Piano Works 1936–2000 Josef Tal, Ofra Yitzhaki

The choice of works on this amply filled album, as well as the performances are the result of Lorenda Ramou’s research into the artistic environment of Nikos Skalkottas, in Berlin (1921–33) and in Athens (1933–49). The programme is organized as a triptych, focusing on three distinctive compositional styles. First, all surviving Berlin works for piano solo are presented in chronological order, showing how the young composer was reacting to the new and exciting jazz/dance music, but also to the people around him and to events in the musical world of Berlin in the 1920s.

Dvořák’s works for solo piano are in the main an unexplored landscape even for many a pianist and musicologist. This segment of his music lacks Chopin’s sway and finely nuanced emotionality, nor does it possess Liszt’s osten­tatious virtuosity.

Vadim Chaimovich was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, and began studying piano at the age of five, giving his USSR debut performance with an orchestra just two years later. His winning the First Prize at the «Virtuosi per Musica di Pianoforte» International Competition in Usti nad Labem (Czech Republic) in 1991 was followed by more awards at international competitions in Lithuania, Poland and Russia.

Selim Palmgren, a student of Busoni, was one of the leading Nordic composers during the first decades of the 20th century. His wide-ranging music for piano was performed and recorded by some of the greatest artists of the day. This third volume in the first complete cycle of Palmgren’s piano music on disc includes a varied cross-section of works written over a 50-year period. It includes the youthful Lyriskt intermezzo, Op. 8, romantic miniatures of great charm—as well as one of his greatest achievements, the atmospheric suite Kevät (‘Spring’), in which impressionist elements fuse with rich Finnish folk melody.

"Hey everyone, you really should listen to this music!" Fabian Müller was given Brahms's complete piano works on CD as a child, and he would sit in the back of his parentsʼ car on the way to vacation, enraptured by the music of the Hamburg composer. Nothing has changed in his attitude since then.

The very first complete recording of Viktor Kalabis's piano works, as well as the album of his three sonatas (SU 4210-2, Supraphon 2018) have come to fruition upon the initiative and owing to the relentless enthusiasm of the world-renowned harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková, the composer's wife and a keen promoter of his oeuvre. Of major importance was the selection of the pianist - one possessing superlative technical skills and having a profound understanding of the structure of Kalabis's music. As Ivo Kahánek put it: "Kalabis was one of the composers who don't restrict their ideas by the traditional laws of the piano technique, hence his music is now and then extremely difficult to perform."

Unfairly neglected, Tchaikovsky’s piano music—which runs to approximately 11 hours’ worth—contains some gems, particularly such larger works as the two sonatas. Valentina Lisitsa is a terrific advocate, stepping up to the role of modern champion and shining brilliant light into this largely unexplored corner of the repertoire. Her technique is characteristically impressive—as in the opening Étude of Op. 40, which she launches with astonishing energy—and she draws a lovely sound from her beautifully recorded Bösendorfer piano. Tchaikovsky’s various piano arrangements, too, are a lot of fun, particularly the virtuoso Marche Slave. A set to dip into for rich rewards.

Respighis orchestral works are some of the most popular in the mainstream repertoire. His output of piano music, by contrast, is as good as unknown, and this new Toccata Classics series will be the first ever to present it all: original works and transcriptions alike, for solo piano, piano four hands and two pianos. This first instalment crowns his earliest keyboard compositions with the magisterial Three Preludes on Gregorian Melodies, miniature Lisztian tone-poems presented with Busonian grandeur.

Born in 1903, Aram Khachaturian became the most significant twentieth-century musical figure in the then Soviet Republic of Armenia. Many of his most important works date from the first half of his career. The expressive immediacy of his music, conditioned by his Armenian heritage with its sensuous melodic writing, its vibrant orchestration and rhythmic drive all resulted in a popularity equalled by few composers of his generation.