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Lalo Schifrin, the internationally renowned composer of classic film and TV scores such as Bullitt, Dirty Harry and Rush Hour, has collaborated with fellow Argentinian pianist Mirian Conti for this collection of his complete works for solo piano to date, including several world premières. A unique arrangement of the famous theme to Mission: Impossible is included, as well as his most recent compositions: the two richly sensuous tangos, and the powerful Jazz Sonata, composed especially for Conti.

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REVIEWS:

Conti’s performances connect well with the rhythmic vitality of Schifrin’s music, ably delivering the gorgeous melodic content and rich, extended jazz harmonies. The recording features a crisp, dry acoustic that allows for good clarity. Those listeners who love Schifrin’s film work but are less familiar with his other endeavors will likely find a lot to enjoy here as well.

– Film Score Monthly

Some of the music is extremely difficult to play but is played with panache and dexterity. I enjoyed most of the music; all of the pieces are engaging and interesting. For Schifrin’s fans this is a must. For the rest of us, it’s entertaining. The sound is excellent.

– American Record Guide

Composed between 1807 and 1809, the four sonatas in this volume of Leopold Kozeluch’s complete cycle represent his return to the genre after a period of fourteen years. Whilst aware of the influence of the resonant new English piano, the Bohemian composer explored the special effects of the Viennese instrument. The Turkish sounds in the finale of Sonata No. 41 illustrate the timbres available whilst the romantic quality of his slow introductions, not least the Largo of Sonata No. 40, reveal his command of color and texture. Kemp English is one of New Zealand’s leading concert performers. Renowned as an exuberant entertainer, he is much in demand as a solo organist, collaborative pianist and specialist fortepiano exponent, relishing the opportunity to work in a diverse array of styles and periods.

Nikolay Medtner’s 14 piano sonatas are considered the most significant achievement in this genre by any composer since Beethoven. After the success of his First Piano Sonata (GP617) he turned to Goethe for inspiration, and the life and love-affirming Sonata-Triad Op. 11 translates the poet’s words of passion, suffering and redemption into sound. The capricious, mysterious and beautiful Sonata-Skazka is a masterpiece in miniature and was once Medtner’s most performed work. Dating from his years of exile, the eloquent themes of the fourteenth and final Sonata-Idyll linger long in the memory.

Christian Gottlob Neefe flourished as the Baroque was giving way to the Classical period. These Twelve Sonatas represent important steps in this transition, each having a uniquely individual character and showing a mixture of styles. Neefe is remembered today as Beethoven's first main teacher in Bonn, the Dressler Variations being young Ludwig's first published composition. Susan Kagan, a pianist, author, and educator, has explored the music of composers associated with Beethoven and his Milieu.

Gerhard Frommel rejected vapid pre-war Nationalism and Schoenberg’s dodecaphony, finding his voice in individuality and tradition. His highly contrasting Piano Sonatas are rooted in a blend of romanticism and the rhythmic propulsion of Stravinsky, articulated with tenderness in No 1, clownish grotesquerie in No 2, and sensual impressionism in No 3.

Tchaikovsky wrote over 100 lyric art songs or Romances, a sequence of diaries of the soul that embrace moods from euphoria to despair. They were unusually important to him, and he, or his editors, commissioned piano transcriptions by eminent musicians such as Laub and others, all of which were revised by Tchaikovsky. These poetic and melodically beautiful songs, many of which are here recorded for the first time, include the ravishing None but the Lonely Heart and reveal a ‘new’ body of Tchaikovsky’s piano repertoire. The album concludes with an opera fantasy on themes from Eugene Onegin by the Austrian composer and pianist Carl Fruhling. Julia Severus graduated from the Berlin University of Arts and from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she studied piano with Mikhail Voskresensky and Lev Naumov. Wishing to explore piano ensemble repertoire, she founded the Aurora Duo and Quartet, performing numerous premieres and world premieres, among them Rodion Shchedrin’s Hommage a Chopin in the presence of the composer.

