Piano
472 products
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PROKOFIEV: PIANO CONCERTO NO. 3
$14.62CDDECCA
Apr 10, 2026DCA240843.2 -
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Andras Schiff plays Scarlatti & Kurtag - Lucerne Festival Hi
$20.99CDAudite Musikproduktion
Oct 17, 2025ADT97838 -
Monadologie XXXVI Chopin - 12 Etuden
$16.99CDAntarctica
Jan 30, 2026AR 075 -
Hayato Sumino: Human Universe
$13.98CDSony Masterworks
Nov 28, 202519658882472 -
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Schubert + Schumann
$21.99SACDBIS
Apr 10, 2026BIS-2760
Montmartre 73
PROKOFIEV: PIANO CONCERTO NO. 3
PREHENSION
SOLIPSISM
Virtus
Darknesse Visible
Bruckner: Piano Works / Mari Kodama
Messiaen: Catalogue d'oiseaux / Aimard
Renowned pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s recording of Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux created a sensation when first released on PENTATONE in 2018, and now returns to the market in an attractively priced stereo reissue./p>
Aimard had intimate ties to the composer himself and his wife, Yvonne Loriod, for whom Messiaen wrote the Catalogue, a grand hymn to nature from a man who never ceased to marvel at the stupefying beauty of landscapes or the magic of birdsong. With his Catalogue, Messiaen tried – in his own words – “to render exactly the typical birdsong of a region, surrounded by its neighbours from the same habitat, as well as the form of song at different hours of the day and night,” suggesting an almost scientific approach to his subjects. The idea of ‘reproduction’ may have been central to Messiaen’s conception of the Catalogue d’Oiseaux, but in the finished work we hear a great composer at work, a master of innovative structures who finds an astonishing range of piano sonorities. Thanks to Aimard’s ability to evoke this colourful opus, his interpretation has turned into an absolute reference recording.>/p>
This first release within Aimard’s exclusive partnership with PENTATONE received many accolades, including a Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Since then, recordings of Beethoven (2021), Bartók (2023, with San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen), and Schubert (2024) have appeared on PENTATONE, as well as piano four hands albums with Tamara Stefanovich (Visions in 2022 and Nicolaou: Etudes & Frames in 2023).
Merry Christmas Pianomania / Jeroen van Veen
This album features Christmas music for the piano in a timeless journey through the decades and centuries. These songs have been through a remarkable evolution over the course of several centuries, with the changes they have undergone reflecting the shifting musical styles and cultural influences that prevailed in various times.
Schumann: Diaries / Tiffany Poon
Immerse yourself in the enchanting world of Tiffany Poon, “classical pianist of the new generation”, who makes her Pentatone debut with her album Diaries: Schumann. Through her vivid interpretation of Robert Schumann’s masterpieces, Tiffany invites us on a journey through her musical diary.
With a selection ranging from the introspective Kinderszenen to the passionate Davidsbündlertänze, she creates a tapestry that reflects the different aspects of her life and her personal growth. With this album Tiffany aims to invite the listeners to connect with the different aspects of ourselves, be vulnerable and imaginative like Schumann’s Eusebius and Florestan. This album encourages daydreaming in open spaces, “feeling all the feels”, without any judgement. Experience the brilliance of this rising star as she shares her innermost thoughts and musical prowess through the captivating melodies of Schumann.
Born in Hong Kong, Tiffany Poon has appeared with orchestras and in recital throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and China since she was first accepted to the Juilliard pre-college program at the age of eight. She makes her Pentatone debut with Diaries.
Rachmaninoff Reflections - Piano Works / Inon Barnatan
Inon Barnatan presents Rachmaninoff Reflections, offering some of the composer’s most cherished piano works, including his Moments musicaux, Prelude in G-Sharp Minor and Barnatan’s own arrangement of the Vocalise. Centrepiece of this project is Barnatan’s breathtaking new piano arrangement of the Symphonic Dances. Inon Barnatan is one of the most admired pianists of his generation (New York Times). His Pentatone discography consists of Time Traveler’s Suite (2021), Beethoven’s complete cello sonatas with Alisa Weilerstein (2022), as well as complete recordings of Beethoven’s piano concertos together with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and Alan Gilbert (2019 and 2020).
