This is pianist Nelson Goerner’s twelfth recording for the Alpha Classics label. He devotes his new album to the solo piano works of Franz Liszt, with the famous Sonata in B minor as the centrepiece; nearly twenty years after his first CD of the sonata, he felt the urge to re-record it, following a series of critically acclaimed concerts. His talents as a storyteller and as a virtuoso with an eye for nuance are heard to marvellous effect in this monumental work, a veritable ‘musical action’ that undoubtedly belongs in the pantheon of the finest literature for piano. The programme is completed by excerpts from Liszt’s major cycles, including the Petrarch Sonnets from the Années de pèlerinage and the Hungarian Rhapsody no.6, along with the spectacular concert étude La leggierezza.
Even though EMI has reissued some interesting old recordings in its "encore" series, there are some that seem to have been brought out of storage a bit past their prime and that may be disappointing because of their weak audio reproduction. Cécile Ousset's flashy readings of Franz Liszt's Sonata in B minor, S. 178, and the Paganini Studies, S. 141, date from 1984, and as one might expect, they sound like early digital recordings in their lack of presence, chilly ambience, and shallow dimensions. Something of a rarity, Ousset's animated and energetic interpretations may rescue this CD for fans who have never heard her play Liszt before; or the budget price may at least make it acceptable for others.
In the early 1960s, Martha Argerich was only twenty years old, but an already busy career. So full that the miracle from Argentina feels the need to take a break and recharge (rebuild) after such a whirlwind. "The young Argerich" that we invite you to find here is the one before this first silence, before her resounding victory at the Concours Chopin 1965.
Fortunately, the microphones accompanied him for a long time already. Our journey begins in 1955: shortly before flying to Vienna to follow the teaching of Friedrich Gulda, a thirteen-year-old Argerich descends the arpeggios of Etude op. 10 No.1 by Chopin with crazy insolence and aplomb. A few years later, it is with this same introduction that she will scotch the Warsaw jury.
For Anastassiya Dranchuk's debut album 'Rites de Passage', the choice of pieces by Tchaikovsky, Say, Schubert and Liszt was no coincidence. The plays had and still have a special emotional meaning in Anastassiya's life. For her, the individual compositions represent rites of passage (rites de passage, a concept from ethnology): they tell of the transition from childhood to adulthood, peace/war, birth/death… In general, it is an emotionally and tonally very colourful, technically demanding programme, which has the most diverse dualities on the topic.
The Swiss pianis and music teacher, Véronique Gobet, grew up in a family where Arts are very important: her parents sing, her father Jean-François Pellaton, is a painter. She studied at Gymnase cantonal de Neuchâtel, Switzerland. After her graduation, she majored in mainly piano along with studying orchestration and conducting at the Conservatoire de Musique de Neuchâtel (diploma with mention “very good and jury's congratulations”). Later she continued her education at the Hochschule der Musik-Akademie Basel, in the class of Rolf Mäser, where she got a concert diploma. She also benefited the teaching of the following pianist Miguel Anguel Estrella, Aberto Neuman, Elisabeth Sombart, Brian Ganz.
Limited Edition 80-CD set presenting Claudio Arrau’s complete Philips and American Decca recordings plus his live recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4 with Leonard Bernstein (Amnesty International) on Deutsche Grammophon. Balancing invincible technical accuracy and virtuosity with rigorous intellectual and spiritual stimulation, Claudio Arrau played to probe, divine and to interpret the will of the composer, always faithful to the text. He viewed technique and virtuosity as inseparable from musical expression and constantly stressed the expressive, spiritual and creative power of virtuosity while downplaying its sensational aspect and suffusing every note with meaning.
The Harmonia Mundi label doesn't pay a lot of lip service to music outside of its core, Baroque and back-centered repertoire, although it has achieved some marvelous things in contemporary music and, very occasionally, the off-the-beaten-path romantic repertoire. Emmanuelle Bertrand Plays Alkan and Liszt belongs to this last category, featuring cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand and pianist Pascal Amoyel in cello and piano works of two composers not at all generally associated with chamber music, Charles-Valentin Alkan and Franz Liszt.