Modernity in Russian music emerged despite its struggles with the Soviet regime in the early 20th century, with the mystical vision of Scriabin’s musical legacy providing a foundation on which to build. In these acclaimed albums we discover Medtner’s life affirming Sonatas, and hear Lourié’s journey from Impressionism to pioneering Cubist conceptions. Mosolov’s works are bold and complex, while Roslavets new tonal system brings ‘fi re and ice’, and Stanchinsky’s sophisticated virtuosity anticipates many aspects of 20th-century style. These remarkable works represent a time of profound change in Russian culture that is still being discovered and assessed today.

Past praise for previously released volumes included in this set:

Mosolov: Complete Works for Solo Piano / Andryushchenko

These are outstanding performances of works that deserve to be heard. The sonatas, in particular, are impressive and, though Scriabin’s spirit runs through much of these compositions they are fine works in their own right.

-- The Classical Reviewer

Louriè: Complete Piano Works, Vol. 1 / Koukl

Arthur Lourie turns out to be a pretty darn good composer—too good to have been left in the attic trunk all these years. The Five Fragile Preludes, Op. 1, have a natural flow to them, and an inevitability that is both rhythmically and harmonically arresting in an impressionism somewhat redolent of Debussy mixed with early Scriabin. While exceedingly brief, they are lovely, perfect jewels. All of this is well described in Anthony Short’s notes, a recording of demonstration quality, and a pianist totally in tune with the music.

-- American Record Guide

Medtner: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2 / Stewart

Paul Stewart’s love and admiration for Medtner’s music come through strongly in these performances, which require a great range of treatment from the gentlest of touches, sometimes merely brushing the keys, whilst at others displaying a towering emotional intensity. His ability to bring out the poetry in Medtner is impressive and the recording is crisp, which combination makes for a hugely satisfying experience.

-- MusicWeb International

Roslavets: Complete Piano Works / Andryushchenko

For those listeners yet to encounter this fascinating figure, please fear not—Roslavets’ work is appealing on a number of levels and you will find much to enjoy on this terrific pair of discs.

-- MusicWeb International

Louriè: Complete Piano Works, Vol. 2 / Koukl

I am glad to have had the opportunity to hear so much of Lourié’s music which is so interesting and so tuneful and so varied it seems he was a chameleon in more than just his assumed persona but in his music as well and it’s all the better for it; variety is the spice of music as well as of life itself. Giorgio Koukl is nothing if not a consistently impressive advocate of whichever composer’s music he takes it upon himself to focus on and I thoroughly recommend this disc to all lovers of solo piano music.

-- MusicWeb International

Stanchinsky: Complete Piano Works, Vol. 1 / Solovieva

The short-lived Alexey Stanchinsky (1888-1914) has shown up on my Want Lists before, but despite devoted advocacy by a few pianists, his Scriabin-inspired music hasn’t caught on. It’s not clear why: His works are wildly inventive in their treatment of rhythm, harmony, and counterpoint—and while he died before he got to solidify his style, the dizzying sense of adventure in even his earliest works is palpable. May this new release by Olga Solovieva (the first volume of a complete cycle) be the one that turns the tide.

-- Fanfare

World premiere recordings of piano works by Jaromír Weinberger, including his Second and Third Piano Sonatas, Valses Nobles, Gravures and three arrangements from Schwanda, the Bagpiper, performed by Gottlieb Wallisch.

REVIEW:

Most music lovers probably only know the opera Svanda Dudak (Schwanda, the Bagpiper) by Jaromir Weinberger (1896-1967), if at all. The Prague-born composer, who fled from the Nazis into American exile, suffered from this during his lifetime. I wonder if that’s why he committed suicide. What is certain is that after the war he was unable to regain a foothold either in his new homeland or in Europe, and that he became depressed as a result of constant failures and health problems. After various hospital stays, Jaromír Weinberger took his own life in 1967 in St. Petersburg (Florida) with sleeping pills.

The piano works that can be heard on this CD were written between 1915 and 1926. They have a French touch, are elegant and rhythmically original. They can be somber and thoughtful, but very often they are playful and even humorous. Above all, they are very imaginative and imaginatively composed. Gottlieb Wallisch plays these works with equal spirit and spontaneity.

This well-recorded collection is really worth owning.