Piano Dances / Anna Vinnitskaya
Anna Vinnitskaya celebrates dance, or rather the dances of composers from very different periods and styles: Ravel, Shostakovich and Widmann. ‘In all these works, you can feel in some way transported to the world of childhood. Because I believe the childhoods of each of these three composers are reflected there’, says the pianist. In his Valses nobles et sentimentales, Ravel paid tribute to Schubert. A few years later, he transcribed for solo piano his ballet score La Valse, in which ‘billowing clouds part from time to time, allowing us to glimpse waltzing couples’. Shostakovich’s Dances of the Dolls make me think of the Soviet cartoons of my childhood’, says Anna Vinnitskaya. ‘They also remind me of Mozart: they are as bright as diamonds, sincere and beautiful.’ The Zirkustänze (Circus Dances) composed by Jörg Widmann in 2012, a brilliant kaleidoscope of emotions and parodies, round off the programme.
In Rome
Pieranunzi, Fonnesbaek, Ranalli & Gatto: In Rome
Resilience / Yulianna Avdeeva
Pianist Yulianna Avdeeva makes her Pentatone debut with Resilience, presenting music by Szpilman, Shostakovich, Weinberg and Prokofiev, composers who – each in their own way – maintained themselves in times of great instability. The focal point of this album is Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew who survived World War II thanks to the power of his music, and is widely known as the title hero of Roman Polanski’s award-winning film The Pianist. Incited by the unique opportunity to play on Szpilman’s house piano, this recording project helped Avdeeva to cope with the challenges of our current times, and it may offer fortitude and consolation to listeners as well. A pianist of fiery temperament and virtuosity, Yulianna Avdeeva plays with power, conviction, and sensibility, having won over audiences all over the world.
Ingrid Haebler Plays Schubert
Ingrid Haebler (born in 1929) belongs to the same generation of Viennese pianists as Badura-Skoda, Brendel, Gulda and Demüs. In 1954 (approx. the period when the recordings on this album took place) she won the ARD competition, then as today a quality seal and a guarantee for a successful career (which she enjoyed). However, considerable disagreement has long surrounded her interpretations: for some she is a model because of her flawless technique and the absolute poise of her music-making; for others, she is virtually a symbol of academic discipline. However, her recordings were considered good enough to be used in the faked recordings of the pianist Joyce Hatto – which, when uncovered, led to one of the big and quite unique scandals in the history of music performance.
Liszt: Works for Solo Piano / Nelson Goerner
This is pianist Nelson Goerner’s twelfth recording for the Alpha Classics label. He devotes his new album to the solo piano works of Franz Liszt, with the famous Sonata in B minor as the centrepiece, nearly twenty years after his first CD of the sonata, he felt the urge to re-record it, following a series of critically acclaimed concerts. His talents as a storyteller and as a virtuoso with an eye for nuance are heard to marvellous effect in this monumental work, a veritable ‘musical action’ that undoubtedly belongs in the pantheon of the finest literature for piano. The programme is completed by excerpts from Liszt’s major cycles, including the Petrarch Sonnets from the Années de pèlerinage and the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, along with the spectacular concert étude La leggierezza.
REVIEWS:
Nelson Goerner made an excellent studio recording of Liszt’s Sonata in B minor that the Cascavelle label first released in 2007. This live all-Liszt recital from 2023 also features the Sonata. Although it benefits from fuller-bodied engineering, the interpretation offers surprisingly little change in regard to overall design, substance, and execution. Goerner’s tempo relationships remain judicious and unified, while themes are characterized with subtle yet telling contrast.
Forced to choose, I’d favor Goerner’s diversified voicings and greater dynamic projection in the remake’s Andante sostenuto. On the other hand, the earlier Allegro Energico fughetta gathers greater spontaneous momentum, followed by a more incisive yet less grand recapitulation. One could argue that there are fewer distinctly individual touches here in comparison with recent reference-worthy interpretations by Marc-André Hamelin, Benjamin Grosvenor, Joseph Moog, or Giovanni Bertolazzi. Yet that hardly matters, given Goerner’s intelligent mastery and total identification with the score.
If anything, Goerner’s readings of Liszt’s three Petrarca Sonetti offer even more fervent and poetic melodic projection, together with mellifluous legato chord voicings and prominent bass lines. If no one alive plays La Leggierzza with the feathery aplomb of Benno Moiseiwitsch’s unrivaled 1941 HMV recording, Goerner’s impassioned mobility comes pretty darn close to that paradigm, although he never plays softly enough when required.
