This is the third volume in the Chandos series devoted to the music of the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski. It brings together his first surviving orchestral piece (The Symphonic Variations) and his last symphony, as well as two works for piano and orchestra – an early work originally written for two pianos (The ‘Paganini’ Variations), and his very last concerto. The works are performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner, described by Gramophone as a veritable ‘Dream Team’ in Vol. 1. They are joined in this recording by Louis Lortie, the award-winning pianist and exclusive Chandos artist.
It sure have taken a long time but here they are ! Enjoy…
Bavouzet’s previous two volumes have been very well received both critically and commercially. In a recent review of volume two the LA Times wrote, ‘In what may turn out to be the greatest complete recorded survey of the composer’s piano music yet, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet… plays with such bracing clarity that hearing the early Romantic pieces, one feels like jumping into an icy pond after an hour in the sauna’. Of the same volume International Record Review has noted, ‘I had the highest praise for Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s first volume of Debussy, and the present disc is fully the equal of that one in terms of colour, refinement of touch, spontaneity and technical finish…
'This is the fourth and final disc in Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s Debussy series for Chandos, and perhaps the most impressive… Bavouzet’s performances manage to reconcile perfectly those echoes of the earlier sensuous writing with the newly invented, harder-edged sonorities. He is just as convincing in the two sets on Images as well, whether perfectly gilding the swoops and swirls of Poissons d’Or, or evoking the stately monumentality of Hommage à Rameau.'
The Guardian
Some tracks on Disc 4 were messy & had a too long filename, so I re-ripped the entire album with EAC.
If one reviews her earlier CD programmes and not least her last, very successful album “Grenzgänge”, it is striking that the works of Johann Sebastian Bach form a fixed point of reference for the pianist Alexandra Sostmann. Bach is almost always there. Therefore, it was only logical that she went into the studio to record a complete recording of one of his major works, the first part of the “Well-Tempered Clavier”, after an extensive and intensive study of the music.
This 14-CD set is really very complete (a few absences are mentioned below). Besides the solo fortepiano works, it features works for piano four-hands, two pianos, even works for organ and the adagio for glass harmonica KV 617a, though these works are performed on the fortepiano. Frankly, I can't bear listening to the glass harmonica, but I prefer the organ works played on organ and the CD with Mozart's organ works I recommend is Mozart - L'oeuvre pour orgue, Olivier Vernet, Cédric Meckler, Ligia Digital. Furthermore, this box presents some never before recorded works comprising recent authentications of Mozart's authorship; doubtful and spurious works; fragments. I name these works below.