 

REVIEW:

 

The range of songs is wide. The most famous of the set, generally known in English as None but the lonely heart, is arranged by Severus. She has replaced the syncopations of the original accompaniment with triplets that meander around the vocal line. In general, I find that the extra little touches of fantasy in Severus’s transcriptions make for more effective piano solos than the others on the disc. That said, Tchaikovsky’s gift for melody and drama make all these pieces worth hearing.

 

Severus finds the mood and style effectively, and generally plays very well. Overall, this is a very enjoyable and well-balanced recital.

 

– MusicWeb International

This release is the first of three discs devoted to the piano music of George Enescu. The works chosen for this first album are three significant pieces - Nocturne in D-Flat Major "Hommage a la Princesse Marie Cantacuzene", Pieces impromptues, and Piano Sonata No. 1 in F-Sharp Minor. Enescu’s Romanian influences show in these works, which feel strongly of Romanian folk music. Pianist Josu de Solaun performs these works.

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REVIEW:

His technique is excellent here. The concluding Sonata 1 is shot through with harmonic twists and driving rhythms, handled expertly.

– American Record Guide

Tigran Chukhajian is highly significant in the history of Armenian music: he was the first composer to combine Western and Eastern cultures, and was referred to as the ‘Armenian Verdi’ amongst his contemporaries. Persecution under the repressive Ottoman Turkish regime led to his music being suppressed, but these piano works are a sophisticated testament to Chukhajian’s Romantic inclinations, absorbing the influences of Chopin and Liszt, and enriching them with Orientalist nuances and descriptive themes. 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 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.

REVIEWS:

Ayrapetyan is top notch and is able to communicate both the playful and serious moods in this repertoire. The more serious ‘Caprice’ begins with a melismatic melody, almost improvisational in quality. He plays without too much rhythmic liberty, and is firm but maintains a healthy dose of color and beauty.

-- American Record Guide

Alvin Lucier is one of America’s foremost experimentalists, challenging the fundamental principles of music and focusing on acoustic phenomena and how listeners perceive them. Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators explores the acoustic ‘beating’ effects and tuning phenomena of sine waves against piano tones. This new XL version expands the extraordinary listening experience in a work described by Nicolas Horvath as ‘immersive, intense and enigmatic’. 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 of 16, 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.

REVIEW:

This performance by Nicolas Horvath is disciplined and precise, providing just the right touch for the piano notes under each acoustic condition. Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillator XL will surely add to Horvath’s reputation as a leading interpreter of the most unusual experimental forms in contemporary music.

– Sequenza21.com

Koželuch: Complete Keyboard Sonatas, Vol. 2

Witold Lutoslawski's few surviving apprentice works are suffused with the elegance of Ravel and the lush effusiveness of Szymanowski, and this is particularly true of the early Piano Sonata, heard here in Giorgio Koukl's new and corrected edition based on the original manuscript. Further premieres include the wistful 'A Kiss of Roxanne' and the technically complex 'Invention.' Including all of the folk-music tinted pedagogical miniatures, works for piano four hands and other occasional pieces, this is the most comprehensive edition of Lutoslawski's works for solo piano ever recorded. Virginia Rossetti began her piano studies with Massimiliano Ferrati, later attending the 'Antonio Buzzola' Conservatory in Adria where she graduated with honors. In May 2013 she obtained her Master of Performing Arts with distinction at the Hochschule fur Musik in Basle and in 2014 at the Royal Flemish Conservatoire of Brussels. Since 2011 she has been the pianist of the Lunaire Piano Trio. Giorgio Koukl is a pianist/harpsichordist and composer. He studied at the State Music School and Conservatory, and the Conservatories of Zurich and Milan.

This world première recording of the second volume of José Antonio Bottiroli’s complete piano music, is performed once again by his award-winning protégé Fabio Banegas. The nocturnal themes heard in this album were inspired by the clear skies over the composer’s holiday home in Los Cocos, Cordoba Province, Argentina – these spellbinding works transcend earthly romantic concerns and venture into the stillness of the universe. Dedicated to Banegas, the Album Pages represent Bottiroli’s distinctive impressionist style, while the unique Five Piano Replies connects music with poetry written by the composer, and read on this recording by the renowned actor George Takei.

