2019 release. Beatrice Rana, in the words of the New York Times, is a pianist who "has ferocious technique but is distinguished by her musical intelligence." Here she plays virtuosic, poetic works that evoke the creative ferment of Paris in the transitional early years of the 20th century: piano transcriptions of Stravinsky's iridescent ballet scores The Firebird and Petrushka, and Ravel's Miroirs and La Valse.
ABEL SELAOCOE / WHERE IS HOME? - WARNER CLASSICS - South African cellist Abel Selaocoe makes his debut on Warner Classics with Where is Home (Hae Ke Kae). It's dual title, in English and Sesotho, reflects the album's diverse program which draws from vibrant European and African influences: pieces inspired by South African and Tanzanian musical tradition share a space with works by J.S. Bach and Giovanni Benedetto Platti, some of which are renewed with instrumental and lyrical improvisations. The title of the album holds multifaceted significance for the Manchester-based musician: "Home is the place that empowers you; it's not only a geographical place but in people as well, where you can live a life of empowerment and not of oppression. I've learned to find my different homes through the cello." Abel Selaocoe represents Africa on the move.
Warner Classics - Schubert: The Complete Piano Sonatas, Wanderer Fantasy - Elisabeth Leonskaja Eight CD set. These very recent recordings by Elisabeth Leonskaja, released on her label a few years ago, have been bought by Warner Classics at the occasion of her new signing as a Warner Classics artist.
The EMI Classics recordings of Cecile Ousset (b. 1936), spanning the years between 1982 and 1991, would mark her third and most prestigious recording collaboration, launching her, at age forty-six, into the international limelight. Indeed, recognition did not come easily to this grand dame of the piano, who, at the age of fourteen, obtained her prize at the Paris Conservatoire under the tutelage of Marcel Ciampi and began the grueling rounds at major competitions shortly after: Geneva, Long-Thibaud, Queen Elisabeth and Busoni, as well as the inaugural edition of the Van Cliburn. As a young female pianist, doors remained firmly shut, even with the support of the great Arthur Rubinstein, who personally invested in Ousset's early career after witnessing her performance at the Long-Thibaud competition. Her rise to international fame came primarily in the 1970s, notably through her recordings for the German Eterna label as well as for Decca France. The year 1982 marked the release of her first solo recording with EMI, a vivid program pairing Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition with Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit. Writing in The Musical Times, Cyril Ehrlich lauds a "luminous tone" and a "sense of style", proclaiming, "Cecile Ousset is an exhilarating pianist". Her strong technique, based on the Russian method taught by Ciampi lends her playing a clear-cut and robust tone; her virtuosity is proved incontestable, revealing a mastery of sound, color and brilliance. Works of the French repertoire continued to occupy an important place in Ousset's programs. To France's greatest modernists, Debussy and Ravel, the pianist would consecrate significant recordings in the second half of the 80s. Liszt and Chopin were essential components of her repertoire as well. The recording of Chopin's Third Sonata brims with poignant lyricism and heroic sentiment, it's excellent pacing just as admirable as the naturalness of the playing, hardly ostentatious but in every way spellbinding. "Like Pollini," observes Gramophone, "the masterful Ousset commands in this work... [her] Chopin CD will give immense pleasure by reason of her indefatigable musical verve." A survey of Cecile Ousset's acclaimed concerto recordings for EMI may point to a seemingly-logical conclusion - that the pianist was drawn to the unabashedly-virtuosic heavyweights of the concerto literature: Rachmaninov, Saint-Saens, Liszt, Prokofiev, Grieg, Tchaikovsky
DANIEL BARENBOIM - MOZART: COMPLETE PIANO SONATAS & PIANO VARIATIONS - WARNER CLASSICS - panning the length of his mature career and documenting stylistic reinvention as well as emotional change, Mozart's piano sonatas and variations occupy a fundamental position within the keyboard repertory. Here they are performed by one of the composer's best-known interpreters; crisp in detail and wide-ranging in mood, Daniel Barenboim's readings are among the most lauded in recording history.
