To me, this album is both a personal story and a musical narrative about one of the (piano) composers I find the most fascinating: Frederic Chopin. I chose a dozen works; twelve of his jewels that represent different stages of his life and that each hold a particular significance for me. I open up this album with the First Impromptu, the first of Chopin's works I was to learn as a young teenager. The album closes with the first piece by Chopin that I heard as a toddler: my mother often played the Waltz, opus 64 no. 1, at home on our dark brown Rippen piano. My mother, who was always so closely involved and supportive from the first time I reached up to the piano as a young girl until my last concert before her untimely death last April.

Paolo Restani's new recording effort, the result of a constant and very personal research work, guides the listener through various frameworks of piano literature, cornerstones of the history of music. The album opens with two paraphrases of Liszt from Verdi: the first from Aida, Danza sacra e duetto finale S. 436, and the second from Rigoletto, Paraphrase de Concert S. 434, concentrated on the wonderful quartet of Act IV, where the different moods of the protagonists intertwine. From the world of Verdi we move on to Wagner with the Solemn March to the Holy Grail from Act I of Parsifal. This journey into the dynamism of a fascinating universe of references and relationships ends with the performance of four Nocturnes by Chopin (123 and Nocturnes in C sharp min. Op. posth.) and, again by Chopin, the most famous of Polonaise, the Polonaise in A flat. Magg. Op. 53 "Heroique" from 1842, with it's extraordinary central section. A recording that allows you to rediscover musical jewels, entrusted to the wise mastery of Paolo Restani.

*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

Classical Music

The Firebird was Igor Stravinsky's first full-length ballet, but not his first collaboration with Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes. In 1909, a year before the triumphant première of The Firebird, the charismatic impresario had commissioned Stravinsky to orchestrate two piano compositions by Chopin for use in another project. Evidently pleased with the result, he invited the young composer to write the music for the next production of his ballet company, to a scenario based on various well-known Russian fairy-tale characters. The score holds several moments that recall Scriabin, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky's teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov, but the mature Stravinsky is already present in the superb orchestral craft and the vivid rhythmic imagination. Rather than either of the two suites which Stravinsky later prepared, Andrew Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra have chosen to record the original ballet score, allowing us to relish the enormous range of colours springing from what the composer later described as a 'wastefully large' orchestration. Soon after The Firebird, Stravinsky went on to influence the direction of music with Petrushka and The Rite of Spring - two scores which appear on a recent release with the same performers. That much acclaimed disc was short-listed for a 2011 Gramophone Award, named Editor's Choice in Classic FM Magazine, and selected as Disc of the Month by the websites Classics Today and Classics Today France, and the recording itself was praised on a par with the interpretation and playing, with the reviewer in International Record Review describing 'the efforts of the BIS recording team' as 'truly magnificent'. The present disc includes not only The Firebird, but also the above-mentioned Chopin orchestrations, as well as arrangements of pieces by Tchaikovsky and Sibelius, ending with Stravinsky's tongue-in-cheek 1955 Greeting Prelude for the 80th birthday of Pierre Monteux, the conductor who had given the world premières of both Petrushka and The Rite of Spring some forty years earlier.

Classical Music

One of the supremely gifted writers for piano, Chopin used the instrument to convey subtle tone-colours and a degree of emotional intensity hitherto unknown.

Pianist, scholar and pedagogue Paul Badura-Skoda may best be known to the music loving public at large as an exponent of the Viennese classics. In fact, Badura-Skoda's lengthy career covers far more musical ground than he is usually given credit for, from his awesome teenage prowess as an accordion virtuoso to the flamenco-inspired flair he brought to Frank Martin's Fantasie, a work written especially for Badura-Skoda. In January 2005, we heard Badura-Skoda in an intimate, semi-private recital in New York, where the 77-year-old pianist covered a wide repertoire range with consummate authority and still-impressive technical command, notably in a shimmering, intense performance of Ravel's Ondine from Gaspard de la nuit. A selection of Chopin short pieces proved no less idiomatic, and served to remind US this composer also has preoccupied Badura-Skoda for a long time. Chopin also figures in the pianist's uncommonly large and wide-ranging discography of more than 200 releases, including the present 1971-5 studio recordings, all but one piece being released now for the first time.

12 Etudes, Op. 10; 12 Etudes, Op. 25; Trois Nouvelles Etudes. Juana Zayas, pianist. Two recordings; the first (1983 & 1999) acclaimed as the best Etudes ever recorded by two leading reviewers; the second is a new digital recording issued for the first time. Total time per CD: 63:51 + 69.03.

Discover Chopin includes a selection of works that established this composer as master of the keyboard, including excerpts from his first and second Piano Concertos, the “Minute” Waltz, Nocturne op. 9, and more.; The Discover Series from Berlin Classic aims to make classics popular, firing people up about the music presented, regardless of musical taste.; Rather than focusing on complete works, this series focuses on individual pieces that have rewritten our musical history.

Includes nocturne(s) for piano by Frédéric Chopin. Soloist: Israela Margalit.

'Yesterday, to judge from the tumultuous ovation that followed his dazzling performance of Chopin's opus 28 Preludes, free of both perfume and rhetoric, then history repeated itself. Certainly, I believe that a performance of these 24 miracles of miniaturism which has more clarity, transparency and economy than Williams's interpretation is just about unthinkable.' The Glasgow Herald

Chopin - Schumann: Etüden

Chopin, F.: Works for Piano

This is an intimate look into virtuoso pianist, Rebecca Penneys's lifelong relationship to the music of Chopin - brilliant playing! Steinway Artist Rebecca Penneys is a recitalist, chamber musician, orchestral soloist, educator, and adjudicator. For over six decades she has been hailed as a pianist of prodigious talent. Rebecca has played throughout the USA, East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Western and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Canada. She possesses a daredevil technique, a charismatic stage presence, and a rare gift for interpretation. She is a popular guest artist, keynote speaker, and pedagogue nationally and internationally. Her current and former students include prizewinners in international competitions, and hold important teaching posts on every continent. Combining a busy concert schedule with seminars and master classes worldwide, she has taught a class of international students at Eastman School of Music for 37 years and now teaches at Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival, which had it's successful inaugural season in 2013.