Rachmaninov Liturgia Crisostomo

For his first CD release on Ondine, star baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky has chosen art song repertoire of great intensity and emotion from his Russian home country. The 26 romances by Sergei Rachmaninov on this disc include such popular songs as Spring waters, op.14/11 or In the silence of the mysterious night, op.4/3.

Sergei Rachmaninov - Paganini Rhapsody & Piano Concerto No.2
Yuja Wang, piano / Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Claudio Abbado
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 225 MB | Full Artwork: 83 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Deutsche Grammophon # 477 9308 GH | Country/Year: Germany 2011
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic, Piano

"…Wang's impeccable technique and tonal beauty certainly aid in pouring this old wine into a new bottle . . . the spins and gyrations become quite beguiling, while Abbado injects his own potent impetus into the mix. A disarming lovely set of Rachmaninov works, beautifully played and gorgeously recorded courtesy of engineer Stephan Flock." ~Audiophile Audition

Tzimon Barto is recognised as one of the foremost American pianists of his generation. His new double-CD for Ondine features Paganini variations by three composers, Liszt, Brahms and Lutoslawski, and the popular Paganini Rhapsody Rachmaninov, on which Christoph Eschenbach conducts the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra. The Schlewig-Holstein Festival Orchestra was founded by Leonard Bernstein in 1987. This recording is Tzimon Barto’s 5th Ondine release.

Kiril Kondrashin was perhaps the greatest conductor to emerge from the Soviet Union. Trained at the Moscow Conervatory, he led most of the Soviet Union's great orchestras although he is most well-known for his stints at the Bolshoi Theater and as principal conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra from 1960 to 1976. He defected to the west in 1979 during a tour in Holland. He was immediately named a principal conductor alongside Bernard Haitink to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
This massive six-disc compilation covers some of the best of Kondrashin's work while behind the iron curtain. It includes no less than four of Prokofiev's major works: the First and Third Piano Concertos, the Second Violin Concerto, and the October Cantata, Op. 74, a work for which he gave the original premiere performance in 1966.

Playing together for the first time for Hyperion, Hough and Isserlis are stunningly matched in this large-scale passionate romantic programme. The sonatas stand at the centre of the meaty repertoire established by Brahms—whose two cello sonatas Steven Isserlis has recorded for us in an award-winning disc accompanied by Peter Evans (CDA66159)—and characterised by grand sweeping gestures, lush melody, and heartfelt emotions that sear from pathos to frenzy. The Franck is, of course, an alternative version the composer wished for his violin sonata, a transition that many feel to be the work's happiest incarnation.

If you've been following the career of cellist Mischa Maisky, you've no doubt already encountered his previous recordings of "songs without words," his discs featuring songs by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Mendelssohn arranged for cello and piano. This 2007 disc of works by Russian composer Sergey Rachmaninov called Elégie is a continuation of Maisky's 2005 disc Vocalise, which included works by several Russian composers, including Rachmaninov.

How did you develop a taste for both music and piano? Jean-Jacques Bedikian: Simply in the family context. My father liked to gather at home friends or relatives who were amateur musicians, and he enjoyed these improvised concerts which took a large part of traditional, popular, or film music, as well as the classical repertoire. I would stay up as late as possible to listen, I would even wake back up to do so, and this is how the first contact with music took place, and also the awakening of the desire to get my hands on the piano keys. In fact, when I heard a piece of music that moved me, I would try to play it, without having taken any lessons, to replicate first the melody, then a semblance of a harmonic framework. So I had the desire to learn the piano, which is why I was introduced to my first teacher.