Instrumental
2740 products
Sublime Harmonie - Victorian Musical Boxes
Saydisc
Available as
CD
$20.99
Mar 01, 2005
Favourite opera arias and popular tunes from the classics.
The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan
Centaur Records
Available as
CD
$18.99
Apr 01, 2011
Classical Music
Linda Wang: Violin Solo
Centaur Records
Available as
CD
Linda Wang presents a program of varied works for solo violin—all are crowd pleasers. Wang truly has the measure of all these works.
Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87
Centaur Records
Available as
CD
$32.99
Mar 01, 2008
Classical Music
American Stories for 2 Pianos / Bergmann Duo
Ars Produktion
Available as
SACD
The Bergmann Duo is made up of pianists Marcel and Elizabeth Bergmann. “Always adventurous, the married couple combines virtuosic dedication with the instincts of professional entertainers who love their music.” (Showtime Magazine) Performing works by Chick Corea, Leonard Bernstein, Pat Metheny, and other American composers, Michael Bergmann has arranged all of these works for he and his wife specifically. This release is a wonderful example of the duo’s continuously evolving musical dialogue, reflecting upon the passion the group has for jazz and improvisation.
American Visions / Gindes
Centaur Records
Available as
CD
$18.99
Apr 08, 2016
This eclectic album includes works by Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Kris Becker, Rogers and Hammerstein, and more. The works included on this release all focus on American compositional vision. The pieces are recorded by pianist Ian Gindes.
Schumann: Carnaval, Op. 9 & Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17
Centaur Records
Available as
CD
Pianist Sophia Agranovich has been called “a tigress of the keyboard.” She is an acclaimed soloist and sought after chamber musician as well as a recording artist and educator. She has performed across the United States, Europe, Israel, and Canada in solo recitals as well as alongside all of the most respected orchestras. For this release, Sophia has chosen Robert Schumann’s Carnaval and Fantasie. Carnaval, Op. 9, was written in 1834-35 and consists of 21 short pieces which represent masked revelers at Carnival, the festival before Lent. The Fantasie in C major Op. 17 is dedicated to Franz Liszt. It is known amongst pianists as one of Schumann’s greatest works for solo piano, and is one of the most important works of the early Romantic period.
Liszt: Transcendental Etudes, S. 139
Centaur Records
Available as
CD
Italian pianist Sebastian Di Bin provides us here with an intriguingly beautiful performance of Franz Liszt’s complete Transcendental Etudes. Sebastian Di Bin has dedicated this album to the memory of his brother, Francois, who passed away in March 2015. The composition of Liszt’s twelve Transcendental Etudes began when the 15-year-old composer composed a set of much less difficult exercises titled the Etude en douze exercices. These works were elaborated upon to become his Douze Grandes Etudes in 1837, then finally revised and republished in 1852 as the etudes performed here.
In Rhythm
CAvi-music
Available as
CD
$19.99
Sep 15, 2013
Classical Music
Rachmaninov: Moments musicaux - Piano Sonata No. 2
CAvi-music
Available as
CD
$19.99
Feb 27, 2012
Classical Music
Schumann: Gesange Der Fruhe; 7 Fughetten; Kreisleriana / Dina Ugorskaja
CAvi-music
Available as
CD
$19.99
Oct 25, 2010
SCHUMANN Gesäng der Frühe. 7 Fughetten. Kreisleriana. Geistervariationen • Dina Ugorskaja (pn) • AVI MUSIC 8553217 (77:25)
The piercing and almost hypnotic eyes of pianist Dina Ugorskaja on the back cover of the booklet betray a perception and intelligence that serves her very well in this recording of three of Schumann’s late, tough pieces, and yet she has the flash and poetic power to give us an equally penetrating reading of Kreisleriana.
This last work, based on Hoffmann’s novel Views on Life by Murr, the Cat, along with a Fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, Jotted Down on Wastepaper Found by Chance (got to love those long titles), has the hero actually going mad at the end. Schumann found himself enthralled by the possibilities inherent in the rational/irrational aspects of the story, and the music certainly reflects this maddening dichotomy, replete with a variety of forms and a connecting inconsistency that somehow, in the end, makes sense after all. I have been big on Horowitz and (recently) Clara Würtz in this music, but Ugorskaja makes quite a play for my affections here, and definitely moves easily into a very competitive field.
The other works on this disc are very late and from Schumann’s last years when he was trying to forge a different sort of music and even tonality. The Songs from Early Morning is an attempt to forge something out of the aesthetics of Hölderlin’s writings, which had taken a turn towards looking back at earlier models. Schumann did the same, perhaps even an early shot at neoclassicism for the time, using sparse harmonies and very vague tonal references. It’s haunting and beautiful all at once, and definitely a look into the future, something that so intimidated Clara that she never once performed it in public.
