While living in London in the years 1926-28 Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag, known as Baal HaSulam, a prominent Kabbalist, composed his cycle ‘Melodies of the Upper Worlds’ which are heard in this recording in piano arrangements by Mikael Ayrapetyan. Many of the melodies are composed to text fragments from Kabbalistic sources and enshrine an aspiration to sense the spiritual world in a direct appeal to the heart.

Mikael Ayrapetyan is a pianist, composer and producer. He is also the founder and artistic director of the music project Secrets of Armenia, which aims to increase international awareness of Armenian classical music, and actively organizes concerts featuring Armenian music in venues around the world, for which he is a producer, artistic director and pianist. Born in 1984 in Yerevan, Armenia, he studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory, and continues to uphold the performing traditions of the Russian piano school, of which Konstantin Igumnov, Samuel Feinberg and Lev Oborin are luminaries. His repertoire ranges from the Baroque to the contemporary and includes rarely performed works by Armenian composers.

Tanya Ekanayaka's 'Twelve Piano Prisms' extend the concept heard on her album 'Reinventions: Rhapsodies for Piano.' They correspond to the twelve primary notes of the keyboard, and combine Sri Lankan melodies with music from other countries in a deeply personal representation of diverse cultures; their style inspired not only by a rich heritage of Western classical and indigenous world music, but also by pop, rock and film music. Dr. Tanya Ekanayaka is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning Sri Lankan-British concert composer-pianist regarded as one of Sri Lanka's finest artists. Classically trained and with a background in Asian and Popular music, she is also a linguist, musicologist and record producer. Although she trained as a pianist, her compositional skills are the result of a purely intuitive and natural development.

Glinka wrote a series of delightful polkas, mazurkas, gallops and waltzes that were predominantly intended for fashionable drawing rooms and salons. He also wrote more substantial pieces such as the Grande Valse in G major and the Polonaise in E major which were initially scored for orchestra. Some pieces were also based on pre-existing melodies such as the Variations on a theme of Mozart, which is inspired by a melody drawn from Die Zauberflote and the attractive Tarantella in A minor, a rhythmic adaptation of the Russian folk song ‘In the field there stood a birch tree.’ Inga Fiolia, the Georgian-German pianist, is quickly establishing herself as one of her generation’s most exciting and gifted young concert soloists. Winning first prize at several international piano competitions in Germany, Belgium, and Italy, Inga has also received awards from Piano News, Germany’s leading piano magazine, the Solti Foundation, the German Academic Foundation for Musical Life, and Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now. “Inga Fiolia’s interpretations are powerfully organic, there is no trace of artificiality about the way she concentrates and engages with the work.” (Parisian le petit concertoirleiste)

The four works in this second of three volumes devoted to Enescu's piano music range over a period of more than 30 years. The earliest is the joyful, ebullient Suite "Des cloches sonores", Op. 10 which covers a wide expressive range including use of the melancholy Romanian song, the doina. The Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 24 is a mercurial, puckish works, both spiritred and contemplative, and the Piece sure le nom de Faure is a charming souvenir from one composer to another.

The works in this programme demonstrate Philip Glass' perpetual goal of connecting with his audience. Taking shape as something like a hidden sonata form, Mad Rush contrasts peaceful atmosphere with tempestuousness and mesmerising beauty. The last of it's kind in Glass' oeuvre, 600 Lines, here receiving it's premiere recording on solo piano, is an obsessive and hypnotically restless toccata that represents the zenith of his experiences while working with Ravi Shankar. These two monumental works are joined by premiere recordings of the subtly transformed Metamorphosis Two, and Glass' transcription of Paul Simon's The Sound of Silence.

