Centaur Records
625 products
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Travels of the Funky Tango
$15.99CDCentaur Records
May 15, 2026CRC4180 -
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Great Britain Triumphant!
Arrival
American Voices
Andrew Rudin: 3 String Sonatas
Hymns & Dervishes / Frederic Chiu
Bach: Goldberg Variations / Kato
BACH Goldberg Variations • Sachiko Kato (pn) • CENTAUR CRC3202 (59:15)
When this arrived in the mail, my first reaction was, “Oh no, here we go again; another Goldberg Variations by an artist I’ve never heard of before.” And after being so rattled by my grievous error regarding the matter of repeats in Daniel Pienaar’s recording, I had serious doubts about reviewing another Goldberg Variations ever again. Well, you know what they say about getting right back up on the horse after you’ve been thrown. Had I passed on this assignment out of fear, I’d have missed out on a truly extraordinary experience. For starters, forget that this is a recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations . It’s a disc you should have purely for the velvet smoothness and silken beauty of Sachiko Kato’s tone as captured by the One Soul Studios engineers in New York’s Klavierhaus Hall. This is simply one of the most gorgeous reproductions of piano sound I’ve heard on disc.
Now, of course, this is a recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations , and not being one to be burned twice, I listened to Kato’s performance with undivided attention and followed the score dutifully. Here is what I can tell you. She takes the first-half repeats of each variation, but not the second-half ones. More’s the pity, because in many of the variations’ first halves, she adds some of her own embellishments that tickled me with delight. Kato is an extremely imaginative player, and I would have loved to hear her embellishments in second-half repeats.
Beyond the matter of repeats and her own embellishments, Kato’s readings of the variations are so perfectly realized in terms of tempos, phrasing, and discovery of detail, particularly in the left hand, that one marvels at the utter naturalness and fluency of the music. Notice I said “of the music,” not of Kato’s playing, because she plays with such a sense of effortlessness and ease that it’s as if the piano is having its own joyous conversation with Bach. Listen, for example to the happy mordents and smiling trill-and-mordents in the second half of Variation 5, executed with such perfection that even at Kato’s rapid velocity, not only can you hear the difference between them, your ear can discern the number of squiggles.
I’ve long admired Angela Hewitt, Murray Perahia, András Schiff, and Craig Sheppard in this music, but Sachiko Kato’s performance is truly special, and for piano versions, I think it may now be my favorite. This wonderful Japanese-born, Los Angeles-raised, Juilliard-trained artist has yet to gain much of a presence on record—Amazon, as well as her website, lists only two previous releases, both of modern music, which Kato champions—but she performs extensively throughout the U.S. and Japan. To everyone who embraces Bach’s Goldberg Variations on piano, this deserves to be heard and is urgently recommended.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Music from the Sounds of Earth
Toni & Rosi Grunschlag: Duo Piano
Previn, A.: Invisible Drummer (The) / Variations On A Theme
Rubinstein: Piano Concerto No. 1 & Don Quixote / Zamparas, Mitchell
A new addition to Centaur's Complete Recordings of Anton Rubinstein Piano Concertos, this release features Grigorios Zamparas, Jon Caender Mitchell and the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra. Anton Rubinstein was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor where he ranked among the besth 19th-century pianists. Grigorios Zamparas has received worldwide acclaim for his astounding musicianship and versatile performances. He has performed with prestigious orchestras such as the Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra, Indiana University Symphony Orchestra and many others.
Bolcom, Weinstein: Cabaret Songs / Morris, Bolcom
Includes work(s) by William Bolcom. Soloists: Joan Morris, William Bolcom.
Emily Howell - From Darkness, Light
Persona
SHAKESPEARE IN SONG CHARACTER
Travels of the Funky Tango
Darin Tysdal: Two Trios
Pachelbel: The Complete Organ Works Vol 8 / Joseph Payne
Includes work(s) for org by Johann Pachelbel. Soloist: Joseph Payne.
The New Lyric Flute
Bolcom: Sonatas For Violin & Piano / Lewin-muresanu Duo
Compared to the latter's richly detailed, close-up sonic perspective, producer Joseph Patrych achieves a mellower, less "in your face" ambience that suggests an intimate chamber music venue. Perhaps this factors into the more texturally transparent and finely nuanced impression conveyed by the generally faster tempos that Muresanu and Lewin favor. For example, the hushed imitative writing in the middle of the First sonata's central Nocturne movement alluringly shimmers here, while Muresanu's more consistently even tone and uniform phrasing in the third movement's lyrical episodes address Bolcom's "semplice" request more effortlessly than does Solomia Soroka's heavier touch.
