Her third solo harpsichord album on Signum Classics, baroque specialist Bridget Cunningham performs a host of works by the Anglo - Irish composer, Thomas Roseingrave in this world premiere recording to coincide with St. Patrick’s Day. Although Roseingrave has been previously overlooked, he is one of the most interesting and original composers of keyboard music in eighteenth-century Britain. Cunningham who shares with him an Anglo-Irish heritage, has an ability to breathe life, air and space into this complex but exquisitely beautiful music.

Simon-Pierre Bestion has chosen to mirror two Stabat Mater that are more than 150 years apart: "in these two works I can feel the same tonal language, the same expression of sorrow" says the founder of La Tempête… "I have decided to ‘augment’ Scarlatti’s orchestration and ‘diminish’ Dvorák’s, so they can meet on even ground. To the Scarlatti I have added string parts sometimes doubling the vocal lines, colla parte, as was often done at the period: this not only allows the sound to be amplified, but adds an extra timbre to the voice. For the Dvorák, I have transcribed the original piano part into its minimum orchestral dimension, that is, for strings. This creates a common sound world between the two works – I would even say they have the same kind of lyricism in common, with just the timbres of the piano, organ and theorbo standing out."

What is spontaneous creativity? I imagine a kind of spring, no, rather a waterfall. Something gushes forth, seemingly eternally, effortlessly and never running dry, from the pen of Domenico Scarlatti, from the fingers of Christoph Ullrich. An unimaginative person like me thinks: That's it now. He can't think of another sonata that doesn't repeat something long since invented. But yes, there's another one! New again, different again, freshly born again.

What do 555 sonatas mean? It means: an infinite number of sonatas, let anyone count them. This is exactly how Christoph Ullrich proceeds in the 12th of 17 episodes. Not only is every new Scarlatti sonata unique, but every version that Ullrich plays is also new. He cannot play such a unique piece the same way twice. He keeps telling me during the recordings: turn the tape back on, I'll try something else. Both like children at play, endlessly creative. Every version is bursting with ideas, every bar, every take. Every day, every second. All double unique! Domenico's Ullrich? Christoph's Scarlatti!

A luxury-grade vinyl transfer in a gatefold 2LP set for a beautifully engineered 2021 album of Scarlatti on the piano from a master German pianist.
On its CD release in 2022, this personal choice from Scarlatti’s 555 keyboard sonatas won an enthusiastic welcome from Gramophone. ‘Contrasts of mood together with unified relationships of tempo and key signature characterise one the most intelligently programmed and distinctively played Scarlatti collections to cross my reviewer’s desk in years.’

Hardly less than Bach, these sonatas have become for many pianists a proving ground for their own technique and imagination, rewarding an improvisatory response to their flamboyant effects. Schmitt-Leonardy also features several of Scarlatti’s most poetic and reflective sonatas such as the ‘Aria’ Kk 29 and the melancholy soliloquy of Kk 208.
The approach taken by Schmitt-Leonardy is always ‘pianistic’, in that he exploits the full tonal resources of a modern concert grand. Yet his phrasing is also sensitive to 18th-century style and to the kind of effects and articulation particular to the harpsichord for which Scarlatti was writing. ‘Kaleidoscopic nuances and dynamic gradations abound throughout the E major Kk135,’ continued the Gramophone reviewer Jed Distler, the Gramophone reviewer Jed Distler, ‘but not garishly so. Nor does the pianist’s curvaceous and tapered phrasing throughout the A major Kk322 lapse into mannerism or cliché.’
As with all Brilliant Classics and Piano Classics LPs, this set is issued on 180-gram, high-grade vinyl pressed at the Optimal factory in Hamburg. Its audiophile quality is worthy of performances which bear comparison with great Scarlatti performers of past and present from Horowitz to Pletnev. Inner-sleeve booklet notes by Peter Quantrill discuss each of the sonatas in turn.