REVIEW:

Of Italian parents, José Antonio Bottiroli was equally to enjoy a busy life of a solo pianist, his portfolio of competitions numbering some seventy-three pieces by the time of his death in 1990. Their presence has only been revealed by his pupil, Fabio Banegas, whose initiative has lead to this Grand Piano series. They were never to engage with the use of atonality, but were tuneful and usually quite short, mostly gathered together to form scores of some length, the present release containing five works numbering 20 tracks. They covered the period between 1974 to 1984, the quiet nature of the Six Album Pages (Seis Hojas de Album) being particularly attractive, while much of the disc is taken up with Five Piano Replies (Cinco Replicas para piano). That work takes its name from the words of Bottiroli’s poems which then drew his own piano reply. Here the words are spoken by George Takei in English translations by Banegas, his diction is impeccable, though the words also come in the enclosed booklet. Much of the music on the disc only requires a modest technical ability and offer uncomplicated charm, Bottiroli being particularly drawn to the nature of the ‘Nocturne’, of which four are included here.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Selim Palmgren, a student of Busoni, was one of the leading Nordic composers during the first decades of the 20th century. His wide-ranging music for piano was performed and recorded by some of the greatest artists of the day. This third volume in the first complete cycle of Palmgren’s piano music on disc includes a varied cross-section of works written over a 50-year period. It includes the youthful Lyriskt intermezzo, Op. 8, romantic miniatures of great charm – as well as one of his greatest achievements, the atmospheric suite Kevät (‘Spring’), in which impressionist elements fuse with rich Finnish folk melody.

The music in this album spans a forty-year period from 1948 to 1988 and reflects Dutilleux’s stylistic development as a composer. He considered the Sonata to be the first main work in his catalogue and it represents a turning away from tradition and embraces the transformative musical explorations of the day. The Three Préludes are pieces of concentrated atmospheres, ‘a kind of study of timbres’, in the composer’s words, and each are dedicated to a renowned pianist: No. 1 to Arthur Rubinstein, No. 2 to Claude Helffer, and No. 3 to Eugene Istomin. Dutilleux’s lively music for the ballet Le Loup (‘The Wolf’) is heard here in a première recording of the original piano solo version.

REVIEW:

The pianist here is the veteran Jean-Pierre Armengaud, who has recorded a great deal of French piano music and also works as a musicologist. He studied under Geneviève Joy and was also given advice by Dutilleux and, not surprisingly, his performance is much like hers. If it sounds rather more full-blooded that may well be because the excellent new recording is rather better than that provided for Joy in her own recording of 1988 on Erato. Dutilleux also approved of his performances of the Prèludes. His performance of the piano version of Le Loup is sparkling and convincing and sounds like idiomatic piano music. The sleeve notes, in English and French are really helpful and this is a valuable issue.

-- MusicWeb International

These recordings of Balakirev’s complete solo piano works by the much-lauded pianist Nicholas Walker have been hailed as ‘the reference set’ by the American Record Guide. Originally released between 2013 and 2020, these critically acclaimed performances are now collected together for the first time in a 6 album box set. Includes world premiere recordings. Hailed by the London Evening Standard as a 'prodigy, of awesome technical fluency backed by exceptional artistry', Nicholas Walker possesses a rare combination of talents combining sensitivity with 'the flair of a full scale virtuoso and a sparkling intelligence' (BBC Music Magazine). Nicholas Walker teaches at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he devised the celebrated keyboard skills course, the advanced level of which not only helps students to be proficient in all aspects of practical musicianship, but offers them the chance to learn how to improvise in various forms, such as minuets, variations, sonatinas and Mozart-type cadenzas, in addition to devising and performing a virtuoso transcription of their own.