The program included in this album spans almost twenty years of composer Erwin Schulhoff’s career. Tracks included are Suite dansante en Jazz (1931), 9 Kleine Reigen (1913), Ostinato (1925), 5 Etudes de Jazz (1926), and Zez Confrey's Kitten on the Keys (1921). The influence of jazz, ragtime, Expressionism, and Dada are clearly heard in these works, some of which are rarely recorded. Caroline Weichert breathes new life into this music. Booklet notes are available in English and German.

Little known outside his native Croatia, Ivo Maček (1914-2002) occupied an important place in 20th c. Yugoslavian musical life as pianist and educator. + He composed a small number of solo piano works, all of which can be heard on this world première recording. + The Intermezzo is among his most poetic early miniatures, while the expressively wide-ranging Theme and Variations is one of his most inventive pieces. + His 1985 Sonata is the most elaborate and imposing of his solo piano works, whereas the 1980 Violin Sonata typifies the increasing sophistication and poise of his later style.

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".

Bavarian-born Adolf von Henselt was one of a galaxy of star pianist-composers of a similar age that included Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Thalberg. A student o Hummel, Henselt developed a breathtaking, idiosyncratic virtuoso technique but stage fright drew him away from performance an more towards composition and then teaching. Sergio Gallo, a steinway artist, specializes in the repertoire of the Romantic period, especially Liszt and his contemporaries, including Schumann, Henselt, Brahms and Chopin. Gallo has made several acclaimed recordings for Eroica and a recent release with Naxos of Liszt's transcriptions of opera by Meyerbeer, which was critically acclaimed by BBC Magazine: "Gallo makes a goo case for Liszt's honoring of the operatic originals."

Josef Hofmann was a prodigy and a polymath. Fascinated by technology he made experimental cylinder recordings as early as 1887, and undertook an American tour at the age of eleven. One of the very greatest pianists of the Golden Age, his recorded legacy is priceless, but like many musicians of his generation he also composed. He wrote a symphony, five piano concertos, and a considerable amount of distinctive and enjoyable solo piano music in the Romantic tradition, including a richly contrasted set of Charakterskizzen, Op. 40, a Sonata in F major, Op. 21 that reveals the influence of Schumann, and a finely wrought Theme and Variations and Fugue, Op. 14. Artem Yasynskyy won the Hofmann Prize at the First German Piano Competition of Polish Music in Hamburg in 2013.

In weaving America’s native culture and history, Philip Glass has created his own musical lineage. This album explores these ideas through his single most demanding piano piece, the ferocious, but lyrically meditative Piano Concerto No. 2 (after Lewis and Clark), as well as one of his most neglected, the mysterious A Secret Solo 2. Wichita Vortex Sutra, a joyful and transcendent study, is also heard in the version for narrator, with words by the poet Allen Ginsberg. From his experimental years comes Music in Contrary Motion with its mesmerizing variety of pulse patterns. Nicolas Horvath is an unusual artist with an unconventional résumé. He began his music studies at the Académie de Musique Prince Rainier III de Monaco, and at the age 16, he caught the attention of the American conductor Lawrence Foster who helped him to secure a three-year scholarship from the Princess Grace Foundation in order to further his studies. His mentors include a number of distinguished international pianists, including Bruno Leonardo Gelber, Gérard Frémy, Eric Heidsieck, Gabriel Tacchino, Nelson Delle-Vigne, Philippe Entremont, Oxana Yablonskaya and Liszt specialist Leslie Howard who helped to lay the foundations for Horvath’s current recognition as a leading interpreter of Liszt’s music. He is the holder of a number of awards, including First Prize of the Scriabin and the Luigi Nono International Competitions.

Selim Palmgren, a student of Busoni, was one of the most prominent Finnish composer-pianists of his time, and his pieces for pedagogical use such as Kevätauerta (‘Spring Haze’) are still popular today. This programme reveals Palmgren’s versatility to the full, with the Deux contrastes describing opposite poles of melancholy and joyous playfulness, and the dreamy Prelude-Nocturne a jazz-tinted reminiscence of 1920s America. Displaying a wide variety of technical and stylistic challenges, Palmgren’s 24 Preludes also features one of the first examples of Impressionism in Nordic piano literature.

