FRANCK: Symphony in D minor / RESPIGHI: Pines of Rome

Classical Music

Given the paucity of C�sar Franck's piano music on disc, Nikolai Lugansky's focus on this composer is to be commended. On his third release for harmonia mundi, the Russian pianist reveals an organ master strongly attached to the musical forms inherited from J.S. Bach: the prelude, the fugue, and the chorale. Translated to the piano keyboard, Franck's music, with it's expansively conceived structures, requires a completely fresh approach that puts the greatest performers to the test: here, Lugansky took on an additional challenge by preparing his own transcription (a brilliant one, at that!) of Franck's celebrated Choral pour grand orgue No.2.

Thomas Jensen is hardly known as a Wagnerian, and yet this complete First Act of Die Walkure - with an all-star Danish cast - is paced and shaped with a keen ear for drama. CD2 continues to expand the Jensen discography with works by two composers intimately associated with Wagner, his father-in-law Liszt and his Belgian disciple Franck. The concert overture Piazza del Popolo is a forgotten showpiece which the Danish composer Walther Schroder drew from his score to a silent movie directed by A.W. Sandberg. All the previous volumes are available and in stock.

Sonatas for Violin And Piano

Sonatas for Violin & Piano

Complete Works For Organ

Sonatas For Cello And Piano

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This album features Oberlin Professor of Organ Haskell Thomson playing a program of organ works by Cesar Franck upon the Kay Africa Memorial Organ - C. B. Fisk Opus 116 - in Finney Chapel of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Haskell Thomson is one of the nation’s foremost artist/teachers. His tenure as Professor of Organ and Director of the Division of Keyboard Studies at Oberlin Conservatory of Music spans more than four decades. Evidence of his influence on organ performance is apparent through the impressive number of his students who have attained positions of stature in the music teaching, church music, and concert organist professions. Olivier Messiaen hailed Thomson as “a great organist” following his performance of the French composer’s Pentecost Mass. He wrote that the performance “was magnificent in both execution and interpretation, with a superb technique, and with great intelligence of registration, a perfect choice of tone colors.”

César Franck’s Prelude, Choral et Fugue is one of the ten true masterpieces of French piano music; its marvel¬ously fervent atmosphere emanates from the work right from the first arpeggios. The choice of the triptych form and ternary structures also prevails in the Prelude, Aria et Final. The Sonata is one of the most brilliant sonatas for violin and piano ever composed. “Inger Södergren’s performance of Franck’s two great piano works show just the right touch of romanticism. In the Sonata, Anni Jodrey’s personality is marvelously in tune: the piano becomes a partner in its own right.” (Diapason)

Classical Music

SONATAS FOR VIOLIN & PIANO