CONTENTS:

• Balakirev: Piano Sonata in B flat minor
• Balakirev: Piano Sonata No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 5
• Balakirev: Piano Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 3 'Grand Sonata'
• Balakirev: Waltz No. 1 in G - Valse di Bravura
• Balakirev: Nocturne No. 1 in B flat minor
• Balakirev: Waltz No. 2 in F minor
• Balakirev: Waltz No. 3 in D - Valse Impromptu
• Balakirev: Nocturne No. 2 in B minor
• Balakirev: Waltz No.4 in B flat
• Balakirev: Nocturne No. 3 in D minor
• Balakirev: Waltz No. 5 in D flat major
• Balakirev: Nocturne in G sharp minor (early version of Nocturne No. 1)
• Balakirev: Fantasiestuck
• Balakirev: Chant du pêcheur
• Balakirev: Waltz No. 7 in G sharp minor
• Balakirev: Mazurka No. 1 in A Flat
• Balakirev: Mazurka No. 2 in C sharp minor
• Balakirev: Sonatina (Esquisses) in G
• Balakirev: Berceuse
• Balakirev: Mazurka No. 3 in B minor
• Balakirev: Mazurka No. 4 in G flat minor
• Balakirev: Dumka
• Balakirev: Mazurka No. 5 in D
• Balakirev: Rêverie in F major
• Balakirev: Mazurka No. 6 in A Flat
• Balakirev: Piece in F sharp minor
• Balakirev: Mazurka No. 7 in E flat minor
• Balakirev: Capriccio
• Balakirev: Scherzo No. 1 in B minor
• Balakirev: Novelette
• Balakirev: Pustinya
• Balakirev: Scherzo No. 2 in B flat minor
• Balakirev: Fandango-Etude
• Balakirev: Spanish Serenade
• Balakirev: Caprice Brilliant Sur La Jota Aragonesa
• Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ, Op. 25: La fuite en Egypte - Overture
• Balakirev: Scherzo No. 3 for Piano in F sharp major
• Balakirev: Spanish Melody
• Taneyev, S: Valse-Caprice No. 1 in A flat
• Taneyev, S: Valse-Caprice No. 2 in D flat major
• Glinka: Ivan Susanin (A Life for the Tsar): Overture
• Glinka: Ruslan and Lyudmila: Chernamor's March
• Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 - Romanza (transc Balakirev)
• Balakirev: Impromptu on the themes of two Preludes by Chopin
• Chopin: Scherzo No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 31
• Liszt: Mazurka brillante, S221
• Beethoven: String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59 No. 2: Allegretto
• Beethoven: String Quartet No. 13 in B flat major, Op. 130: Cavatina
• Balakirev: Gondellied
• Balakirev: Tarantelle in B
• Balakirev: Polonaise Brillante
• Balakirev: La fileuse
• Balakirev: Au Jardin
• Glinka: Kamarinskaya
• Balakirev: Symphonic Poem 'Tamara'
• Balakirev: Polka in F sharp minor
• Balakirev: Elegy on the Death of a Mosquito
• Balakirev: La Danse De Sorcières (Witches Dance)
• Glinka: Ne Govori: Lyubov' Proydyot (Do Not Say: Love Passes Away)
• Balakirev: Tyrolienne
• Zapol'sky: Reverie
• Balakirev: Toccata
• Balakirev: The Lark
• Balakirev: Islamey - Oriental Fantasy

Past praise of previously released volumes included in this set:

Balakirev: Complete Piano Works Vol 1

Walker presents the works in reverse chronological order, thereby giving us the best and best-known work first. It is a masterly performance, fully on a par with or exceeding ones I have reviewed in recent years: Hinrose (Mirare 181, Nov/Dec 2012), Driver (Hyperion 67806, July/Aug 2011), and Hellaby (Cameo 2081, Sept/Oct 2009). Besides Kentner’s great recording (Naxos 111223, not available in US), I also enjoy Earl Wild’s (Ivory 73005, May/June 2004). Walker finds inner voices and emphasizes some different aspects of the harmony and form, making for a new and well thought out interpretation. He has the full technical capability to handle all of the demands of this score

– American Record Guide

Balakirev: Complete Piano Works Vol 3

This third volume of Balakirev’s complete piano works is built around his seven Mazurkas, joyous and colourful pieces with an unmistakable Slavic tone. This series continues to establish Walker as the new reference for Balakirev’s music.

