A 2017 Critics' Choice Winner at American Record Guide!

Evgeny Kissin (b. 1971) made his debut with the Ulyanovsk Symphony Orchestra when he was only eleven years old. The next year, he performed his first solo piano recital in Moscow. When he recorded the two Chopin piano concertos with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Moscow in 1984, his fame exploded. Each and every piano masterwork is included in this set, as Kissin was a master of broad-ranging repertoire. Staples by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Stravinsky, Scriabin, and more are all here. This specially priced hardcover box set documents many of Kissin’s extraordinary achievements, as it holds all of Kissin’s recordings for both RCA and Sony Classical.

Most of César Franck’s works received scant attention at the time of their composition and Hulda was never performed in his lifetime. The narrative is set in 14th-century Norway at the time of the great tribal kings, with marauding hordes spreading fear and terror throughout the land. Hulda is kidnapped and transferred from one tribe to the other, her family is killed and she herself is humiliated. However, Hulda’s spirit cannot be crushed, and she survives with revenge as her goal in life. Franck’s music portrays raging clans, bloodthirsty murderers and shattered lives, but also moments of exquisite tenderness in this acclaimed revival of a forgotten masterpiece that places the role of Hulda among the great tragic stage heroines.

César Franck’s great Violin Sonata in A, arranged for piano by Alfred Cortot, forms the focus on our new solo album featuring the gifted and successful pianist Michael Korstick. “The version without disturbing scratching noises does indeed have its appeal,” Korstick ironically opines and then explains, “I know that I’m now making myself extremely unpopular with all violinists, but some things come across even better in the version for piano alone. One doesn’t miss the violin.” This is of course a controversial statement, especially since it refers to the embodiment of the sensuous romantic violin sonata. “The fact is that Franck almost always thinks starting from the organ,” thus Korstick’s argument continues, “and Cortot so genially distributed the voices of the octaves that the polyphonic structure becomes clearer.” The audience at its premiere in Paris in 1885 was immediately enthused, and most pianists continue to be so even today. Michael Korstick regards this work as Franck’s “most important, central solo piece,” and the Franck expert Jörg Demus views the Prélude, Aria et Final as one of the few “lucid” compositions of the late romantic period and pardons it for its difficulty in playing technique: “But what do difficulties mean when the emotional content compensates one for it in such a rich way!”