Contemplations Glassberg Erato

Some of Stephen Hough’s most exquisite recordings come from his collaborations with EMI and Virgin Classics during this early period, offering a taste of the pianist’s impeccable touch, his musical and intellectual rigor, and his fondness for the short showpieces that filled late 19th-century salons and peppered the 78 rpm records of golden-age pianists. In the two all-Liszt recitals, Stephen Hough is also in his element, creating atmospheric colors, with notes flowing like streams of pearls, shaping and magnifying the dramatic depth of these works. From Mozart to Schumann, Brahms to Britten, looking back at the great virtuoso tradition while looking forward through his own arrangements, Stephen Hough presents, through these early recordings, a fascinating portrait of a young artist whose brilliant, artistic intellect and appetite for creativity remains unmatched today.

Beethoven - Pathetique, Mondschein, Waldstein - Alexei Lubimov (1992) {2015 Erato Japan WPCS-16121)
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© 1992, 2015 Erato / Parlophone / Warner Classics Japan | WPCS-16121
Classical / Sonatas / Piano

The three very popular Beethoven Sonatas collected in this recording showcased Lubimov's keen sense of interpretation and diabolical keyboard facility. The `Moonlight' and `Waldstein' are nothing short of heart-stopping performances, yet at the same time the musical contents of the pieces conveyed in entirely convincing authenticity. Even in the less demanding `Pathetique', Lubimov paints a vivid picture in terms of fully articulated emotional nuances and musical atmosphere, some thing of which he is among the most polished among pianists. Highly poetic performances. Heartily recommended.

Chopin - 4 Ballades, Barcarolle, Fantaisie, Berceuse - Alexei Lubimov (1992) {2015 Erato Japan WPCS-16124}
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© 1992, 2015 Erato / Parlophone / Warner Classics Japan | WPCS-16124
Classical / Romantic / Piano

Before Steinway grand pianos existed, two of the leading makes were Erard and Pleyel – both French. Chopin liked them for different reasons. Playing an Erard from 1837, the Russian-born pianist Alexei Lubimov finds more power than expected in the stormiest passages of the Ballades, but it’s in the mesmerising lull of the Berceuse that the instrument really comes into its own. Never has that left-hand accompaniment sounded quite so haunting, nor the right hand so silvery: these seem like the music’s authentic qualities, and there is no sense of struggle against a mechanical opponent.

Marie-Claire Alain - L'Orgue Francais (2014) {22CDs Boxset - Warner Classics / Erato}
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© 2014 Warner Classics / Erato | 0825646310647
Classical / Baroque / Organ Music / Choral

Known as the ‘First Lady of the organ’, Marie-Claire Alain was a strikingly mature, creative and intuitive artist. Spanning four centuries of music, from Baroque masterpieces by the likes of Couperin and Grigny, through cornerstones of the French organ repertoire by Widor, Vierne and Messiaen, to two discs of works by her brother Jehan, this collection is testament to her vast and impressively wide-ranging recording legacy.

Mozart: The Weber Sisters - Sabine Devieilhe, Raphaël Pichon, Pygmalion (2015) {Erato-Warner Classics 0825646075843}
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© 2015 Erato / Parlophone / Warner Classics | 0825646075843
Classical / Vocal Music

The story of how Mozart fell in love with the young singer Aloysia Weber, was dumped, and then married her younger sister Constanze is well known. The fact that a third sister, Josepha, figured in Mozart's career (and that the youngest sister, Sophia, remembered Mozart from her childhood) is less commonly appreciated. French soprano Sabine Devieilhe steps into the roles of Aloysia, Constanze, and Josepha here, making clear that all three must have been among the strongest sopranos of their time. She doesn't really try to differentiate among the voices of the three (which are at any rate unknowable), but all of them got powerhouse arias.

Joseph Haydn - Haydn Concertos - Maxim Emelyanychev / Riccardo Minasi / Il Pomo d'Oro (2016) {2CD Erato-Warner Classics}
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© 2016 Erato / Warner Classics | 0825646052042
Classical / Viennese School / Concerto

Co-chief conductors Riccardo Minasi and Maxim Emelyanychev take turns on the podium leading this period-instrument band in a rousing collection of concertos by Haydn. Il Pomo d'Oro has been hailed "a wonderful ensemble, and Minasi an outstanding musician" capable of "bringing the house down with his virtuosity" (The Guardian). Emelyaychev's award-winning harpsichord joins Minasi's violin in the soloists' spotlight, along with the distinguished natural horn of Johannes Hinterholzer. The concertos are complemented by Haydn's Symphony No 83 (known as The Hen, because of the ‘clucking’ figures on the strings in its second movement) and his Keyboard Fantasia Hob.XVII:4.

Frederic Chopin - Samson François - The 2 Piano Concertos, Rondo, op.73 (2016) {Erato rec 1966}
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© 1965-66, 2016 Erato / Parlophone / Warner Music | 0825646829187
Classical / Romantic / Concerto / Piano

Samson François was a pianist of mercurial brilliance and mesmeric charisma, capable of extraordinary poetry. The sense of spontaneity in his playing could at times become wilful, even provocative, but he never ceases to exercise his fascination on the listener. Chopin’s music was of essential importance to him, and here he performs both the composer’s piano concertos.

Édouard Lalo - Le Roi d'Ys - French Broadcasting Orchestra, André Cluytens (2018) {Erato-Warner Classics rec 1957, Mono}
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© 1957, 2018 Erato / Parlophone / Warner Classics | 0190295734855 | Mono
Classical / Romantic / Opera

Lalo’s Le Roi d’Ys draws on the same Breton myth of a submerged city as Debussy’s La Cathédrale engloutie. A great success at its 1888 premiere at Paris’s Opéra Comique, it even reached the Metropolitan Opera, New York, but its current rarity on the world’s stages makes this classic 1957 recording still more treasurable. The performers’ Gallic credentials are impeccable, even though both Rita Gorr and André Cluytens were natives of Flanders. Like soprano Janine Micheau and tenor Henri Legay, Cluytens enjoyed close links to the Opéra Comique, spending six years as its music director.