– Musiq3

Balakirev: Complete Piano Works Vol 5

This one is particularly fascinating for transcription junkies, beginning with the spectacular (and spectacularly difficult) Reminiscences on Glinka’s A Life for the Czar, famous from Earl Wild’s 1969 recording. Walker is quite his equal—and that is saying something—and is also beautifully recorded in a realistic, sympathetic acoustic. Indeed, Walker’s playing throughout this absorbing disc is a pleasure to hear, with a sophisticated tonal palette and eschewing any superficial virtuosity: ‘bravura with integrity’ is how I would describe it. Why don’t we hear more of him?

–Gramophone

Keyboard arrangements of Mozart’s compositions, ranging from one of his earliest minuets to his tribute to J.S. Bach, reveal the variety and fecundity of his imagination, not least in the inspired collection made by the great pianist Edwin Fischer, and in the excerpts from the playful Londoner Skizzenbuch. They are performed on two original and newly restored instruments, the Tangentenflügel – a transitional keyboard instrument with a unique tone quality that sounds like a harpsichord endowed with dynamics – and the pantalon square piano. This is the first recording ever made of a historical pantalon. Pianist and Early Keyboard performer MICHAEL TSALKA has won numerous international prizes. A versatile musician, he studied at Temple University under the guidance of Joyce Lindorff, Lambert Orkis and Harvey Wedeen. Other mentors include Dario di Rosa, Malcolm Bilson, David Shemer, Charles Rosen and Sandra Mangsen. Michael Tsalka maintains a busy concert schedule with recent performance highlights including Zhonghe Hall in the Forbidden City, Beijing; Palacio de Bellas Artes Theatre in Mexico City; The Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg; The Metropolitan Museum in New York; the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna; the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg; and Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He is currently head of the keyboard department at the Vanke Meisha Arts Academy (VMAA) in Shenzhen, China.

 

REVIEW:

 

Considering that probably most of the pieces included here are available in other recordings, this disc’s main interest may well be the instruments Tsalka selected for the recording. The tangent piano is not a rarity anymore. In the course of time, it has earned its place among the instruments representatives of historical performance practice use for the interpretation of keyboard music written in the second half of the 18th century, especially by composers from Germany and Austria. It has been involved in recordings of the oeuvre of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. In the booklet, Pooya Radbon writes about the tangent piano that "[its] design integrates elements of the harpsichord and clavichord into the fortepiano. The tangent piano’s strong, bright resonance is produced by pivotless bare wooden staves, striking from below relatively thin strings. The resulting tone quality is quite unique, like a harpsichord suddenly endowed with the ability of producing dynamics". Other attempts to save the harpsichord from being sidelined by the fortepiano were the addition of pedals to the traditional harpsichord, but these are far less convincing than the tangent piano. It is not known for sure that Mozart played the tangent piano, but he certainly knew one of its main builders, Franz Jakob Späth. Here Tsalka plays an original instrument, built around 1797 by Johann Wilhelm Berner, who seems to have worked for Späth. Whereas in the case of the fortepiano the use of an instrument of a much later date than the music is often problematic because of the changes in the building of the instrument, that is not relevant here, as the tangent piano probably has changed very little with time.

 

The other instrument is hardly ever used in recordings, and even many who have a special interest in historical keyboards, may not know it or heard it in recordings. Around 1700, the German violinist Pantaleon Hebenstreit developed a large dulcimer with a soundboard containing a combination of 200 gut and steel strings. These were probably played with hammers. Its sound was appreciated by music lovers, but it was a large beast of almost 270 cm long, and therefore hardly transportable. It inspired keyboard builders to make a keyboard which was easier to operate, lacking dampers but with regular iron and brass strings and several handstops. Pantalon was one of the names with which it was known. Most of such instruments had a rather narrow range, but the pantalon used in this recording, built around 1780 by Gottfried Maucher, has a compass of five octaves. This recording is claimed to be the first to feature a historic pantalon. However, I should mention here a recent three-disc set with music by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, in which Pierre Goy plays a pantalon from 1776. Never mind, it is highly interesting to hear this kind of instrument, even though Mozart may never have played it. That said, I personally find the tangent piano much more satisfying, especially because its larger palette of colours. I certainly am not keen to listen to a pantalon for an hour or so. From that angle I wonder how frequently it is going to be used in recordings.

