Piano Baroque

Les Cinquième et Sixième symphonies de Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) ont vu le jour pour ainsi dire en même temps. Dès 1803, au milieu des esquisses de la Troisième, l’Héroïque , on retrouve une ébauche du début de la Cinquième Symphonie et un motif intitulé « murmure de ruisseaux » qui sera utilisé dans le second mouvement de la Sixième. Mais ce n’est qu’en 1805 que la Cinquième fut vraiment entreprise et, l’année suivante, la Sixième Symphonie. Beethoven les acheva toutes deux en 1808, non sans avoir fait plusieurs pauses pendant lesquelles il composa, entre autres, la Quatrième Symphonie, le Quatrième Concerto pour piano, le Concerto pour violon, la Messe en do majeur et la Fantaisie pour piano, orchestre et chœurs.

After the success of last year’s compilation Romance–Sony Classical has released a new album that is very attractive and includes famous works from Lang Lang’s back catalogue. These not only show the super-star pianist‘s interpretative magic, but also his renowned finger-fireworks! All the works are accessible and instantly recognisable. The album includes Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca, Liszt’s Rákóczy March, Chopin’s Minute Waltz and Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer. The album also includes some of Lang Lang’s most streamed tracks to date: Bach’s Air on the G-string and Liszt’s La Campanella.

The pellucid simplicity of Bruno Canino's pianoplaying is the perfect partner for the fine silver of Viktoria Mullova's violin playing. Here it is at its most refined, even its most austere. The Adagio of the B minor Sonata contains absolutely nothing extraneous to a perception of the melody's own contours: no gloss of dynamic or movement, just a sense of totally secure accomplishment, sophisticated timbre and phrasing.

Born into a long line of musicians, some of whom officiated at the court of Versailles, Boëly was first taught from the age of five by his father, a countertenor at the Sainte-Chapelle who was also a composer, teacher and author of a treatise on harmony influenced by Rameau. In 1796, he entered the Paris Conservatoire to study under Guérillot (violin) and Ladurner (piano), who introduced him to Bach, Haydn and Clementi. His formal education was of short duration, however, since he was forced to leave the conservatory in 1800. From then on, he taught himself, reading the old masters to cultivate his personal tastes and develop his style, which was out of sync with that of the audiences of his time who preferred patriotic or Italian works to his overly classicist offerings.

Although there has always been some uproar about transcribing Bach's music, especially his keyboard music to piano, I see the Bach transcriptions as an eloquent homage to the old master. Arrangements and transcriptions have been made for over two hundred years and for the reason that Bach's music will always be effective on other mediums. Busoni and Godowsky were perhaps the greatest transcribers, with Liszt following closely behind. The piano is such a versatile instrument and can please both the Baroque enthusiasts and the Romantic lovers. Only the piano can imitate the fleeting polyphony and yet transform the music with sonorous beauty.

For many years now, I have been playing piano transcriptions in my recitals, and the programme on this disc was originally devised for my concert at the Valletta Baroque Music Festival in Malta in January 2020. I have special affinity with many of the pieces, but here I will share just a couple. One is my own transcription of the aria “Erbarme Dich, mein Gott”, which I first performed at a Preface concert entitled “Homage to Toru Takemitsu”. As I explained on that occasion, Takemitsu loved this aria; he would play it every time he set to work on a new composition, and also by chance he heard this piece on the radio the day before he died. The other piece that is close to my heart is the Passacaglia and Fugue in Eugen d’Albert’s transcription, which I played when I collaborated with Mathieu Ganio, danseur étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet. Until then, Mathieu was mostly cast as a prince, but in this project, he took on a new challenge to perform a one-man play. I still remember vividly how he appeared on stage with this music, naked down to the waist, like the image of Christ on the way towards his crucifixion.

When Johann Sebstian Bach composed his flute sonatas, the flute was in it's infancy as a replacement for the popular recorder. Nevertheless, his musical genius rings out as richly layered harmony and emotions exude from each fluently written piece on J.S. Bach: Complete Sonatas for Flute & Piano. On this two-disc recording, the mother-daughter duo of flutist Julie Scolnik, lauded by the Boston Globe for her "urgency full of fire that melts into disarming delicacy," and pianist Sophie Scolnik-Brower further amplify Bach's expressiveness, swapping the usual harpsichord for piano to deepen the dynamics and phrasing throughout the compositions.