A student of Franck, Vincent d’Indy founded the Schola Cantorum de Paris where he taught for many years. He was also a conductor, with a busy schedule of international touring. His compositions were permeated by the influence of Wagner- he attended the premiere of the Ring cycle- but in time he also absorbed the influence of French folk music, especially from the Vivarais, his ancestral home. Vincent d’Indy’s large-scale Piano Sonata is one of a small but masterful sequence of non-programmatic instrumental works that he wrote in the first decade of the 20th century. Notable for a novel application of variation form in its opening movement it fuses experimentation with expressive power. Poetic atmospheres and landscapes are evoked in the Tableaux de voyage, postcards of his walks in Germany. The sonata was recorded in the castle Les Faugs in Ardèche, where d’Indy lived – the same place where the work was composed in 1907. Jean-Pierre Armengaud is today acknowledged as one of the great interpreters of French music, and has recorded critically acclaimed releases of Debussy, Roussel, Poulenc and Aubert for Naxos.

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.

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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

The Hungarian-born composer TIBOR HARS�NYI is now recognized as an important personality in 'L'�cole de Paris'. He had a lifelong interest in modern dance, represented here by the Petite suite and Trois Pi�ces de danse, and he also embraced jazz, which was part of the Parisian atmosphere of the inter-war period, and other influences, while keeping the Central European rhythms and tonalities of his Hungarian origins. The Trois Pi�ces lyriques is a rare example of Hars�nyi expressing torment during the turbulent years of the Second World War. GIORGIO KOUKL is a pianist/harpsichordist and composer. He studied at both the Conservatories of Z�rich and Milan, where he took part in the masterclasses of Nikita Magaloff, Jacques F�vrier, and Stanislaus Neuhaus, and with Rudolf Firku�n�, friend and advocate of Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. It was through Firku�n� that Koukl first encountered Martinu's music, and is now considered one of the world's leading interpreters of Martinu's piano music. As a logical continuation of this work, Koukl has recorded the complete solo piano works of Paul Le Flem, Alexander Tcherepnin, Arthur Louri�, V�tezslava Kapr�lov�, Witold Lutoslawski, and more recently, Alexandre Tansman and Tibor Hars�nyi.

The piano works of the largely self-taught Australian composer Raymond Hanson are unparalleled in 20th-century Australian music. Ranging over four decades they exemplify an iconoclastic spirit whose spontaneous writing is accompanied by a visionary wit and dynamism. This premier complete collection of Hanson’s piano oeuvre includes the Piano Sonata, Op. 12 – one of his greatest works, full of restless motoric rhythms and reflective contrasts – and many world première recordings, all performed by the award-winning pianist Tonya Lemoh. Australian/Sierra Leonean pianist Tonya Lemoh is known for her focus on unusual and exotic repertoire. She made her name on the international scene with her ground-breaking recording for Chandos of solo piano works by Austrian composer Joseph Marx. Praised by Gramophone magazine and All Music Guide, her concert appearances and recordings have since consistently garnered critical acclaim. Lemoh has won several international awards, including First Prizes in the ‘21st century Art Competition’ (International Association of Art and Education in the 21st Century, Helsingor 2003), and the Royal Academy of Music (Aarhus) Concerto Competition, and a Diplôme d’honneur in the International Edvard Grieg Piano Competition.