 

The reader will have gathered by now that this is a most intriguing recording. Mozart aficionados who don’t have some of the pieces in other recordings, have the opportunity to fill a couple of white spots in their collection. However, this disc will especially attract those who have a particular interest in historical (keyboard) instruments. It offers the opportunity to hear an instrument they may never have heard before and only have read about in books or encyclopedias. Michael Tsalka is a sensitive interpreter who knows exactly how to handle the two instruments, making sure that their respective qualities come fully to the fore. The better-known pieces, such as the Fantasy in f minor and the Adagio in b minor, show that as an interpreter, he can compete with anyone.

 

– MusicWeb International

This third volume of Erik Satie’s complete solo piano music using Satie scholar Robert Orledge’s new Salabert Edition focuses on music composed between 1892-1897, including theatrical scores such as the revolutionary uspud, and the Danses gothiques and famous Vexations written while the composer was hiding from a tempestuous love affair. The period closes with Satie composing in what he called “a more flexible and accessible way withthe final Gnossienne and the six Pieces froides.” Recognized at once as a great interpreter of Liszt’s music, Nicolas Horvath became in recent years one of the most sought after pianists of his generation. Holder of a number of awards, like the First Prize of the Scriabin and the Luigi Nono International Competitions, he frequently organizes events and concerts of unusual length, sometimes over twelve hours, such as Philip Glass complete piano music or Erik Satie’s Vexations.

Also available: 20th Century Foxtrots, Vol. 1 and 20th Century Foxtrots, Vol. 3

 

The first volume in this series traced the inter-war craze for carefree dance music in Austria and the Czech Lands (see GP813). This latest album focuses on Germany where jazz-influenced music flourished from the mid-1920s onwards even in the face of some social, political and racial opposition. Cabarets and dancehalls rejected this nationalist resistance and the Weimar Republic rejoiced in a cross-pollination of symphonic jazz and Kunstjazz – a fusion of dance and classical elements. The many previously unrecorded pieces here chart the progress of this vigorous musical rejuvenation. GOTTLIEB WALLISCH has performed on stage at the world’s most prestigious concert halls and festivals: Carnegie Hall 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, and the Festivals of Lucerne and Salzburg. Conductors with whom he has performed as a soloist include Sir Neville Marriner, Dennis Russell Davies, Kirill Petrenko, Martin Haselboeck and Bruno Weil. Orchestras he has performed with include the Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra Budapest and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. He has made numerous recordings for record labels, including Naxos. Gottlieb Wallisch is a Steinway Artist.



REVIEW:

One of the year’s most surprising and consistently charming recording projects continues to gather steam. The second volume of the pianist Gottlieb Wallisch’s “20th Century Foxtrots” compendium follows up on the sprightly success of the initial set.

In Wallisch’s latest batch of performances there are once again some discoveries from lesser-known artists. (Multi-movement works by Leopold Mittmann and Walter Niemann are a delight to encounter.) The new album kicks off with a spirited performance of a Paul Hindemith fox trot. And this edition also includes the world premiere recording of a piano arrangement of a “Tango” by Kurt Weill.

– New York Times (Seth Colter Walls)

This selection of Armenian piano music reflects the national characteristics, influences and technical developments of its composers over a 70-year period. The colourful dance element spiced with Armenian modes that is so distinctive is contrasted by Tigran Mansurian’s courageous avant-garde Three Pieces from 1971. The Armenian ‘Mighty Handful’ are represented by quintessential works by Mirzoian and Sarian, while several world première recordings expand an appreciation of the national style’s variety and versatility with music couched in ethereal depth and lyric virtuosity. HAYK MELIKYAN is recognised internationally by classical music audiences and critics alike as one of Armenia’s most versatile and imaginative musicians and among today’s most engaging virtuoso pianists. He studied at the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan and leads an active concert life. Melikyan is a laureate of numerous international piano competitions, including the Orléans Concours International and the IBLA Grand Prize. In 2013, he received the title of Honored Artist of the Republic of Armenia. His solo album Arutiunian: Complete Piano Works (GP718) received The Best Classical Album prize at the annual 2018 Swallow Music Awards in Armenia. Hayk Melikyan has given premières of numerous works by contemporary composers and a number of pieces have been specially written for him.

