Ravel Reflections not only presents an impressive artistic statement from Anton Gerzenberg, but also a kind of musical self-portrait: the young pianist proves himself to be an interpreter with analytical acumen, playful wit, and a captivating virtuosity that always remains committed to expression. His playing combines clarity and refinement with passion and a fearless willingness to take risks-qualities that made him the winner of the 2021 Géza Anda Competition and which also characterize this album.
Greek-Russian pianist Sasha Stychkina, born in December 2003 in Moscow into a family of musicians and filmmakers, is the youngest finalist and winner in the history of the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in Paris in November 2019. Today she presents her first recital, recorded at the Teldex studio in Berlin under the artistic direction of her teacher, the charismatic and renowned pianist Kirill Gerstein. A decidedly varied programme-Weber, Bartok, Ravel, Chopin, Liszt-it is by turns virtuosic, dance-like and spiritual. Sasha Stychkina also introduces us to a little-known composer, Alexei Vladimirovich Stanchinsky (1888-1914), a mystical figure, considered mad - he spent a year in a psychiatric hospital - who drowned at the age of twenty-six. A student of Taneyev, encouraged by Scriabin, and introduced to Tolstoy, the composer nevertheless had a bright future ahead of him. The Five Preludes (1907-1912, published posthumously in 1928), chosen by Sasha Stychkina, are particularly evocative and visionary.
A force to be reckoned with (The New York Times), violinist Miclen Laipang makes his solo recording debut on Delos with a very personal recital. Featuring music that has accompanied him over time, "Deep River" traces a path through styles and places that have been meaningful throughout his life. Like a flowing river, this program moves from it's source through different landscapes, crosses borders, and opens onto new encounters as it continues forward. It mirrors a life shaped by movement between countries, cultures, and musical worlds. Works such as Deep River and Nobody knows de trouble I've seen bring echoes of home, representing Miclen's childhood and the United States, while Widmung, Liebesleid and Der Rosenkavalier Waltzes are associated with his time in Germany and Austria, and Ravel's Violin Sonata No. 2 with his current home in France. Partnered by pianist Nigel Yandell, Miclen performs on the Antonio Stradivari "Charles Castleman, ex-Marquis de Champeaux," generously loaned by the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel.
The multiple award-winning bass-baritone Sebastian Naglatzki and the versatile pianist Ana Miceva bring together on their new GENUIN album the last song compositions of Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf, Johannes Brahms, and Maurice Ravel. These works reflect themes such as farewell, transience, and the search for ultimate truths - captured in music with poignancy and deep feeling. The imaginatively conceived album of the exceptional singer and his expressive piano partner is both a musical retrospective and an audible legacy from four great masters of music history.
Inspired by the idea of 'music of the spheres' and the interaction between space and men, the album reflects Sumino's multi-faceted artistry and melts old and new music into one unique listening experience. The album includes an intriguing variety of music recorded on concert grant and upright piano and ranges from Baroque to Romanticism (Bach, Purcell, Chopin, Ravel, Debussy); includes iconic film and contemporary composers such as Hans Zimmer and Ryuichi Sakamoto, plus Hayato's own arrangements of popular works such as Ravel's "Bolero" and Mozart's "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Five of Hayato's own unique compositions appear, including melodic and relaxing solo piano tracks, perfect for streaming and playlisting. "Human Universe" musically explores the idea of "Music of the Spheres", a concept that traces back to the ancient Greeks, who believed that celestial bodies in the universe emitted sound bringing music and harmony.
With this recording, Violetta Khachikyan releases her third solo album, dedicating herself to rarely performed works from the Renaissance, early Baroque and Classical periods, which take on new timbres and vitality on the grand piano of the 21st century. Particular mention should be made of the three composers Marianne von Martinez, elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre and Yekaterina Alexeyevna Vorontsova. Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin seems like a retrospective and at the same time an innovative creation from old dances and forms, complemented by new harmonies and technical inventions of the modern instrument.
Konstantinos Destounis has made a speciality of Ravel’s piano works, playing them in concert on many occasions, including a two-night survey of the whole solo-piano output at the Conservatoire in Athens last November. He made this recording around the same time and captures the sense of music on the wing, still wet on the page from the pen of its fastidious creator.
Born in Athens in 1991, Destounis studied in Thessaloniki and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg before taking his Master’s at the Royal College of Music in London. Springboard to his performing career has been winning many international piano competitions, most notably the Grand Prix Maria Callas in Athens, the Southern Highlands in Canberra and the Bremen European Piano Competition.
On this album, his first major recording, he reveals himself to be a compelling interpreter of music which still sets a benchmark among pianists for technical finesse and musicianship. For Ravel, as for Beethoven and Stravinsky, the craft of composition was an essentially pianistic endeavour. While his image has become fixed in popular reception by masterpieces of orchestral colour such as Boléro, La valse, and Daphnis et Chloé, the composer regarded the processes of composition and orchestration as separate. He remarked to his student Vaughan Williams that ‘without a piano one cannot invent new harmonies’. Ravel paid tribute to his teacher Gabriel Fauré as ‘the origin of whatever pianistic innovation my works may be thought to contain’. All the same, the pianistic influence of Saint-Saëns makes its presence felt too, and Chabrier in the early pieces. Perhaps Ravel becomes more himself in each successive piece, from the Sérénade grotesque of 1892–93 through to Le tombeau de Couperin of 1914–17, but the process is one of refinement rather than radical transformation, taking in the darkly disturbing imagery of Gaspard de la nuit, which rapidly assumed totemic significance within the modern piano literature.