-- Pizzicato (Remy Franck)

Armenian pianist and composer Stephan Elmas was a child prodigy who met Franz Liszt and became closely acquainted with Rubinstein and Massenet. Elmas’s life was darkened by illness and the tragedy of his homeland, but his music reflects the ease and facility of his technique, harking back to the Romanticism of Chopin, Liszt and Schumann, rather than the challenging times in which he lived, and with a quality of craftsmanship that gives his music a magnetic attractiveness. Mikael Ayrapetyan continues his acclaimed exploration of rediscovered Armenian piano repertoire with the first in this series of Elmas’s complete works for piano.

REVIEWS:

All in all, this was a highly enjoyable recital…What Elmas, and in turn Ayrapetyan, prove throughout this recital is that there is still quite a bit to say in these styles and musical language.

-- Fanfare

this first volume in a complete series is to be welcomed. Mikael Ayrapetan’s performances bring this music to life and make for a very enjoyable collection. This volume places the Seven Nocturnes together with a number of Ballades, Barcarolles and Romance in Eb Major.

-- Lark Reviews

Louise Farrenc was one of the most respected pianists and composers in the 19th-century Parisian music scene, and her four sets of Études are her most important compositions for piano. Beautiful melodies and distinctiveness of character have made the Études, Op. 26 the most popular set, but all of these pieces are full of grace and charm alongside their didactic usefulness in their references to the styles both of Farrenc’s musical ancestors and her contemporaries. The Greek pianist Maria Stratigou is one of Louise Farrenc’s greatest exponents and makes her Grand Piano debut with these exquisite rarities.

REVIEWS:

I am very impressed with Maria Stratigou’s playing here. Technically she is absolutely on top of these études but she has the lyrical expertise to bring out the necessary lightness of touch and shading even in the most exacting moments; her delicacy in the figuration of op.26 no.10 is delicious. I hope she is the pianist who will continue this valuable and enjoyable series.

-- MusicWeb International

Stratigou has a full mastery of Farrenc’s romantic style and a technique to match. I can only hope that she continues on this journey. This is a quite auspicious beginning to what I expect to be a very enjoyable exploration of piano music that deserves to be better known.

-- American Record Guide

Niccolò Castiglioni was one of the most singular figures on the Italian music scene of the latter half of the 20th century. Including world première recordings, Volume 1of this complete edition reveals the exceptional quality of Castiglioni’s early piano works, the cantabile solemnity found in his exploration of twelve-tone techniques, and the quest for simplicity in later pieces that include the Seconda sonatina discovered among the composer’s papers after his death. The acclaimed pianist Aldo Orvieto has recorded and performed extensively throughout his career and is a specialist in Italian 20th-century repertoire.

Jose Antonio Rezende de Almeida Prado referred to his vast set of 18 Cartas Celestes as an "incredible journey," and the final three were completed just months before his death. Following the luminous Brazilian night skies of No. 13, the poetic references of the final trilogy refer to constellations named after animals, Grecian and Egyptian mythology, and one last homage to a pivotal figure in Brazilian literature. This is the final volume of Aleyson Scopel's world premiere recording of the 15 Cartas Celestes for solo piano.

This six album boxed set comprises Tanya Ekanayaka’s Twelve Piano Prisms performed by the composer (GP785); works by Valentin Silvestrov performed by Elisaveta Blumina (GP639); Philip Glass’ piano music played by Nicholas Horvath (GP692); and Haro Stepanian’s Preludes (GP760) and Baal HaSulam’s Melodies of the Upper Worlds (GP808) performed by Mikael Ayrapetyan, alongside the pianist’s own A Whole in 12 (GP809). These contemplative contemporary piano miniatures have been expertly curated from the Grand Piano discography, and are sure to leave listeners and critics alike extremely satisfied.

Past praise for previously released volumes included in this set:

Stepanian: 26 Preludes for Piano / Ayrapetyan

Haro Stepanian was a fellow student of Aram Khachaturian. Stepanian himself was certainly a fine composer, based on this collection of preludes written between 1947 and 1965. There are three sets of eight here, completed in 1947, 1948, and 1956, plus two individual preludes written near the end of his life. His style is consistently folk derived, nothing one could call revelatory, but simply well-crafted work across a broad spectrum of emotional expression. The young Armenian pianist Mikael Ayrapetyan is a very fine advocate for this decidedly obscure music.

