etudes. Nissman addresses, in potent declamation, the Allegro maestoso of the Sonata with a grand sense of design and rhetorical fervor, especially […]
“GERSHWIN & WILD” = Virtuoso Etudes after Gershwin—Joanne Polk, piano—Steinway & Sons
GERSHWIN & WILD: WILD: Virtuoso Etudes after Gershwin—Theme and Variations on Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch over Me”—Sonata 2000—Joanne Polk, piano—Steinway & Sons 30090, 60:04, ****: When composer-pianist Earl Wild (1915-2010) was 10 years old, he asked his mother how there could be a God when the organist at their local church in Pittsburgh was so lousy. Wild later became an atheist. He went on to become one of the great American virtuoso pianists. New York Times critic Harold Schoenberg said of him, “By any standards, Mr. Wild has one of the great piano techniques of the 20th century, and with it, a rich, sonorous tone.” Wild began studying the piano at age 4 and when he was 15 he played the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Minneapolis Symphony under Dimitri Mitropoulis. Starting with President Herbert Hoover in 1931, he performed in the White House for six consecutive presidents. He was the orchestral pianist for conductors’ Otto Klemperer, and Arturo Toscanini. Throughout his career he was active as a soloist and performed with many orchestras. His extensive discography includes 35 piano concertos and numerous other solo works. If you love Gershwin, don’t miss his iconic RCA early stereo Gershwin […]
David Benoit – The Steinway Sessions – Steinway & Sons
David Benoit – The Steinway Sessions – Steinway & Sons 30066, 69:17 ****1/2: Jazz pianist excels in his solo debut…after 35 years of recording! (David Benoit – piano) It is always interesting hear jazz pianists in a solo format. The absence of a rhythm section shines a more revelatory light on the overall technique from both hands in the adaptation.. David Benoit – The Steinway Sessions represents his debut on the label. As the pianist remarks in the liner notes, this is his first solo recording in his stellar thirty-five year career. The tracks are comprised of familiar, previously recorded tracks and the premiere of “Etudes For The Contemporary Pianist”. Opening the festivities is “Kei’s Song” (from the 1987 album, Freedom At Midnight). The lyrical texture and rolling tempo is catchy. Benoit’s technique is forceful at times, and full of innate warmth. “Every Step Of The Way” may be Benoit’s most recognized composition. This solo rendition maintains the dynamic rhythm of the original. The volume modulation and joyful upbeat vibe is shaded with soulful inflections. Covering Bill Evans is always challenging. The selection of “Letter To Evan” (written by the iconic pianist for his son, just two months prior to […]
CHOPIN: Les Grandes Polonaises = Seven Polonaises by CHOPIN – Pascal Amoyal, piano – La Dolce Volta
CHOPIN: Les Grandes Polonaises = No. 1 in c-sharp minor, Op. 26; No. 2 in e-flat minor, Op. 26; No. 3 in A Major, Op. 40, No. 1 “Military”; No. 4 in c minor, Op. 40, No. 2; No. 5 in f-sharp minor, Op. 44 “Tragic”; No. 6 in A-flat Major, Op. 53 “Heroic”; Polonaise-Fantasie in A-flat Major, Op. 61 – Pascal Amoyal, piano – La Dolce Volta LDV 25, 63:32 (4/29/16) [Distr. by Harmonia mundi/PIAS] **** Pascal Amoyal surveys the seven official Chopin polonaise with passion and poetic zeal. Pascal Amoyal (b. 1971) recorded the integral set of seven “official” (Paris) Chopin polonaises 27-30 April 2015, recalling, of course, that Chopin had in fact produced some sixteen others from the time he was seven-years-old. The resonant Steinway Amoyal employs (D-357) has been very closely “miked” by Jean-Marc Laisne, to the point that we can hear the digital depressions on the keys as Amoyal strikes them. The Frederyk Chopin Society of Warsaw had bestowed its Grand Prix du Disque to Amoyal for his 2010 survey of the complete Nocturnes, and he feels the nationalistic Polonaises aim at a more specific context than the “universal” appeal to night-music. Amoyal opens with […]