Aram Il’yich Khachaturian was considered the ‘mouthpiece of the entire Soviet Orient’ and remains the most renowned of 20th-century Armenian composers. His unmistakable style came with an urge to invent new forms that reconciled Western practice with Eastern idiom. His ‘apprentice’ Fugues were revised and enriched with Recitatives that conjure the colorful voices of Khachaturian’s childhood in Tbilisi. Refreshingly original, amusing and provocative, the Children’s Albums belong to a tradition that reaches back to Bach, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. The Maltese pianist Charlene Farrugia studied with Dolores Amodio, and with Diana Ketler at the Royal Academy of Music in London. For several years she was mentored by Boris Petrushansky. She gained her doctorate in performance under Kenneth Hamilton with a thesis on piano repertory for the left hand. In 2018 she received Malta’s International Achievement Award, and was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 2020. An ambassador of EMMA (Euro Mediterranean Music Academy) for Peace, under the auspices of UNESCO, she is currently on the teaching faculty at the Music Academy, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Croatia.

Philip Glass has made an immense and stylistically wide-ranging contribution to piano repertoire. The Orphée Suite, a transcription of excerpts from the first opera in Glass’ Cocteau Trilogy, is one of his most distinctive piano pieces, blending virtuosity and melodic richness. In contrast, the hypnotic How Now is structurally influenced by Indian ragas and gamelan music, whilst Dreaming Awake contains one of the most powerful climaxes in all Glass’ works. Performed by Nicolas Horvath, a Scriabin Competition first prizewinner, this is the first release in the complete Glass solo piano edition which will include many premières.

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Reviews:

This disc is important because it demonstrates that Glass’s music works quite nicely alongside other composers of the past and alongside quite traditional approaches to performance generally.

– American Record Guide

Somehow, the objectivity of the sound of a piano suits the music of Philip Glass perfectly. Certainly that’s how it seems in Nicolas Horvath’s expert performances.

– International Piano

Classical Music

This fascinating collection of rare and distinctive piano works, from the 18th century to the present, is inspired by stories of how women composers created music while meeting the expectations of family and society. Hiroko Ishimoto brings together a remarkably varied programme including works by Ana Bon who was ‘chamber music virtuosa’ at the Prussian court of King Frederick the Great, the bold harmonies of Vít?zslava Kaprálová (a student of Martin?), as well as pieces by Amy Beach based on the calls of the hermit thrush, and so much more.

Also available: 20th Century Foxtrots, Vol. 2 and 20th Century Foxtrots, Vol. 3

 

During the inter-war period, in the cities of the West, a younger generation found ways to enjoy life in the form of dances such as shimmies, foxtrots, tangos and Charlestons: strong rhythms that became a symbol of a carefree and decadent era. The new jazz craze took hold everywhere, and Krenek’s opera Jonny spielt auf became an overnight sensation. The inter-war Zeitgeist in Vienna and the Czech lands is reflected in a programme full of première recordings – many of which were hits in their day – rich with fashionable dynamism, syncopation and joie de vivre. Born in Vienna, Gottlieb Wallisch first appeared on the concert platform when he was seven years old, and at the age of twelve made his debut in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. A concert directed by Yehudi Menuhin in 1996 launched Wallisch’s international career: accompanied by the Sinfonia Varsovia, the seventeen-year-old pianist performed Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto. Since then Wallisch has received invitations to the world’s most prestigious concert halls and festivals including Carnegie Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Tonhalle Zurich, and the NCPA in Beijing, also the Ruhr Piano Festival, the Beethovenfest in Bonn, the Festivals of Lucerne and Salzburg, December Nights in Moscow, and the Singapore Arts Festival.

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REVIEWS:

 

This new recording is an utterly delightful collection of Austrian and Czech foxtrots and other dance music, performed with panache and great affection. Most of the music was written in the 1920s and 1930s when the composers were prompted by publishers to write popular (and commercial) dance music. You can imagine this inventive, rhythmic, and sensuous music being played in pre-WW II Vienna and Prague dance halls and cabarets.

 

– MusicWeb International

While jazz-inspired music by the likes of Stravinsky and Weill has never been forgotten, the similar efforts of dozens of other composers from the same period have fallen into obscurity. Now some of those experiments are enjoying a fresh hearing. The German pianist Gottlieb Wallisch’s revealing and entertaining new recording is mostly made up of world-premiere recordings of these dance-oriented works, in their piano arrangements.