-- Fanfare

Ekanayaka: 12 Piano Prisms

Tanya Ekanayaka certainly hits her musical mark with these piano pieces. At times contemplative, sometimes raucous, these works have been injected generously with beauty and Rachmaninoff-like technique and drama. These works are certainly recommended to pianists to program for recitals: not only do they take the audience on a lovely, dark journey through the music of different cultures via the lens of a classically-trained pianist, but they sound enjoyable to play.

-- American Record Guide

Silvestrov: Piano Works / Blumina

Silvestrov seems well served by pianist Elisaveta Blumina. All is played and recorded with close and calmingly fervent engagement. Silvestrov’s surprising but pleasing commitment is to a vocabulary chronologically distant from the predominance of the twentieth century, let alone the twenty-first. If he occasionally sounds briefly like Einaudi it is only to remind us that once we listen for more than a couple of minutes Silvestrov is not a minimalist. In this context he is just a composer, one strand of whose creativity is inextricably in thrall to a style that, while familiar, serves his expressive needs better than any other. It is one dimension of the man.

-- MusicWeb International

Almeida Prado’s colossal piano cycle Cartas Celestes (‘Celestial Charts’) offers a paradigm of audacious invention (GP709, 710, 746, 747) but between 1985 and 1991 this prolific Brazilian composer also wrote a set of 14 nocturnes that display the genre’s lyrical impulses. Along with abstract elements and features such as synesthesia, used in homage to his teacher Messaien, the full range of influences can be felt in Almeida Prado’s Nocturnes: Chopin, Scriabinesque color, bossa-nova, Brahms-like intervals, serenity and radiant songfulness. Ilhas (‘Islands’) is a mystical but programmatic work, the predecessor of Cartas Celestes in many essential elements. Aleyson Scopel is an award-winning Brazilian pianist and one of Almeida Prado’s greatest contemporary advocates.

This new release is the penultimate volume in this acclaimed series of Medtner’s Complete Piano Sonatas performed by series pianist Paul Stewart. Medtner’s 14 piano sonatas, the most significant achievement in this genre by any major composer since Beethoven, span his career. The Sonata-Ballade explores a tempestuous musical allegory – the triumph of Light over Darkness, of Faith over Doubt; while the Sonata in A minor is cast in a single, terse movement, with folkloric elements and frequent use of bell-like features that exude Russianness. By contrast, the ‘Night Wind’ Sonata is a monumental epic of exceptional complexity that stunned Rachmaninov and led composer and critic Sorabji to call it ‘the greatest piano sonata of modern times.’

York Bowen was described by Saint-Saëns as ‘the most remarkable of the young British composers’. His 24 Preludes form a sequence of concise, richly expressive and directly communicative studies. The Berceuse, Op. 83 ranks amongst Bowen’s most intimate scores, while the sophisticated Suite Mignonne demands the most delicate of touches from the pianist.

-----

REVIEW:

The exquisite Berceuse and the Barcarolle from the Op 30 Suite could hardly be given more insinuatingly, and when you hear Ortiz in the ‘Moto perpetuo’ from the Suite mignonne you will marvel at such musical empathy, backed by an immaculate dexterity. A more endearing case for Bowen would be hard to imagine.

– Gramophone

With two world premiere recordings, this program highlights the Romantic and spiritual side of contemporary music from Russia and Eastern Europe. Galina Ustvolskaya's early Concerto expresses a vision of beauty and suffering in a tonal language quite unlike her later works. Giya Kancheli's Sio or "breeze" is notable for its striking use of silence, as well as modal tunes, bass drones and wide dynamic extremes derived from Georgian folk music. Silvestrov's devotional Hymn reflects his approach to music as "a song the world sings about itself".

On this recording, Gerald Finley makes his debut as Hans Sachs, portraying Sach's character sensitively and sympathetically; his voice nothing short of glorious.

Displaying exceptional musical precocity, the young pianist Maria Szymanowska proved a sensation in Warsaw's salons, before moving to Paris where her fame spread. Greatly admired by her contemporaries, who included Beethoven, Cherubini, Field and Tamasek, she later also cast a spell over the elderly Goethe during one of her many long European tours. Alexander Kostritsa received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is a prizewinner of international piano competitions, including the Premio Rovere d'Oro, the Slavic Music Festival and the Paul Badura-Skoda.

Schulhoff was one of many composers who took up the challenge to embrace jazz and to incorporate it into their music. He was one of the most successful at writing works that were no mere pastiches but genuinely jazz-inspired - ones that could just as easily have come from the pens of people like Scott Joplin or Billy Mayerl.