PROKOFIEV and ZABOROV: Piano Works – Jenny Lin (p.) Steinway & Sons
PROKOFIEV: Pieces from Cinderella – Pieces for Piano – ZABOROV: Nine Variations on the theme by Dmitri Shostakovich – Variations for piano “Quattrocento” – Ten Apparitions – Suite for Piano “Entrelacs” – Jenny Lin, piano, Steinway & Sons 30055, 62:56, ***** Classic and modern Russian piano scores, played with intelligence and verve This is the sixth CD of a superb series of recordings on the Steinway & Sons label by the Taiwan born and Austrian raised pianist Jenny Lin. She began her piano studies at age four in Vienna and at age 10 entered the Hochschule für Musik. She came to the United States at age 14 and graduated from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in 1998. Lin has studied with Leon Fleisher and Richard Goode and lives in New York City where she teaches at the 92nd Street Y. Her recording of Stravinsky solo piano works and the album Get Happy (show tunes for piano) demonstrate her proficiency in diverse repertoire. She plays with virtuosity and musical intelligence, and has a unique ability to express the music’s emotional essence. Steinway and Sons has provided her with the most authentic piano sound that I’ve heard in a long time. This […]
American First Sonatas – Sonatas by REINAGLE, MACDOWELL, GRIFFES & SIEGMEISTER – Cecile Licad, p. – Danacord
Cecile Licad embarks on a fine tour of first American piano sonatas, our home-spun answer to European models. American First Sonatas – REINAGLE: Philadelphia Sonata No. 1 in D Major; MACDOWELL: Piano Sonata No. 1 in g, Op. 45 “Tragica”; GRIFFES: Sonata for Piano; SIEGMEISTER: American Sonata (No. 1) – Cecile Licad, p. – Danacord DACOCD 774, 71:04 (6/6/16) [Distr. by Albany] *****: Danacord has initiated “The Anthology of American Piano Music,” a series designed “to show the stylistic breadth, high musical quality and great originality of the best American piano works. The series contains underrated, neglected or forgotten masterworks of the American literature for solo piano…selected primarily for their musical worth.” Philippines-born Cecile Licad (b. 1961), a pupil at the Curtis Institute of such luminaries as Rudolf Serkin, Seymour Lipkin, and Mieczyslaw Horszowski, employs her prodigious gifts (rec. 1-3 July 2015) in the service of four such neglected works, of which the Sonata in D by Alexander Reinagle constitutes the first piano sonata to be composed in North America (1786). Reinagle (1856-1809) shares a birth year with Mozart and the year of his death coincides with that of Haydn. Educated in music at Edinburgh, Scotland, he became a member […]
“New York Rhapsody” – Lang Lang, p. & many others – Sony Classical
A really amazing crossover album and one of the very best Rhapsody in Blues. “New York Rhapsody” – Lang Lang, p. & many others [TrackList follows] – Sony Classical 889853329229, 70:00 (9/16/16) *****: I almost decided to put this CD in our Popular category, but it certainly is a very intense crossover effort in spite of Lang Lang saying that it is not. At the center of it all is perhaps the very best version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on record, and I am very partial to one with David Golub, conducted by, of all people, Mitch Miller, on Arabesque (1992). That one is great stereo sound and performance but this one is even better. Part of it is the showiness of Lang Lang, which is bound to come out in this album dedicated to America’s most symbolic city as great artists have imagined it. Part of it is also that this is a two-piano version of the Gershwin classic, with jazz legend Herbie Hancock at his Fazioli and Lang Lang at his Steinway, plus the London Symphony! The rest of this CD consists of nine short tracks featuring vocals by Jason Isbell, Andra Day, Kandace Springs, Lisa Fischer, […]