From the virtuoso Essercizi (K.12 and 15) to the touching cantabile eloquence of the Sonata in G major, K.144, most of the repertoire on this album consists of lesser-known works incorporating elements of dance forms from Spain and Portugal, with the Sonata (Fuga) in D minor heard here in its world premiere recording.

Zhu Xiao-Mei has taken an important place in the classical music world, not least in view of her valuable interpretations of Bach's music. This CD box set combines other key works by the pianist from Scarlatti, Haydn and Mozart to Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, testifying to her ability to express a wide range of styles and epochs through her unique artistic vision and tonal sensitivity. These recordings, recorded between 1995 and 2011, are the result of an intense exploration of the different characters of the six composers and are indicative of their interpreter's Œuvre.

Giorgi Gigashvili is only twenty-two, but he is already hitting the headlines: now a pupil of Nelson Goerner, he is a protégé of Martha Argerich, who gave him the urge to play the piano alongside his first love, pop singing: at the age of thirteen, he was a contestant in The Voice in his homeland, Georgia, and won the prize! A few years later, Argerich discovered him at a piano competition, and he went on to win prizes at several more, including the Hortense Anda-Bührle Prize at the Géza Anda Competition in Zurich in 2021. Another high-flying mentor, the violinist Lisa Batiashvili, asked him to play him the piano on her recording of the Franck Violin Sonata. His free and spectacular playing impresses, his creativity and personality astonish. Here he presents his first recital, revealing his palette of colours: Scarlatti, Beethoven, Scriabin and Messiaen. But never far away is his shadow, the singer of the electro band Tsduneba (‘temptation’ in Georgian) which he founded with his friends.

Sometimes time flies by. For example, when something stimulating happens all the time, as here with the new volume No. 8 of the complete recording of all 555 sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti. And not because of the two organ sonatas, which are actually played here on an organ, nor because of the acoustics at the new recording venue Marienmünster. Once again, Christoph Ullrich is exclusively responsible for these stimuli, and he knows how to shape these gems, which seem to have been written for him, with such never-ending imagination, exuberant ideas, nuances that always seem spontaneous but are nevertheless carefully woven, that two hours go by like two shooting stars.

Over 20 years ago, Alex Ross, the noted music critic for the New Yorker, described the atmosphere of a Martha Argerich recital in terms reminiscent of the golden age of nineteenth century piano virtuosos: “Her concerts conjure up scenes from another place and time: grown men running down the aisles clutching bouquets, world-renowned musicians pummeling the railings of the upper boxes, jaded critics breaking into foolish smiles.” The subject of these rapturous responses, has, unlike the traditional virtuoso, played relatively few solo recitals, preferring to make music with others. This set is the 8th volume of DOREMI’s special series of live performances and broadcasts featuring the artistry of the young Martha Argerich.

This is a recording to bring pleasure. Thirteen Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, taken from the same volume of manuscripts of the Queen of Spain, kept in Venice. Some of these sonatas are very famous, some are rarely played, but all are very beautiful: joyful, poetic, almost always sunny, sometimes melancholic. Brussels based French harpsichordist, Frédérick Haas' passion for the harpsichord started in earlychildhood and he began playing at the age of twelve. He studied the harpsichord, organ and musicology at Paris and Amsterdam, and was enriched by regular contact with important original instruments and the workshops of harpsichord builders and restorers, and at master classes. At the age of 26, he recorded his first solo album, dedicated to the harpsichord suites by J.H. Anglebert.

The place of Domenico Scarlatti in the history of 18th century music is certainly exceptional. This exquisite and imaginative group of works is included in the fourteenth volume of Scarlatti’s manuscript sonatas preserved in the Marciana Library in Venice. Although known as keyboard sonatas, research reveals that they were very likely to have been conceived for performance on the violin – multi-movement works, often showing the presence of figured bass accompaniment, rapid changes of register and numerous passages better suited to a violin than a keyboard instrument all support the theory. This is flashy and virtuosic writing for violin at its finest.