Piano Work

The second album in Lars Vogts Johannes Brahms concerto series with the Royal Northern Sinfonia includes Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto combined with a solo piano work, Handel Variations Op. 24, which was dedicated to Clara Schumann by the composer.

The first album to bring together all of Fanny Mendelssohn’s four piano sonatas, written over the course of almost 20 years, and including the ‘Easter Sonata’ rediscovered in 2010.

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.

This unique recording couples the music of two major 20th-century composers, and includes the world premiere on disc of Riley's "The Heaven Ladder, Book 7," commissioned by Cheng-Cochran and written in 1994. California-based pianist Gloria Cheng has become a favoured collaborator with some of the most demanding of today's composer/conductors, including Pierre Boulez, Essa-Pekka Salonen and Oliver Knussen, for her renditions of thorny 20th century scores. "The multifarious pulsings of Adams's Phrygian Gates (all 26 minutes of it) are more palatable here than on some rival versions, and the relatively brief China Gates (just five minutes) are well worth visiting. Terry Riley's pieces are more varied in colour and rhythm, less obviously 'minimalist', than you might have expected, with the worlds of jazz remaining well within earshot. Gloria Cheng-Cochran seems fully absorbed in the tasks to hand, and the sound is superb." (Gramophone Magazine).

The twelve extended pieces which make up Albéniz’ Iberia are not only the composer’s greatest work, but also the greatest piano work to come out of Spain. Fired by his discovery of the music of Ravel and Debussy, Albéniz transformed his earlier salon style, which essentially produced charming but slight ‘picture postcards’ of Spain, into a language which was much more complex—harmonically, texturally and pianistically—and which created a series of tone poems which capture the spiritual essence of Spain.

The French composer Albert Roussel (1869-1937) was ideally placed to develop a unique musical style. His background was more colourful than most of his fellow composers (he initially studied mathematics and worked as a naval officer before devoting himself to music), while his early years as a composer saw him exposed to a barrage of rich but conflicting musical influences: the impressionist movement (spearheaded by Debussy) and the more traditional approach of the Schola Cantorum (championed by d'Indy and Franck). Roussel absorbed the wide-ranging styles that he heard around him, blending and modifying them to establish his own distinctive voice – a voice that can be perceived clearly in his music for solo piano. Traditional musical forms are a frequent point of inspiration: in the Suite in F sharp Op.14, Roussel uses rustic dances as a basis to explore both counterpoint and tonal disintegration, while the Bach-inspired Prélude et Fugue demonstrates the neo-Classical style that he was drawn to in his later period. Above all, Roussel's piano music is characterised by its unique synthesis of rationality and feeling.

This programme is truly a reflection of my three years as artist-in-residence at Royaumont and my artistic personality of the last years. Working with young composers is a passion for me – to study a completely new score, to discover the intentions of the composer through discussions, experimentation and sometimes just through being in their company, is something that is very important to me as the foundation of my work as a performer. The pieces that Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh and Matthew Chamberlain wrote for me are great examples of this work, and although very different, they both speak to different parts of being a pianist.