After her successful CD "Joy of Bach" (arc17008), the Japanese organist Keiko Nakata presents now a recording of music by Cesar Franck. The symphonic organ music of the romantic era is closely connected to the developments of organ building during the 19th century. Keiko Nakata chooses for her recording the Merklin-Organ of the Cathedral of St. Louis of Blois, on which Franck's markings in the score can be ideally realised. Besides pieces like the Piece Heroique, there are the Three Chorals in the programme. They freely exploit the multiple possibilities of invented choral melodies. This romantic conception leading to the idea of a spiritual concert would later give birth to a new spiritual dimension in music beyond the boundaries of religious offices and rituals. As a result, the liturgical organ embedded with it's Gregorian heritage would step back to allow some space for a new style of organ playing and building to emerge, emulating the great works for piano and orchestra as manifested by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin and Liszt.

Though Belgium in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was known above all for it's "school" of violin-playing, represented by figures such as Henry Vieuxtemps and Eugene Ysaye, it was also home to a flourishing piano "school". After independence in 1830, the new nation's conservatoires opened numerous classes, method-books and anthologies proliferated, and piano-makers kept pace with new patents and instruments. This dynamic environment naturally had an effect on composers; everyone who wrote music wrote for this king of instruments, and promoted the results either by performing them themselves or by confiding them to virtuosos to execute in concerts or competitions. The most famous of these, the Eugene Ysaye Competition (since 1951 the Queen Elisabeth International Competition), opened to pianists in 1938, with Emil Gilels emerging victorious. A quarter of a century later, Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden entered this prestigious contest and, at sixteen years of age, came away with a third prize. Trained at the Brussels Conservatoire by Eduardo del Pueyo, he would go on to an international career still active six decades later. The programme of this CD is an homage to this long lineage of teachers and students. It testifies to the practices as well as the networks of friendship that gave this "school", throughout it's various ramifications, a particular character.

Three Violin Sonatas - Medtner, Grieg, Franck

The Wurzburg cathedral organist Stefan Schmidt studied with Daniel Roth and in this previously unpublished recording from 2002 proves himself to be an extremely sensitive yet technically virtuoso interpreter of Cesar Franck's famous Douze Pieces. The organ of St Peter's in Dusseldorf, built in 2001 by the Gockel company, where he worked as organist for several years, was designed without compromise according to the French symphonic model and is therefore ideally suited for this repertoire as one of the few such instruments on the right bank of the Rhine.

Young pianist Ariel Lanyi is already an established figure on the concert stage. After making his recording debut as part of the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series and winning third prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2021, he received the prestigious Prix Serdang in 2023 from Rudolf Buchbinder. In contrast to the intimacy of his Schubert album, Organ Reflections is a project on a more epic scale. Often called the 'King of Instruments', the organ has been a defining presence in classical music, inspiring composers like Bach, Brahms and Messiaen. In this album, Ariel performs works by three virtuoso organists that combine the idiomatic grandeur of the organ and the flexibility of the piano. From Mozart's serene Andante to Franck's lyrical Prelude, Aria et Final and Reger's monumental Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Bach, each piece reflects a unique blend of the sound worlds of both the organ and the piano, showcasing the enduring legacy of this most majestic instrument.

A passionate, superbly paced version of the Franck Symphony plus a highly expressive and atmospheric performance of Saint-Saëns.

It seems questionable to combine a 1946 performance of the Franck Symphony's first movement with a 1940 account of the remaining two, even if this arrangement was approved by the conductor. A passionate, superbly paced version of the score still emerges from the hybrid source, however. Toscanini's performance of the Saint-Saens symphony is highly expressive, full of atmosphere and very exciting.

-- Gramophone [11/1992]

"I had not expected quite such unabashed, rose-tinted lyricism from Anne Akiko Meyers. There’s more to her playing than plushy vibrato and mechanistic brilliance; not that exhilaration or panache are minimised here, in this glowingly Romantic performance. Her Franck, too, ably justifies a more reflective, even cerebral approach, further distinguished by the tonal opulence of the playing. Not a performance to induce surges of adrenalin perhaps, but eminently well conceived and lucid... this remains a splendid performance overall, thanks in no small part to pianist Rohan de Silva." -- Michael Jameson, BBC Music Magazine

THE HEIFETZ COLLECTION VOL 33

PIERRE MONTEUX EDITION VOL 8 -

In 2022, 19-year-old pianist Roman Borisov became the youngest winner of the prestigious Kissinger KlavierOlymp competition. After taking part in Alpha's 'Next Generation Mozart Soloists' collection (ALPHA991), he now presents his first solo recital in Alpha's ongoing 'Piano Stories' series, which he sees as a 'conversation with the past', featuring composers inspired by earlier styles to create new works. Born in 1870, the brilliant virtuoso pianist Leopold Godowsky composed twenty-four 'free arrangements' of music by masters of the Baroque. Among these, Roman Borisov has selected pieces based on works by Rameau, Corelli, Scarlatti and John Loeillet (whose pieces were originally mis-attributed to Lully)... In 1931, Rachmaninoff composed his last original work for solo piano: a set of variations on 'La Folia', a 15th-century dance theme that Corelli famously used in one of his violin sonatas. The encounter between the Baroque style and the harmonic richness of the Russian composer is fascinating. The superb Prelude, Chorale and Fugue composed by Cesar Franck in 1884, an obvious tribute to J.S. Bach, concludes Roman's pianistic journey through time.

"In the Symphonic Variations, Crossley avoids Lisztian flamboyance and generalized 'romantic' inflexion and yet there is plenty that is individually and imaginatively shaped (not least the finale's 'cadenza'); and both he and Giulini maintain a sense of flow and direction. I particularly liked the way Crossley gently accelerates out of the mists of the last variation into the spirited finale..." -- John Steane, Gramophone [3/1995]

The very first bars of Bernstein's performance impinge on the senses; this is going to be an occasion. The lower strings start slower than ever before, and perhaps quieter too. There is tension from the first note, and, my goodness, you certainly do listen—even when later on doubts begin to assail you. The quick bits tend to go quicker, the slow bits slower, the tempo changes more often, every phrase, every counter-subject is pointed. It is immensely exciting; at times, excitable. Bernstein is, as they say, "doing something with it" in every bar, and the orchestra responds with both warmth and praiseworthy precision. A lot of thought has gone into this interpretation, and great expertise into its realisation, for it is not easy for an orchestra to embrace this degree of rubato and emerge with its ensemble intact. I must say that I very much enjoyed it all. There were moments when I thought Bernstein went right over the edge; most strikingly during the Gargantuan rallentando in the finale leading up to the second subject in five sharps. For no less than eleven bars the tempo gets slower and slower and slower till you could scream. But I think one must forgive a lapse or two in this type of interpretation, which is taking risks all the time. It is a much more difficult kind of performance to bring off than the conventional one, and though one or two things go awry a great many come off splendidly. The second movement is a joy. The tempo is faster than we are used to, and it is in fact a true Allegretto, which is Franck's marking for it; in Britain conductors usually seem to play it Andante. Bernstein almost dances along, as indeed does Munch who, on the rival stereo disc, adopts exactly the same tempo, and that is how I shall always hope to hear this movement in future. Bernstein is content to leave the tempo alone much of the time, though he manages the transitions delightfully.

-- Gramophone [10/1960, reviewing the original LP release of the Franck Symphony]

Smetana & Franck: String Quartets

Franck: Symphony in D Minor - Le Chasseur Maudit - Symphonic

Violin Recital: Ivanov, Yossif - FRANCK, C. / YSAYE, E. / D'