Fünf Pittoresken (Five Pictures) date from as far back as 1919 and are remarkable for their wit and experimental nature. The first two entitled Foxtrott and Ragtime ‘do exactly what it says on the tin’ and are clearly influenced by Scott Joplin whose Maple Leaf Rag had been such a hit in the early years of the twentieth century. That they were penned by a white Jewish Central European is surprising enough but they are convincing in their recreation of true jazz rhythms that one would normally ascribe solely to a black composer such as Joplin.

One must surely conclude that Schulhoff had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he ‘created’ the third of these pictures since it is entitled In futurum. It consists of 85 seconds of total silence which anticipates John Cage’s notorious 4'33" (by 33 years) in which a pianist sits at the piano with orchestra and no-one does anything for that precise length of time. Cage, a pioneer in indeterminacy in music, claimed that its motivation was an attempt to demonstrate that there are sounds to be heard in a concert hall full of audience even when no music is played. It will be different each time the ‘work’ is ‘performed’ with different ambient sounds occurring as well as audience breathing and the odd cough and even, perhaps, extraneous sounds from outside the building. Schulhoff’s ‘work’ may also ‘benefit’ from the same effect in a similar venue but with the technical expertise that comes into play in the recording studio such possibilities are lost. Before I read the booklet I thought I had received a rogue copy and contacted the distributors who tried 6 copies themselves before contacting the manufacturer and label owner who told them that it was not a fault. Note to self: when in doubt read the booklet first! ‘Normal service was resumed’ for Pictures 4 and 5 which were just as refreshingly jazzy as the first two.

The Piano Sonata No.2 is in a different league owing more to the French school of Ravel than to the jazzmen of the USA. A wonderfully restrained and understated first movement gives way to a mercurial second in scherzo form. The third is beautifully appealing and gentle “exuding an air of calm contentment” as the booklet notes so aptly put it. The sonata closes with a fourth movement that once again recalls Ravel and shows that Schulhoff was someone whose writing is of equal interest to that of the great French composer.

The two piano pieces that follow were composed in 1936 when the threat of Nazism was clear. The first is entitled Optimistic Composition while the second is entitled The Czech Workers and presents a militant stance that must surely be read as a challenge to the threat from the West. Schulhoff, as a communist, hoped that this threat would be defeated by the combined might of working people everywhere.

Schulhoff’s Musik für Klavier in vier teilen dating from 1920 takes us back to the days when the influence of jazz in his music was at its strongest. While this work is not overtly as jazzy as the Five Pictures that opened the disc its influence can be detected nevertheless. The second movement which is in the form of a lengthy set of ten variations is particularly affecting.

The last work on the disc is Esquisses de Jazz which was written in 1927. It is Schulhoff’s most well known work and though its subtitle is Six pièces faciles pour piano the word facile translates as easy since there is nothing ‘facile’ about it. These are piano pieces heavily influenced by jazz though they do not attempt to be jazz pieces per se; they are seen through a jazz prism while retaining a distinctly Schulhoff stamp of innovation. The one entitled Charleston is a particular case in point.

In recent years a lot more of Schulhoff’s works have been appearing on disc and about time too for they increasingly reveal a huge talent across a wide range of compositions that includes six completed symphonies. It is all the more sad to realise what could have been created subsequently had he not been cruelly arrested and sent to a concentration camp in Bavaria. There he is believed to have died from TB at the early age of 48.

This is the second disc of Schulhoff’s piano works to appear on the Grand Piano label both played by Caroline Weichert. Her deft touch and sympathetic approach enables the music to weave its spell. She has also released another disc of Grainger’s piano music for the label and previous releases on the Koch Schwann label show that she prefers to concentrate on lesser-known composers. I find this refreshing since there remains so much wonderful music to be discovered. We need people like her to help in that process.

This is a fascinating disc of music that is rarely heard and when as lovingly played as it is here deserves a wide listenership.

-- Steve Arloff, MusicWeb International

Florent Schmitt was one of the most original and influential French composers of his time. His music shimmers with luxuriant melodies, good humour and a fearless harmonic vocabulary. This second of four volumes is filled with innovation and stylistic bravura, from the remarkable variety to be found in Sur cinq notes to the balletic poetry of Reflets d’Allemagne.