Lightness and insouciance, however abound in the Valse oubliée No. 2. Goerner takes his sweet time over the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6’s introduction, milking the music’s bardic implications without lapsing into vulgarity. Most pianists understandably treat the friska section as a high-wire right hand octave etude: think Horowitz, Cziffra, and Argerich. Goerner nails the notes, of course, yet presents both hands as equal partners, letting you hear a piano composition instead of a piano competition. I have no hesitation recommending such a satisfying and well-rounded Liszt program.
-- MusicWeb International (Jed Distler)
Chopin, Scriabin & Yashiro: 72 Preludes / Mao Fujita
Shadows of My Ancestors / Behzod Abduraimov
Whereas Prokofiev was captivated by Romeo and Juliet, Ravel had shut himself away a quarter of a century earlier in Levallois Perret to compose Gaspard de la nuit, inspired by Aloysius Bertrand's collection of poems subtitled Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot. In 1973, the Uzbek composer Dilorom Saidaminova paid tribute to Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and composed The Walls of Ancient Bukhara, which offers a sonic view of the historic centre of the Central Asian city founded four or five centuries before the common era. Her compatriot Behzod Abduraimov was keen to pay tribute to this little-known composer and record her music, which, like the other two works on this album, is evocative and colourful.
Liszt: Transcendental Etudes & B Minor Sonata / Piemontesi
Pianist Francesco Piemontesi presents Franz Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes and Sonata in B Minor, two of the highest mountains to climb within the piano repertoire. The metaphor of climbing a mountain not only applies to the technical demands placed on the player, but also to the sublime nature of these works: colourful, poetic, lyrical, and bold in their construction. Piemontesi has taken his time before embarking on this epic journey, and the recording documents how his interpretation of these legendary works has matured over time.
Unique to this album are the liner notes, written by Nike Wagner, the great-great-granddaughter of Liszt. Francesco Piemontesi is among the most-cherished pianists of our age, and presents the fourth fruit of his exclusive collaboration with Pentatone, having released the acclaimed Schubert – Last Piano Sonatas (2019), Bach Nostalghia (2021) and Schoenberg, Messiaen & Ravel with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Jonathan Nott (2022).
REVIEW:
It’s been worth the wait. Each piece reflects absolute clarity of intention, even in the case of the longest and most episodic one, ‘Ricordanza’. Piemontesi has a rare ability to let us hear the individual notes in a rapid fortissimo wash of sound, and his variations of touch give free rein to the poetry. ‘Harmonies du soir’ opens with a silky touch, and builds to a majestic climax before dying back to a faint echo of itself. The lyrical ‘Paysage’, too, opens sotto voce, but as the sound palette becomes richer, one has the feeling of watching a series of receding landscapes, as in a Chinese scroll painting. ‘Wilde Jagd’ hurtles headlong, ‘Feux follets’ is gorgeously shaded and the virtuosity of ‘Allegro agitato molto’ is magnificent.
-- BBC Music Magazine
Andras Schiff plays Scarlatti & Kurtag - Lucerne Festival Hi
Monadologie XXXVI Chopin - 12 Etuden
Haochen Zhang Plays Beethoven & Liszt
Hayato Sumino: Human Universe
Stevenson: Piano Works / Jablonski
Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte / Levit
Igor Levit releases a new album as his personal artistic reaction to the October 7 attacks on Israel and the current rise in anti-Semitism worldwide. The album contains his selection of “Songs without Words” by Felix Mendelssohn and concludes with one Prelude by French Romantic composer Charles-Valentin Alkan. Igor Levit and his team have given their time pro-bono and his proceeds will be donated to two German organizations fighting anti-Semitism - OFEK Advice Center for Anti-Semitic Violence and Discrimination and the Kreuzberg Initiative Against Anti-Semitism.
Igor Levit explains, “I made this recording out of a very, very strong inner necessity. I spent the first four or five weeks after the attack on October 7th in a mixture of speechlessness and total paralysis. And at some point, it became clear that I had no other tools than to react as an artist. I have the piano. I have my music. And so, the idea came to me to record these works, the “Songs without Words” and to donate my proceeds from this recording to two wonderful organizations that work in my hometown here in Berlin to help people who experience anti-Semitism and to help young people avoid falling into the clutches of anti-Semitism. It is my artistic reaction, as a person, as a musician, as a Jew, to what I have felt in the last few weeks and months. Or to put it more precisely, it is one of many reactions that came to mind.”
