Anderszewski Piano

Roland Pöntinen’s generously filled and beautifully engineered recital features three of Szymanowski’s most exotic and harmonically daring middle-period works together with a handful of Mazurkas that were composed near the end of his life. The Swedish pianist gives very persuasive accounts of these later more emotionally restrained pieces projecting their melodic lines with great sensitivity without disrupting their natural dance-like flow. his sense of forward momentum works particularly well in the more capricious movements of the Masques such as ‘Tantris le bouffon’ which is delivered with almost Bartókian stridency.

Piotr Anderszewski takes a characteristically creative approach to Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-tempered Clavier). Rather than recording all 48 of its prelude-and-fugue pairings, he has focused on 12 pairings from Book Two. “I decided to put the pieces together in a sequence of my own subjective choosing, based sometimes on key relationships, at other times on contrasts. The idea behind this specific order is to create a sense of drama that suggests a cycle: 12 characters conversing with one another, mirroring each other.” Anderszewski’s last Erato album of Bach prompted BBC Music Magazine to write: “For anyone who loves Bach (or the piano) … this life-enhancing disc is required listening.

Martha Argerich does not give solo piano recitals anymore. She does something better: she plays duo piano and chamber music with her friends and students. She's been doing it for a couple of decades, and willful as she is, she probably won't change. Besides, when it comes to duo piano and chamber music recitals, Argerich with her friends and students can't be beat. Take, for example, this three-disc set of performances taken from the 2005 Lugano Festival.

This boxed set is a veritable treasure trove, an embarrassment of riches, a golden hoard - you come up with the cliché and I’ll accept it. Released along with other sets to celebrate her 70th birthday it is a remarkable musical record of fabulous achievement packed with superlative performances that simply take the breath away.

The term ‘living legend’ is genuinely apt to Martha Argerich, whose dazzling amalgam of virtuosity, insight, eclecticism, generosity and mystery makes her a pianist of unrivalled fascination. Argentinian-born, Viennese-trained, and winner of the 1965 Chopin Competition, she became a sometimes elusive figure whose every appearance and recording aroused eager anticipation. This collection presents Argerich in solo works, concertos and chamber collaborations.

Chopin: Piano Sonata No.3 etc - Ingrid Fliter
EMI | 2008
Lossless: EAC | ape (img + cue) | no log | 188 MB
Lossy: dBpoweramp | mp3 | CBR 320 kbps | 166 MB

“…an exciting technique and keen intelligence animated by an impetuous temperament…a remarkable talent.”

(The New York Times)