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 27 in e minor; Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major; Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, “Hammerklavier” – Steven Osborne, p. – Hyperion
Steven Osborne brings passion and intimacy to the trinity of Beethoven sonatas, 1814-1819. BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 27 in e minor, Op. 90; Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101; Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106 “Hammerklavier” – Steven Osborne, p. – Hyperion CDA68073, 74:25 (9/3016) [Distr. by Harmonia mundi/PIAS] ****: Steven Osborne performs (31 March – 2 April 2015) the three Beethoven sonatas of the 1810 period, conceived as a trilogy – a group that forms its own arch of increasing length and difficulty – moving from a relatively compressed work in the e minor Sonata to one of the most epically taxing of sonatas in the keyboard repertory. Osborne plays the three sonatas in reverse order, beginning with the daunting 1819 Hammerklavier Sonata, given a remarkably fresh and energetic gloss in this rendition. If the “official” metronome marking for the opening movement stands at half note = 138, then even Osborne’s fluid dexterity cannot maintain the speed beyond the introductory bars; and he need not for the grand, virtuosic effect of the movement’s remainder. Osborne’s fleet approach seems to make the often audacious modulations that much more pronounced, as in the exposition’s second […]
All the Way Back = Works of SMETONA, BRAHMS, BRACH, SCHUMANN, LISZT & CHOPIN – Vytautas Smetona, piano – Navona
Pianist Vytautas Smetona returns to the recording studio with a recital that embodies “the rhetoric of desire” in the Romantic ethos.
“Janus” = BACH: 3 Movements from Partita in E Major; RACHMANINOV (arr. Wild): O Cease Thy Singing, Maiden Fair; BARTOK: Sonata for Piano; SCHUMANN: Arabeske in C; CHOPIN: Ballade No. 1; PROKOFIEV: Piano Sonata No. 7 – Rajung Yang, p. – Blue Griffin
Rajung Yang delivers a recital that looks to both past and present for musical and dramatic points.
Martha Argerich & Daniel Barenboim, pianists, in MOZART, SCHUBERT & STRAVINSKY, Blu-ray (2015)
A magnificent, though expensive, two-piano recital to experience.
MOZART: Piano Sonatas – Marc-Andre Hamelin, p. – Hyperion (2 CDS)
Elegantly and intelligently mounted, this compilation of nine Mozart sonatas and selected solo works showcases Hamelin’s pearly musicianship.
SCRIABIN: Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor; Piano Sonata No. 2; Poeme in F-sharp Major; Prelude in G Minor; Four Preludes; Deux Morceaux; Sonata No. 6; Two Poemes; Piano Sonata No. 7, “White Mass” – Matthew Bengtson, p. – Romeo
Over an hour of the music of mystic Alexander Scriabin, a labyrinth of the ineffably compelling and perennially challenging personalities.
Wu Han Live, plays works of BACH, HAYDN & MENDELSSOHN – ArtistLed
The indefatigable Wu Han has a fine tribute to her keyboard talents in various displays of solo and concerted energies from her Menlo, California venue, 2003-2013.
HAYDN: Piano Sonata No. 59; Piano Sonata No. 39; Piano Sonata No. 47; Piano Sonata No. 39 – Denis Kozhukhin, p. – Onyx
Youthful Russian virtuoso Kozhukhin demonstrates his tasteful prowess in the music of Haydn.
A Piano Recital by Peter Miyamoto = BACH: Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D Minor; BERG: Piano Sonata; BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major; RAVEL: Jeux d’eau; CHOPIN: Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp Minor – Blue Griffin
Miyamoto’s 2012 recital offers a diversity of musical styles performed with intelligent passion.
BEETHOVEN: Missa Solemnis cond. by Harnoncourt, Blu-ray (2013)
Revelatory? Not quite, but certainly new and different, more from an interpretative standpoint than an orchestral one.
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
Cedille