REVIEWS:
Aside from altruistic reasons, one should buy this disc for Levit’s exceptional pianism and fresh insights.
He addresses Mendelssohn’s E minor Op. 102 No. 1’s agitato directive without the usual tendency to push and pull the composer’s basic Andante tempo. On the other hand, he takes the famous E major Op. 19 No. 1’s con moto on faith, yet keeping the long melodic phrases afloat. The E minor Funeral March stands out for Levit’s impeccably balanced chords, plus a sense of split-second timing that takes both notes and rests into equal account.
Levit’s hypnotic, long-lined legato and subtle dynamic gradations justify his measured pacing of three Venetian Gondola Songs, while his linear independence in the A-flat Duetto is akin to Ignaz Friedman’s, albeit by stricter, more modern-day standards. It may be rather cheeky to end a Mendelssohn Songs Without Words recital with Alkan’s Op. 31 No. 8 Prelude, but the music’s inherent sadness and gripping slow-motion trajectory in the piano’s high register makes a profound effect in Levit’s remarkable hands. Hear for yourself.
-- ClassicsToday (Jed Distler, 10/10)
Misha Dichter - The Complete RCA Victor Recordings
Misha Dichter was born in 1945 in Shanghai, where his Polish parents had fled to by way of the trans-Siberian railroad in order to wait out the war. In 1947 the Dichter family moved to Los Angeles where Misha began studying piano. His first significant teacher was Aube Tzerko, who had studied with Artur Schnabel. “He literally started me from scratch,” Dichter recalled. But the hard work finally paid off when he was accepted into Rosina Lhévinne's class at the Juilliard School.
“In the fall of 1965 I saw a poster in the Juilliard coatroom announcing the third annual Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow,” recalls Dichter. “I had just lost a few local competitions in Los Angeles, so I thought, why not just go for the big one?” The young pianist’s Silver Medal victory in 1966 led to a contract with RCA Victor, for whom he made the three acclaimed albums reissued here, and to the international career of this “most polished pianist” (High Fidelity).
It was inevitable, perhaps, that Dichter’s début release for the label would be given over to the Tchaikovsky B-flat minor Concerto, the same work that catapulted the competition’s first winner Van Cliburn to international stardom. Dichter was to perform the Tchaikovsky at Tanglewood, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf, so RCA duly set up recording sessions.
Dichter’s second RCA Victor album juxtaposed selected Brahms piano pieces with Stravinsky’s 3 Movements from Petrushka, and with his third RCA release, the pianist devoted himself to Beethoven and Schubert. Arthur Rubinstein approved of Dichter’s Schubert, to the extent that he famously invited his younger colleague to his Paris home, where a film crew captured Dichter playing Schubert’s B-flat Sonata D 960 in Rubinstein’s presence. Dichter holds an equally special affinity for the A major Sonata D 959 – “it still represents to me what paradise looks and sounds like.”
Schubert: Ländler / Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Star pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard presents Ländler, a collection of delightful dances composed by Franz Schubert. Rustic and cheerful, these miniatures display a fascinating side of Schubert’s musical persona. Their simplicity is deceptive, as these dances are frequently shaken up by Schubert’s harmonic wandering soul, yet remaining lyrical, picturesque, and tuneful. For Aimard, there is a kinship between Schubert’s Ländler and Kurtág’s Játékok, pieces that he often performs side by side, sharing a combination of playfulness and Modernism that also calls the great twentieth-century miniaturist Anton Webern to mind. By avoiding almost any repetition, Aimard evokes a sleepwalker’s journey rather than a series of dances.
A renowned champion of twentieth-century music, Pierre-Laurent Aimard has released multiple acclaimed albums in his exclusive contract with Pentatone, including Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (2018) and Visions de l’Amen (2022), along with Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata & Eroica Variations (2021). He also joined Tamara Stefanovich in Etudes and Frames (2023), with music by Vassos Nicolaou, and recorded Bartók's Piano Concertos with the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen (2023).
Merry Christmas Pianomania