The guitar duo of Adam Cicchillitti and Steve Cowan presents a new album of their original arrangements of 19th and 20th century piano repertoire. Lyrique features the works of Edvard Grieg, Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, Germaine Tailleferre, John Cage, and Federico Mompou. Though varied in style, these pieces invite listeners into a rich and multifaceted dialogue with the concept of 'lyrical' in instrumental music. The guitar's rich tonal palette and nuanced capacity for expression brings new life to these iconic works.
This debut album presents a vivid reinterpretation of Ravel's Miroirs, illuminating the work's resonances within the wider piano repertoire by placing it in conversation with lesser-known miniatures from around the world. From luminous and atmospheric bell textures to incisive dance rhythms, we are guided through a narrative exploring the themes of nature, spirituality, memory, and self-discovery. A compelling artistic statement from a distinctive new voice in classical piano.
The illustrious French organ tradition is celebrated in this album of Toccatas and Meditations, including masterpieces drawn from across the repertoire. Charles-Marie Widor was the founding father of the French Organ School, and his Toccata from Symphony No. 5 is a cornerstone of the organ repertoire. The Meditation by his contemporary Louis Vierne is among the highlights of Romantic organ works. Durufle, Boellmann and Guilmant are also represented, as is a beautiful Ravel arrangement. They're played on the magnificent Grenzing organ at Bauernkirche Iserlohn by Dariia Lytvishko - a Ukrainian-born virtuoso and one of the most lavishly gifted organists of her generation.
Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Faure each contributed a single string quartet to the chamber music repertoire, but both works are masterful reflections of their distinct musical voices and the broader evolution of French music in the early 20th century. Ravel's String Quartet in F major, composed in 1903, stands as a defining work of French impressionism in music. Influenced by his teacher Faure and Debussy's quartet from 1893, Ravel's quartet is nevertheless strikingly original. The piece follows the traditional four-movement structure, but with bold harmonic language, refined orchestration for strings, and rhythmic innovation. The first movement is lyrical and elegant, while the second features pizzicato and dynamic contrasts that create a vibrant, almost playful texture. The third movement offers deep introspection, and the final movement reintroduces themes in a whirling, virtuosic conclusion. In contrast, Gabriel Faure's String Quartet in E minor, Op.121 is a late work, completed in 1924, shortly before his death. It was his only string quartet, and it reflects a more introspective, spiritual tone. Faure, already nearly deaf and physically weakened, poured into the music a sense of serenity and resignation. The three-movement structure (unusual for a quartet) avoids virtuosic display in favor of subtle textures and modal harmonies. The work unfolds slowly, with long, flowing lines and a remarkable economy of means, demonstrating his mature mastery of form and expression. Together, Ravel's and Faure's quartets represent two ends of a stylistic spectrum: Ravel's vibrant, youthful exploration of sound and structure contrasts with Faure's meditative farewell. Both works, however, reveal the expressive depth and refinement that define French chamber music at it's finest. As an important and substantial bonus to this recording we hear Ravel's Introduction & Allegro for flute, harp, clarinet and string quartet, a highly original and attractive work. Played by the Quartetto Nous, the Italian string quartet also engaged in the recording of the complete Shostakovich string quartets for Brilliant Classics, to great critical acclaim.
This album, Throwback to Dance, explores how composers turn to dance forms to carve out new paths: predominantly court dances, folk dances but also the more 'modern' waltz. The album is inspired by the charming meeting between Ravel and Grieg back in 1894, and looks at Grieg's influence on Ravel, seldom documented, as well as that on Pejacevic and Chaminade.
Had Alberto Ginastera not been born just three years after the scandalous premiere of The Rite of Spring, he could easily have been considered one of the earliest followers of the "pagan" Stravinsky. Although wild rhythms of ancient dances, volcanic eruptions of complex sound layers, and martyrs of all kinds permeate his works, they are never random in form. His First String Quartet from 1948, for example, follows a traditional path, with some bows losing a bit of horsehair during performance - not unlike his Piano Quintet, premiered in Venice in 1963, which explores the limits of what is possible in seven extremely concise sections that the composer described as "neo-expressionistic". Maurice Ravel's unique String Quartet acts as an "impressionist" antipode and delicate counterpoint in this context.
This album presents orchestral works by three French composers who saw Spain as a paradise of warmth, fragrance and colour, whether real or imagined. From the vivid evocations of Debussy's Images and Ibert's Escales, to the dances and landscapes that inspired Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole, these masterpieces of Impressionism show the considerable impact Spanish culture had on French composers in the early 20th century.
Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova's new release, Liberte, is a cultural and musical dialogue between France and America. The influence of jazz plays a central role in this tribute to French and American composers whose work transcends genres and borders. Performed together with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon under Pablo Gonzalez, the album's core pillars are Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Also featured are short solo pieces that echo it's central themes: three miniatures by Germaine Tailleferre, Time Peace, a miniature by Andrew Blickenderfer, and the jazzy Valse from Partita No. 5 by Fedorova's compatriot Myroslav Skoryk. Two French chansons round out Liberte, an album where freedom, jazz, and the shared spirit of France and America meet in music.
Founded ten years ago, Ensemble Ouranos is now one of the best French wind quintets in the world. For this new recording, their first for Alpha Classics, Mathilde, Arnaud, Amaury, Philibert, Rafael and Nicolas have brought together composers and works that are particularly close to their hearts: Le Tombeau de Couperin glorifies the French wind school, and Shostakovich is their passion, so recording this transcription (by David Walter) of the famous quartet for the first time was at the top of their wish list. The two works have one thing in common: homage, since Ravel composed in tribute to his friends who died in the war, and Shostakovich to the victims of the Second World War. Another tribute - a lighter one - is paid to summer with Barber's superb Summer Music, the only original piece for wind quintet on this album. Added to this are Ravel's famous Pavane and an arrangement by Nicolas Ramez of the poignant Elegy from Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk
Nelson Goerner has always dreamed of recording these two masterpieces of the concerto repertoire. With Kazuki Yamada, he has found the ideal partner to approach Ravel's two piano concertos with the sensitivity and poetry for which he is universally renowned. The two works, composed at the same time and both performed for the first time in 1932, are nevertheless very different: premiered in Vienna, the Concerto for the Left Hand was commissioned by the pianist Paul Wittgenstein who had lost his right arm in 1914; premiered in Paris, the Concerto in G is renowned for it's verve and it's famous pianistic interpolations. Ravel had composed the Pavane pour une infante defunte, a famous miniature of exquisite nostalgia, some 33 years earlier. The programme is completed by the Valses nobles et sentimentales; Marguerite Long, who gave the first performance of the Concerto in G, saw these eight linked pieces as a "stylistic panorama of the waltz".
This is Volume Two of four in a first-ever exhaustive set of Ravel's complete works for solo piano, a landmark collection that will embrace numerous world premieres. Here, we have familiar works prepared and recorded from personal scores annotated by pianist and teacher Vlado Perlemuter during his private study and collaboration with the composer (1927-29), alongside world-premieres of transcriptions by Lucien Garban (1877-1959).
Spanish pianists Juan Lago and Belén Navarro present in this album a repertoire that has featured prominently in their concerts over the past decade: works by non-Spanish composers inspired by Spanish popular music. Thanks to the piano-a truly universal instrument-Debussy, Ravel, Chabrier, and Rimsky-Korsakov not only developed their early compositional voices, but also found a vehicle through which their orchestral masterpieces could be adapted and performed beyond the concert hall. Through their own arrangements or those by trusted collaborators, these works have reached intimate settings and private homes around the world. The keyboard's orchestral richness-especially in four-hand performance-and it's ability to imitate or evoke the timbral variety of an orchestra allow the Lago-Navarro Duo to showcase their artistry and technical command in a beloved and familiar repertoire, deeply ingrained in the collective musical memory of the Spanish people. In this album, Ibéria, Rapsodie espagnole, España, and Capriccio espagnol are brought together in a fresh concert format, allowing the musical echoes of Spain to resound with renewed brilliance. Belén Navarro & Juan Lago Piano Duo The well-established Lago-Navarro piano duo-formed in 1997 by Spanish pianists Juan Lago and Belén Navarro-presents in this album a repertoire that has featured prominently in their concerts over the past decade: works by non-Spanish composers inspired by Spanish popular music.
Stradivarius is pleased to present Première by Julija Sadaunykaité, Lithuanian pianist and winner of the Grand Prix at the Malta Valletta International Piano Competition. This album, marking Julija Sadaunykaité's recording debut, takes listeners on an intimate journey into the musical world of this pianist, celebrated for her expressive depth and refined artistry. A listening journey through different creative worlds unfolds through celebrated pages of piano literature, with the performer intent on delving into the depths of the scores and capturing their extraordinary compositional textures. The album opens with Maurice Ravel's Miroirs No. 5: La vallée des cloches, the last movement of the Miroirs cycle, a five-movement suite for piano composed between 1904 and 1905. The opening piece, which Ravel dedicated to the French pianist and composer Maurice Delage, is followed by Olivier Messiaen's Première communion de la Vierge from Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, one of the most famous works for solo piano in the contemporary repertoire, and Robert Schumann's Sonata No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 11, composed between 1833 and 1836 and dedicated to Clara Wieck. This intense journey into the musical world of Julija Sadaunykaité concludes with Sonata No. 1 by Australian composer Carl Vine, born in 1954. According to the first printed edition, the work was composed for the Sydney Dance Company and is characterized by energetic rhythms, unusual harmonic shifts, abrupt tempo changes, dynamic contrasts, and rich textures, all of which allow performers to fully explore their technical and emotional range.