Nikoghayos Tigranian belongs to the first generation of composers and folk song collectors who laid the foundation of an Armenian national style. Tigranian's piano transcriptions of folk dances is perhaps his most important legacy, emulating folk instruments and capturing and preserving colorful depictions of Armenian folk life that are simple in texture and rich with harmonic and melodic detail. His interest also extended to Persian improvisational vocal-instrumental poems or mugams; expressive pieces that influenced contemporaries and subsequent generations of composers. 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.

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

Three substantial piano sonatas stand at the heart of a recording that reflects personal and musical independence. For Anis Fuleihan, the juxtaposition of archaic and modern is both kaleidoscopic and playful, while Boghos Gelalian draws on folkloric and late-Romantic influences in his brand of ‘Orientalism.’ Houtaf Khoury’s Sonata No. 4 both questions and reflects unsettling contemporary experience in a work of audacious, pulsing intensity. Tatiana Primak-Khoury is a Ukrainian-Lebanese pianist. She began her concert career in her native Ukraine before extending her activities to performances in Europe, the United States and the Middle East. A laureate of national and international piano competitions, she graduated with honors from the Kiev Lysenko Special Music School in 1991, going on to study for a Master’s degree at the Tchaikovsky National Academy of Music in Kiev in 1996. In 1998 she moved to Lebanon, and has since been committed to expanding the boundaries of her traditional repertoire, constantly searching for and adding new contemporary works by Ovchinnikov, Rautavaara, Saygun and Panufnik among many others.

Carl Czerny, a student of Beethoven- whose music remained an inspiration- occupied an important place in the musical landscape of his time as both performer and pedagogue. His own students, such as Liszt, transmitted his teaching principles which were available in a large number of groundbreaking exercises and etudes. Carl Czerny wrote his 30 Etudes de mecanisme, Op 849 (’30 Studies of Technique’) at a time of exceptionally high demand for teaching material. The Studies make use of a limited range of keys but are intended as an introduction for students to the ‘School of Velocity.’ Perfectly placed between his simpler and more virtuosic Studies, Czerny’s Etudes have remained in demand to the present day. The works are performed here by Nicholas Horvath, who is known for his boundary-less musical explorations and his enthusiastic promotion of contemporary music.

The nineteenth-century witnessed an almost insatiable demand for arrangements and transcriptions to be played on domestic pianos. Brahms himself wrote such works under the names GW Marks and Karl Wurth but friends and colleagues also contributed. The violinist, pianist and conductor Paul Klengel, brother of the eminent cellist Julius (whose three Concertinos for Cello and Orchestra can be heard this month on Naxos 8.573793), made solo piano versions of the Horn Trio and the Clarinet Quintet, transcribing with remarkable fidelity and sensitivity Brahms’ myriad expressive and technical demands. Born in Wales, Christopher Williams is a music graduate of Cardiff University and now leads a busy and varied professional life as a pianist, composer, conductor, teacher and arranger. He is currently assistant director of the BBC National Chorus of Wales and is a pianist for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, with whom he has performed at the BBC Proms and recorded for the Chandos and Hyperion labels.

While overshadowed by the piano concertos of Mozart during the 1780s, composer Leopold Kozeluch was holding his own as a master of the piano sonata, performing in Vienna’s most renowned private concert soirees. The four works on this release show why his sonatas might be called the pinnacle of the high-Classic style. One can definitely feel the influence of Mozart in the Sonatas, but Kozeluch forges new paths, particularly in No. 22. These works are performed by Kemp English.