By grouping these works geographically, he said, he anticipates creating “an encyclopedia of music from this time.” The second volume in the series — devoted to pieces by German composers — is scheduled for release in the fall.

If you’ve heard of the Czech composer Jaromir Weinberger, it’s likely for the Polka from his opera “Schwanda the Bagpiper.” (Herbert von Karajan was a devotee of that orchestral excerpt.) But he also composed an entry in the annals of the jazz-age dance known as the shimmy, garlanding his miniature with streaks of New World suavity.

In a 1925 lecture, the Austrian composer Ernst Krenek asked aloud what the listening public wanted. “The answer,” he continued, “will perhaps be somewhat frightening: none other than dance music.” The arrangement on Mr. Wallisch’s recording was created by the composer Jeno Takacs as part of a potpourri of selections from the opera.

Jaroslav Jezek’s “Bugatti Step” was, when it was written, a calling card for its composer — including with the “jazz orchestra” that he led at the time. Mr. Wallisch’s take on the solo piano arrangement of the piece is a cut above several other contemporary performances. He has plenty of forward motion, but his way of approaching Jezek’s propulsive writing results in a smooth ride. “It’s not a Charleston or a quick-fox,” he said. “I don’t think it needs the fast-as-possible tempo.”

– New York Times

Sándor Balassa has stated that his music for piano ‘has to evoke genuine emotions, recalling the abundance of a springtime meadow, giving us a feeling of richness, and inspiring a sense of adventure in us and touching our hearts’. In this third volume, which includes piano versions of pieces for harp and cimbalom, the sheer diversity of Balassa’s imagination is amply illustrated, conjuring atmosphere and poignant recollections as well as demanding exceptional virtuosity. Balassa considers the closing Fantázia, Op. 97 to be his best piano work. István Kassai graduated as a pianist from the Budapest Academy of Music in 1982 studying in the class of Pál Kadosa. In 1984 he pursued a second diploma at the Conservatoire Européen de Musique under the close supervision of professor Yvonne Lefébure. He also undertook several master courses, including one led by György Cziffra, who had a great impact on Kassai’s artistic development. During his career, Kassai has won several first prizes in international competitions such as the International Piano Competition for Young Artists in 1972 in Czechoslovakia, the Piano Competition organized by Hungarian Radio in 1979, and the Paris International Debussy Piano Competition in 1982.

Johann Baptist Cramer made his name in London and Europe as one of the leading pianists of the day. His virtuoso skills at the keyboard can be heard in the florid and playful Variations on an Anglo-Caledonian Air and the ebullient Sonata, Op. 25, No. 2. Matteo Napoli is an honors graduate of the Giordano Conservatory (Foggia). Early in his career he captured worldwide attention winning many competitions, including First Prize in the International Liszt Competition at Lucca in 1986.

Anthony Burgess, the world famous author of A Clockwork Orange, had been steeped in music since childhood, and during army service in the Second World War worked as a pianist and dance-band arranger. He wrote prolifically in many genres. His 24 Preludes and Fugues, called The Bad-Tempered Electronic Keyboard, were written to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach. This ingenious and inventive piece, with its brief romantic and music hall elements, not only pays homage to Bach but also references the modernity of Shostakovich, whose own set of Preludes and Fugues had been written in 1950. This is the world premiere recording of these works. These pieces are performed by renowned contemporary music interpreter Stephane Ginsburgh.

In nineteenth-century Portugal, Italian opera was king. During this time, however, instrumentalists still emerged. Piano prodigies Jose Viana de Mota and Guilherme Daddi did considerable work to advance concert life in Portugal throughout their careers. Not only were these gentlemen outstanding pianists, they were also virtuosic composers. Their entertaining and challenging pieces helped to draw Portugal into the scene of European music-making. Performing these works is Sofia Lourenco, an outstanding pianist and educator.