International Piano 2017

Established in 1962, the quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition is often recognized as the most prestigious classical music contest in the world (The Chicago Tribune) and remains committed to its original ideals of supporting and launching the careers of young artists, ages 18 30. It shares the transformative powers of music with a wide global audience, through fully produced webcasts and by providing comprehensive career management and concert bookings to its winners. Past winners include Radu Lupu, Jon Nakamatsu, Olga Kern, Joyce Yang, Haochen Zhang, Beatrice Rana, and Vadym Kholodenko.

It is well known that Felix Mendelssohn’s sister Fanny was a highly talented musician, but fewer are familiar with the fact that there were two other musical siblings in the Mendelssohn family: Rebecka, a gifted singer, and Paul, a very competent amateur cellist. It is to Paul, a banker by profession, that we owe the existence of much of Felix’s music for the instrument, which in spite of Beethoven’s endeavours hadn’t yet become firmly established as a duo partner of the piano. Fitting comfortably on a single release, Mendelssohn’s works for cello and piano are here presented by Christian Poltera and Ronald Brautigam, who open with the Variations concertantes in D major, composed in 1829. Brautigam has recently released the composer’s Lieder ohne Worte, performing them on a copy of a piano by Pleyel from 1830, and plays the same instrument on the present disc. Meanwhile, Poltera has chosen to equip his 1711 Stradivarius cello with gut strings, and together the two musicians and their instruments create a sound which is both flexible, transparent and vigorous – ideal for Mendelssohn’s scores.

Einar Englund (1916–1999) was not only one of Finlands major symphonists; he was also one of his countrys most important pianists. He was destined for a virtuoso career until he damaged a finger as a soldier in the Battle of Bengtskjär in the Finnish Continuation War in 1941 but when he later discovered the bullet holes in his beret, he realised he had had a lucky escape!

This CD brings together all the works for violin and piano. Mel Bonis leaves an important work of about three hundred pieces. The essential is composed between 1892 and 1914. His music, of postromantic style is well inscribed in his time. She is very varied, ranging from drama to humor, often vigorous and sensual, with impressive or orientalist expansions, always very well written and of great sensitivity. It is a personal writing and easily identifiable by the originality of harmonies and rhythms. A critic wrote in 1923 for the "Courrier des Musiciens": "I recall hearing a melody from the Melissis's composition at the Salon des Musiciens, which had given me infinite pleasure …

The flautist Sharon Bezaly has, over the past 20 years, released some 40 discs on BIS, recordings that have contributed to the international recognition that she enjoys. Both on disc and in concert she has done much to champion new repertoire she has had no less than 20 concertos dedicated to her. On her new disc, however, she turns to core repertoire, although not necessarily that of her own instrument. The two sonatas by César Franck and Gabriel Fauré were composed with the violin in mind, and even though Prokofiev's sonata was originally intended for the flute it is often heard in the composer's own version for violin and piano. But joined by the legendary pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sharon Bezaly now claims (and reclaims) the three works for her own instrument, in eloquent performances that make the best possible case for the flute.