24 Piano Preludes

“ A pianist-painter who transforms each musical idea into a beautiful array of colors ” ( La Presse ), Philip Chiu is
acclaimed for his brilliant pianism, sensitive listening, and a stage presence that eschews the hermit-pianist
image and favours openness, authenticity, and connection with audiences. Inaugural winner of the Mécénat
Musica Prix Goyer ($125,000), Philip has become one of Canada’s leading musicians through his infectious
love of music and his passion for creation and communication.

Lawrence Power makes the second of his appearances in this month’s release lists, this time with his regular pianist partner Simon Crawford-Phillips in the chamber music of Shostakovich. The centrepiece is the Viola Sonata, Shostakovich’s last completed work, premiered posthumously, on what would have been the composer’s sixty-ninth birthday. Its ravishing slow finale reworks the opening of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata—a tribute to a composer he revered. Shostakovich the film composer also takes a bow, in the form of The Gadfly, with its famous ‘Romance’ beloved of violinists everywhere. That this works just as compellingly on the viola is triumphantly displayed in the arrangement made by Vadim Borisovsky (founding violist of the Beethoven Quartet), one of the Five Pieces he recast from Shostakovich’s original. Shostakovich’s 24 Piano Preludes have also proved irresistible to transcribers and here we have the seven brilliantly reworked by a pupil of Borisovsky, Yevgeny Strakhov.

This CD contains seven cycles of piano miniatures which are described as preludes. All of them are by Polish composers and date from the second half of the twentieth century. In stylistic terms, the prelude is a fairly homogenous genre and yet a more thorough analysis makes it possible to notice a rich spectrum of compositional devices and ways of shaping the musical material as well as the means of artistic expression. A disk of 33 short piano pieces, written by seven different composers over the space of 41 years might seem a daunting prospect yet this is a very enjoyable and fascinating collection of pieces, which makes for very pleasant listening.

Recorded in Finland, in Järvenpää near Helsinki, this disc is a tribute to five extraordinary figures in Italian music: Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973), Mario CastelnuovoTedesco (1895-1968), Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975), Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), and Nino Rota (1911-1979); five composers whose poetic universes, although very different from one another, are permeated by a common, intense expressiveness: the same trait that runs through the works featured here and that, like a fil rouge, has oriented Sanna Vaarni along his itinerary from 1916, the date of publication of Mario CastelnuovoTedesco’s Raggio verde, to 1964, the year of Nino Rota’s enchanting Preludi.

A mesmerising, innovative album of Messiaen and Couperin piano works.

Following her acclaimed Brahms release on Signum Classics in May 2021, Leeds International Piano Competition Winner (2015), Anna Tsybuleva, releases a new album of Debussy’s 24 Preludes pour solo piano. Tsybuleva has been described by as embodying “superb pianism and intelligent musicianship” (Gramophone Magazine) and “A pianist of rare gifts: not since Murray Perahia’s triumph in 1972 has Leeds had a winner of this musical poise and calibre” (International Piano Magazine). Praise for Tsybuleva on Signum Classics “One is speechless. As far as their performance is concerned, the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin, the soloist and the conductor Ruth Reinhardt are an extremely eloquent team that realizes their musical ideas together. You can hear a direct and gripping Brahms, without any airs, without frills – music that speaks to you directly” – Piano News

Born in Liege, Belgium, in 1873, Joseph Jongen showed an outstanding precocity for music from a very early age, and was admitted to the Liege Conservatoire at the extraordinarily young age of seven.

A personal selection of piano pieces by George Gershwin and Claude Debussy, played by the young virtuoso Andrejs Osokins.T

MAURIZIO ZACCARIA is an Italian pianist, born in Bari.
His repertoire ranges from Classical to Contemporary music, from soloist to soloist with orchestra to chamber music in the most various formations.