Morton Feldman Complete Works For Two Pianists Kristine Scholz Mats Persson (2002)

Balakirev remains one of the most atmospheric and significant of all Russian composers for the piano. From the Slavic allure of his Mazurkas, through the visionary Second Nocturne and monumental Sonata in B flat minor, to his joyous Spanish-infused pieces, he marries expressive depth with virtuoso panache. Hailed as ‘one of Britain’s best pianists’ by The Spectator, Nicholas Walker has returned to Balakirev’s original manuscripts for these performances and unearthed many new discoveries. This collection brings together Walker’s complete set of Balakirev’s piano works in a cycle that has been hailed as ‘the reference set’ by the American Record Guide.

Ashkenazy and Gavrilov give a full-blooded performance, rhythmically incisive and with every minute gear change and every nuance finely judged. Without doubt, this has to be one of the most satisfying, nay galvanizing, two-piano recitals I have had the pleasure of sampling for a long time. Ashkenazy and Gavrilov commence proceedings with a rhythmically taut, crisply articulated account of the rarely heard two-piano arrangement of the Scherzo a la russe. Originally intended as music for an abortive project for a war film, the Scherzo is more frequently heard in either its orchestral or jazz ensemble versions, but as Ashkenazy and Gavrilov so persuasively prove there is much to be said for more than an occasional airing in Stravinsky's own arrangement for two pianos.

This is the first volume of Hänssler CLASSIC’s complete recording of Schumann’s piano works, a project that has not been accomplished before. Each CD will feature at least one world premiere recording. Here we have the premiere of Presto possible in F minor. Florian Uhlig is one of the most distinguished young pianists and his interpretations are based on the new critical edition of Schumann’s piano works.

Dietrich Buxtehude - Complete Works for Organ, Volume 1 - Bine Bryndorf (2003) {Dacapo 8.226002}
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© 2003 Dacapo | 8.226002
Classical / Baroque / Organ

Dietrich Buxtehude's organ works are today in the standard repertoire for organists all over the world, but this is the first time an organist has engaged so intimately with Buxtehude by using the very instrument on which the works were composed. Dacapo Records' new Buxtehude series will consist of a total of six CDs, and besides the St. Mary's Church in Elsinore they will be recorded in the other two churches where the composer was employed, the S:ta Maria Church in Helsingborg and the Marienkirche in Lübeck.

The Complete Works for Flute and Clarinet: In both original works and transcriptions, the Ebony Duo explores Scelsi’s use of special sound colors and his coloring of sound. Transcriptions especially prepared by the clarinetist (and pianist) Michael Raster provide the basis for some of the works on the present album. Yet Scelsi’s original intentions incurred no damage as a result of this recrafting. To the contrary! “The formidable technical demands that playing on two strings with in part opposite dynamics places on the solo violinist certainly justify an adaptation for two instrumentalists – all the more so as Scelsi himself had already been concerned with the “third dimension”, the depth of sound, in connection wind instruments before, especially in the piece Ko-Lho for flute and clarinet.”

If the 32 piano sonatas and the great works in variation form (Eroica, Diabelli) form the weightiest part of Beethoven's legacy to pianists and lovers of piano music, they by no means tell the full story. In his highly acclaimed survey of the complete music for solo piano, Ronald Brautigam has previously recorded the early, unnumbered sonatas, the Bagatelles and the earlier sets of variations. He now treats us to a disc of rondos and piano pieces, spanning from one of the very earliest surviving works – a Rondo in C major composed by a 13-year old Beethoven – to what is often referred to as the composer's ‘Last Musical Thought’, an Andante maestoso in C major.

The portrait of John Bull on the cover of this two-CD U.S. release gives an idea for the uninitiated of what to expect from the composer's music: it's intense, single-minded, and even a bit demonic (although the hourglass topped with a skull with a bone in its mouth is apparently an alchemical symbol). Bull was, in the words of an unidentified writer quoted by harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, "the Liszt of the virginals." The most immediately apparent feature of his music is extreme virtuosity, on display especially in the mind-boggling set of variations entitled Walsingham (CD 1, track 8) and in the galliards of the pavan-galliard pairs. But the opposite pole in Bull's style exerts just as strong a pull: he is fascinated by strict polyphony by what would be called harmonic progressions, and by the close study of the implications contained within small musical units. As spectacular in their way as the keyboard fireworks are, the three separate settings of a tune called Why Ask You? on CD 2 are marvelous explorations of compressed musical gestures.