Perianes

Beyond the celebrated Funeral March, Chopin’s Second and Third Sonatas testify to their composer’s astounding ease in musical structures on a much larger scale than waltzes, nocturnes – and mazurkas, such as the three that make up his Op. 63, cunningly used here to frame Javier Perianes’s latest musical project. Whether in small or large forms, the most famous of all Romantic piano composers was an absolute master of musical dramaturgy.

We have had to wait more than70 years to hear these three rarely performed pieces by Spanish masters on the same recording. Two of them are quintets written over a century ago, early in the respective careers of Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina, which won them recognition both nationally and internationally. Written a dozen years apart (1895-1907), these two piano quintets display multiple affinities with the French chamber music of the period. At the same time, these masterpieces that are played all too rarely bear witness to the vitality of Spanish music at the dawn of the new century.

Francisco Goya's paintings have left a powerful imprint on the European imagination. It was undoubtedly Granados who best translated into music, with nobility and humour, this colourful universe where majos and majas dance to love and death in the twilight glow of a dying Ancien Régime.

A visionary composer, Domenico Scarlatti pushed back the frontiers of keyboard writing, fusing radiant melodies with spirited rhythms and daring technical feats. In this compendium of his most attractive sonatas, Javier Perianes employs his consummate virtuosity with audible enjoyment, revealing all the richness and inventiveness of his adoptive compatriot’s musical language.

The Sonata D664? The fine craftsmanship of a composer still writing in the shadow of the giant Beethoven; nine years later, Schubert, just thirty-one years old, produced what was, already, his last sonata (D960), just a few weeks before his shockingly premature death. So just nine years separate these two extremities in his output, but it would take many decades for these masterpieces to gain the same consideration as the late symphonies of Mozart or Beethoven’s op.132! This music is now cherished by today’s artists – among them Javier Perianes, who here returns to Schubert after a remarkable first volume that enjoyed great success with the public.

This album invites you to travel from Spain to South America in the company of the greatest composers the countries of the region have produced: next to Spanish folk songs reshaped by Falla, compositions by Casals, Granados, Montsalvatge, and the beloved Ária from the Bachiana brasileira by Brazil’s Villa-Lobos, an Argentine tango by Piazzolla is paired with its Spanish counterpart by Albéniz (though his is in the form of a habanera). A wide-ranging programme which brings together two virtuoso soloists… who are not about to part.

En écho à l’exposition inaugurée en avril 2020 par le Musée de la musique-Philharmonie de Paris, harmonia mundi vous invite à découvrir un autre Picasso : le mélomane ! Celui qui s’est nourri de musique tout au long de sa vie d’artiste. De la culture populaire à l’avant-garde en passant par l’art de la scène, ce prolongement sonore questionne l’univers musical du peintre et révèle ses amitiés avec les plus illustres compositeurs de son temps – Debussy, Satie, Falla, Stravinsky, Poulenc, Milhaud, rien de moins !

There are interpretations of Schubert’s Impromptus that are full of poetry and lyricism, full of internalization (I’m thinking of Perianes and Pires), and there are much harsher, hard-chiseled ones (Ashkenazy). Cyprien Katsaris combines both views, thus achieving interesting contrasts. He reveals the singing Schubert as well as the rumbling, even the hot-tempered and angry Schubert, and all this in a very clear, transparent piano sound, in which also expressive levels can be revealed without blurring. The overall impression is of a very personal, highly committed and always alert, spontaneous performance that expresses Schubert’s emotional ups and downs without any sentimentality.Urgent release to commemorate Katsaris' visit to Japan! Schubert Improvisations on Bechstein! The latest recordings from 2022 & 2023 from the independent label "Piano21" of Cyprian Katsaris, the wizard of the keyboard, the incarnation of superb technique! Recently, he has been releasing rare transcriptions of Bizet's "Don Giovanni" (ONIFCCD141) and Saint-Saens' "Symphony with Organ" (OP21064N) arranged by Katsaris himself, and this time, he has released a new recording of "Schubert's 31 short years of life" (OP21064N). Please look forward to a new frontier of Katsaris, who continues to deepen and deepen his repertoire at the age of over 70.