Muresanu's portamentos and accents also prove more idiomatic in the Second sonata's finale (dedicated to the memory of jazz violin great Joe Venuti), if not quite with Maria Bachmann's flair or Sergiu Luca's unbridled joy with the composer digging into the keyboard (when will this Nonesuch recording make it to CD?).
There's something to be said for the Naxos team's starker, weightier drama in the Third sonata's outer movements, yet the Centaur duo's brisker, quieter execution best conveys the third movement's "shivering" directive. Because Muresanu and Lewin take trouble to distinguish the Andante's carefully varied articulations and phrase groupings, you really notice how the violin and piano parts intertwine.
Both Fourth sonata performances are excellent, and are different enough in detail to make a clear-cut preference difficult. Soroka and Greene boast the incisive edge in the first movement, make more of the second movement's volatile tempo changes and dynamic contrasts, and truly observe the third movement's melody/"drumbeat" call-and-response narrative to Bolcom's "inexorable" specification (Lewin falls into an "espressivo" bag once or twice when making decrescendos). At the same time, Muresanu and Lewin achieve amazingly flexible unanimity in the second movement's Grazioso section. A bonus track in the form of Bolcom's 1983 concert variation on his piano rag Graceful Ghost brings this program to a sensitive and memorable close.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
Aaron Copland: Complete Solo Piano Works, Vol. 2 / Northington
COPLAND NORTHINGTON COMP. SOLO PIANO WORKS, VOL. 2
Mors Et Ressurectio, Chant Requiem And Mass For Easter / Mardirosian, Green, Ensemble Torculus
various Ensemble Torculus; Ronald Greene, cantor; Haig Mardirosian, cond. Mors et Ressurectio
Couperin: The Complete Pieces de Clavecin, Vol. 1 / Kroll
This new release is the first volume in a projected cycle of the complete keyboard works of Francois Couperin, which will eventually comprise approximately twelve releases. For the entirety of this series, special attention is and will be given to the selection of appropriate historical harpsichords. French Baroque composer, organist, and harpsichordist Francois Couperin, he was known to many as Couperin le Grand (“Couperin the Great”) in order to distinguish him from other members of his musically talented family. Heavily influenced by the works of Corelli, he blends together Italian and French styles in much of his music. Harpsichordist Mark Kroll has long been a strong advocate of Couperin’s keyboard literature, and here shows his knowledge and expertise in this music’s interpretation.
Messiaen, O.: Quartet for the End of Time
Vaughan Williams
Vaughan-Williams Tina Louise Cayouette, viola Six Studies in English Folksong, etc.
The Jewish Soul - Bloch, Bruch, Stutschewsky, Kopytman, Etc / Amit Peled, Eli Kalman
The title of the disc speaks for itself, but there are intriguing moments for the unwary. If the Bloch pieces are by now staples of the repertoire we can note that the Bruch Kol Nidrei is heard here in an arrangement for five cellos made by Günter Ribke, and its textures are refined and malleable. And whilst Eli, Eli has been played by Mischa Elman as well as folk groups, Odeon Partos’s Yizkor will be a far less well known piece.
Cellist Amit Peled announces his musical precepts early, in Eli, Eli. He plays with lyric intensity but also with discreet emotionalism. It’s a quality, one of understated taste, that will recur throughout the disc. The cantorial declamation embedded in Bloch’s Meditation Hébraïque over the syncopated piano part is adeptly realised by Peled and by pianist Eli Kalman. If you want a more explicit take, however, you could turn to Parry and Frances Karp on Laurel LR856CD. The same is true when the Pered-Kalman duo turns to From Jewish Life. There’s a good sense of nobility in the Centaur performance of the Supplication and the Jewish Song is taken with directness and linearity. If one misses an infusion of expressive warmth however than that will be supplied by the Karps. This newcomer is a more cool look, though not without its own attractions.
Stutschewsky’s Hassidic Suite was written in 1946. There’s a yearning Bulgar opening, and a rather repetitious Chant for a second movement. Next comes a pleasing little scherzo. The most obviously Jewish movement is the finale, a Dance replete with lurching and rubato vivacity. By contrast Partos’ Yizkor (In Memoriam) is a haunted, brooding folk-based affair that sustains its ten minute length well. This is not the later 12 tone Partos. Mark Kopytman continues the mournful, elegiac feel with Kaddish, written in 1981. It’s written in three movements and the urgency and intensity of the first proves arresting. The central panel enshrines cleverly woven dance patterns – and there’s an ear catching role for the piano’s deft patterning. This is all leading to the keening soliloquy of the Lento finale, where it’s as if the enormity of loss has finally made itself apparent, beyond the forced vitality. The keening edge is rapt indeed.
So despite the conventional looking programme there is a leavening of novelty for the curious-minded. You don’t, as it were, have to be Jewish.
-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International
