Leon Mccawley

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce Leon McCawley’s Second Volume of Piano Sonatas by Franz Joseph Haydn. McCawley’s admired first volume, pairing Haydn’s Sonatas and Variations (SOMMCD 0162), received a coveted Diapason d’Or for playing of “great intelligibility and sensitivity”. Sonata No.60 from Volume I has been selected by Diapason to appear on its next CD, Les indispensables de Diapason, featuring six Haydn sonatas played on different keyboards.

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce the fourth volume in Leon McCawley’s much-praised series of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Piano Sonatas.

A truly invigorating new release from SOMM this month, brings us Leon McCawley in a recording of four Haydn Piano Sonatas together with the set of Variations in F minor (Sonata - Un piccolo divertimento). Siva Oke first heard Leon play Haydn during a recital for the Chopin Society and was immediately struck by the many wonderful qualities he brought to his playing which captured classical purity and pristine articulation coupled with warmth, plasticity and wit. Widely acknowledged as one of Britain's foremost pianists, McCawley has forged a highly successful career since winning First Prize in the 1993 International Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna and Second Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition, building on his earlier success as Winner of the Piano Section of BBC Young Musician of the Year in 1990.

SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce a major new release by Leon McCawley focusing on the piano music of Franz Schubert. The new recording is the latest offering from a highly acclaimed partnership between SOMM and McCawley that has seen earlier albums devoted to Haydn, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Rachmaninov and Samuel Barber. Leon McCawley has been one Britain’s foremost pianists since winning the International Beethoven Piano Competition in 1993, when he also took second prize in the Leeds International Piano Competition. Perhaps “the most enigmatic of all musical geniuses”, as Bryce Morrison describes him, Schubert himself famously declared “I came into this world for nothing else but to compose”.

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce the release of Natural Connection, a captivatingly lyrical new recording by pianist Leon McCawley featuring music for solo piano inspired by the natural world.

Samuel Barber, one of the most prominent and popular American composers of the mid-20th century, wrote effectively in virtually every genre, including opera, ballet, vocal, choral, keyboard, chamber, and orchestral music. His music is notable for its warmly Romantic lyricism, memorable melodies, and essentially conservative harmonic style, all of which put him at odds with the prevailing modernist aesthetic of his time.

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) : Sonate pour clavier n° 39 en ré majeur, Hob XVI:24 - Sonate pour clavier n° 42 en sol majeur, Hob XVI:27 - Sonate pour clavier n° 55 en si bémol majeur, Hob XVI:41 - Sonate pour clavier n° 58 en do majeur, Hob XVI:48 - Sonate pour clavier n° 60 en do majeur, XVI:50 - Sonate pour clavier n° 62 en mi bémol majeur, Hob XVI:52 / Marcia Hadjimarkos, clavicorde - Pierre Gallon, clavecin - Carole Cerasi, pianoforte - Iddo Bar-Shaï, piano - Leon McCawley, piano - Sviatoslav Richter, piano