24 Flac

Mark Viner The young British pianist talks to Katherine about the music of the eccentric Parisian pianist-composer, which he's championed throughout his career.

Felix Blumenfeld (1863-1931) was a virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher whose class comprised the likes of Simon Barere, Maria Grinberg and Vladimir Horowitz. But he was also a composer of an oeuvre of breathtaking beauty, originality and sophistication.Blumenfeld was born in the Ukraine, into a family of Austrian-Jewish and Polish origins (his mother was a cousin of the composer Karol Szymanowski, whereas the famous pianist and pedagogue Heinrich Neuhaus was his nephew). He was in close contact with the musical giants of his age: Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Borodin and Lyadov. Like many composers of the so called Silver Age, the majority of Blumenfeld’s compositions are for the piano. His music is rooted in the late Russian Romantic tradition in which a national voice can be heard, while the pianistic writing is undeniably inspired by Chopin, though also the influence of other composers such as Adolf von Henselt and Franz Liszt may be traced. Much of his output also shows the influence of Wagner in its bold chromaticism.

Pianist Sheng Cai devotes his latest recording to piano works by Edvard Grieg, Norway's most famous composer. At the age of 22, Grieg wrote his only Piano Sonata, Op. 7, dedicated to his teacher, the influential Danish composer Niels Gade. The piano arrangement of Peer Gynt, Suite No. 1, Op. 46 is recorded here in a piano transcription by Grieg and by the Russian pianist Grigori Guinzburg (1904-1961).

Lynyrd Skynyrd Collected focuses on the entire catalogue of the band and besides their well-known songs this record also includes the hidden gems. The American band Lynyrd Skynyrd became famous by popularizing the Southern rock during the '70s. With their signature songs "Free Bird" and "Sweet Home Alabama" they were getting worldwide attention. Their list of impressive songs is endless and are all Collected for this double LP. You'll find classics like "Saturday Night Special" and "Call Me the Breeze" on the album, but also "Need All My Friends" (as Lynard Skynard) and "Don't Ask No Questions". Their breakthrough hit "Sweet Home Alabama" helped them to increase the reach of their guitar driven southern rock sound. It was the first of many hit singles and albums, pushing the band higher on the music stage.

What if the tour de force of French opera in the Age of Enlightenment was Scylla et Glaucus? At the age of 50, the famous violinist Leclair decided to write his first operatic piece, investing irrepressible energy in it. The drama is unrelenting: the nymph Scylla spurns the advances of the Demigod Glaucus, who seeks out the sorceress Circe to cast a spell on her; Circe is in love with Glaucus, drives Scylla to madness and turns her into a deadly rock… An infernal scene, an ocean storm and final cataclysm are employed to give striking relief to this trio of unappeased love, the effusions of irresistible beauty. The conductor and violinist Stefan Plewniak conducts a glorious stage of soloists in the eddies of vengeance!

Chamber opera for singing actors and irregular chamber orchestra.

Anna Vinnitskaya celebrates dance, or rather the dances of composers from very different periods and styles: Ravel, Shostakovich and Widmann. ‘In all these works, you can feel in some way transported to the world of childhood. Because I believe the childhoods of each of these three composers are reflected there’, says the pianist. In his Valses nobles et sentimentales , Ravel paid tribute to Schubert.

Fauré: Symphonie en Fa Op. 20; Herbert, V: Suite für Cello und Orchester, Op. 3; Fauré: Elégie für Cello und Orchester, Op. 24.

Two classic piano quintets from two centuries — Brahms and Shostakovich — are given superb renditions by acclaimed pianist Olga Kern and the Dalí Quartet.

The last two of the six String Quartets written by the composer of The Miraculous Mandarin, bringing together the most perfectly balanced between its two night musics, framed by three pillars of an arc built with ‘country’ material as authentic as it is violent (5th), and finally, the distressed, funereal farewell of the 6th with its sad (‘mesto’) ritornello.