György Ligeti

Katia and Marielle Labèque are sibling pianists renowned for their ensemble of synchronicity and energy. Their musical ambitions started at an early age and they rose to international fame with their contemporary rendition of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (one of the first gold records in classical music) and have since developed a stunning career with performances worldwide.

Third Sound, hailed as a “forward-looking, expert ensemble” (The New Yorker), presents its debut album, Heard In Havana, featuring music by ten living American composers. In November 2015, the American Composers Forum (ACF) sent Third Sound and a delegation of ten composers to Havana, Cuba, to present a program of contemporary American music at the Havana Contemporary Music Festival. The program, presented in Havana’s eighteenth-century Basílicia Menor de San Francisco de Asís, offered a unique snapshot of the vitality and diversity of the contemporary American musical landscape. The concert moreover represented an historic occasion: against the sociopolitical backdrop of normalizing relations between the United States and Cuba, Third Sound presented the first concert entirely comprising contemporary American music, and with all composers in attendance, to take place in Cuba since before the Cuban Revolution.

« Après une lecture de Bach… » est une pièce au lyrisme intense, écrite, comme « La Suicidaire », pour violon seul, avec qui dont elle partage le tempo lent et le climat sombre, le caractère mélancolique et douloureux. Dans son enregistrement, Marina Chiche s'est attachée à conférer à chaque pièce une égale intensité expressive, mettant en évidence la rigueur de la construction formelle de chacune des pièces interprétées, choisissant « d'accuser les contrastes et de mettre en valeur les particularités stylistiques de chaque partition », néanmoins unies par la similitude de leur écriture harmonique et contrapuntique.

Aki Rissanen - Another North (2017) {Edition Records EDN 1101} (Complete Artwork)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 262 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 99 Mb
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© 2017 Edition Records | EDN 1101
Jazz / Modern Jazz / Jazz Piano Trio

Following on from 2016's Amorandom, Finnish pianist Aki Rissanen has produced yet another satisfying album. Born in 1980 he has already released nine albums as leader or co-leader. Rissanen studied classical piano at Finland's Kuopio Conservatory from 1990-2000 and then jazz music at Helsinki Polytechnic School and in 2009 gained a Master's degree in jazz piano and composition from the Sibelius Academy Jazz Department, also in Helsinki. He also studied improvised music at Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris.

As composer, musicologist and critic, Erkki Salmenhaara (1941-2002) was one of the major figures in Finnish musical life in the second half of the twentieth century. His music for organ charts his stylistic evolution, from a modernism influenced by his teacher, György Ligeti, to triadic harmonies spiced with dissonance. Even so, all these works manifest his fondness for the ability of the organ to generate massive and powerful blocks of sound, giving this music a monumental character in keeping with the grand spaces of the buildings in which it is usually heard.

Béla Bartók - Bartók Plays Bartók, Bartók At The Piano 1929-1941 (1995) {Pearl GEMM CD 9166}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 141 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 152 Mb
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© 1929-41, 1991 Pearl ‎| GEMM CD 9166
Classical / Early 20th Century / Modern / Piano

Hungarian composer Bela Bartok (born in Romania) was an innovative composer in his day and along with Gyorgy Ligeti is highly regarded as one of the greatest composers to come out of Hungary in the 20th century. While a majority of Bartok's works are timeless classics in modern Classical repertoire, recordings are Bartok performing his own music are extremely rare to find these days. This is what makes the "Bartok Plays Bartok" disc from Pearl Records such a treat to listen to. The recordings on this disc date from between 1929 and 1941 and display Bartok's gifts as a solid pianist in their fullest. His pianistic attack and full command of the instrument comes through in every piece included here.