The composer fought the idea of fugues for many years, ultimately giving in to them in 1849. But his Seven Piano Pieces in Fughetta Form from just a few days before his Rhenish suicide attempt explores the structure to a remarkable degree, looking back to Bach with a quote from the “Royal” theme in the Musical Offering and presenting us with really unique harmonic constructs and odd voice-leading. It is one of the great mysteries of music to wonder about the path he might have taken had he made it into his 50s.
We don’t really know what caused Schumann’s final breakdown and illness. Could it have been a slow awareness of the relationship that Brahms had forged with his wife, platonic or otherwise? Or maybe the idea of failure in Düsseldorf haunted him—hard to say. But the chaos, real or imaginary, in his head was killing him quickly. At one point in February of 1854 he suddenly got out of bed and wrote down a theme that he said had been dictated by angels to him. The theme of these five variations (which he wrote down in the following days) had been used before in his Violin Concerto. But after he had finished with these “ghosts” he tossed his wedding ring into the Rhine and followed soon after. Clara nixed both publication and performance of this piece, and the first edition is from 1939, though Brahms made a set of four-hand variations (op. 23) on the theme.
Ugorskaja makes a great case for these late works as being every bit as important as Schumann’s earlier piano music. She brings a heightened sensitivity to all her playing coupled with an extraordinary facile ability to convey the complexities of this music in an easily assimilated way. Great piano sound, too, and I can recommend this as one of the top choices for these late works, nicely gathered in one place, with the additional spice of a fully competitive Kreisleriana as well.
FANFARE: Steven E. Ritter
Bach, Paganini & Ysaye: Works for Solo Violin
Estonian Record Productions
Available as
CD
Sigrid Kuulmann started her violin studies at the age of seven. She studied at the Estonian Academy of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and at Robert Schumann Hochschule in Dusseldorf. Her teachers include Tiiu Pe�ske, Yfrah Neaman and Rosa Fain, a former pupil of David Oistrakh. Sigrid Kuulmann is a laureate of Heino Eller International Violin Competition in Tallinn and is gaining further accolades for her performances of Estonian music, especially in Eduard Tubin's works. She has performed as a soloist with conductors Neeme Je�rvi, Andres Mustonen etc, and given recitals in England, Germany, Scandinavia and Estonia.
Seven World Premieres
Urtext
Available as
CD
$16.99
Jan 26, 2010
Seven World Premieres
Villanueva / Edison Quintana, Felipe Villanueva
Urtext
Available as
CD
$16.99
Jun 01, 2009
Villanueva, F.: Piano Music
Barrel Organ Arrangements (Parry's Barrel Organ - John Longm
Saydisc
Available as
CD
$20.99
Sep 01, 2006
Classical Music
Bach, J.S: Cello Suites Nos. 1, 3 and 5
Ars Produktion
Available as
SACD
$21.99
Jan 01, 2009
Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.
Grieg, E.: From Holberg's Time / Piano Sonata, Op. 7 / Peer
Ars Produktion
Available as
SACD
$21.99
Jan 01, 2009
Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.
Bach: Französische Suiten, BWV 812-817
Ars Produktion
Available as
SACD
$40.99
Jan 01, 2012
Classical Music
Huber, N.: Seifenoper / Don'T Fence Me In / Traummechanik /
Coviello
Available as
CD
$20.99
Oct 08, 2006
Classical Music
Piano Recital: Hodges, Nicolas - REDGATE, R. / CLARKE, J.
Coviello
Available as
CD
$20.99
Jan 01, 2011
Classical Music
Beethoven Cycle, Vol. 10
Oehms Classics
Available as
SACD
$19.99
Mar 27, 2012
OehmsClassics presents volume 10 of the complete Beethoven sonata cycle. In 1976, Michael Korstick traveled to the United States to study at Julliard. He became known as “Dr. Beethoven” and ever since, experts have agreed that Michael Korstick is one of the most important German pianists of our time. The first volume of this series won the “Discovery of the Year” award given by German record critic, Joachim Emperor. Volumes 2 and 4 won this award as well as the MIDEM classical award.
Birth of the Violin
Solo Musica
Available as
CD
$20.99
Jul 26, 2011
Classical Music
The Beethoven Cycle, Vol. 8 - Piano Sonatas Opp. 53, 54, 57
Oehms Classics
Available as
SACD
$19.99
Nov 16, 2010
Classical Music
Chopin: 4 Ballades, 4 Scherzi / Bernd Glemser
Oehms Classics
Available as
CD
$14.99
Nov 16, 2010
This disc is a treasure, a rarity to behold.
I have encountered relatively few instances in which an artist’s sensibilities have seemed perfectly attuned to the music presented. Here is one such case. Bernd Glemser grasps the full measure of the Chopin Scherzos and Ballades like no other pianist in memory. Lise de la Salle’s recent recording on Naïve was certainly compelling, even if the tempos were stretched a bit. Kissin (RCA), however, was my previous favorite in the Ballades, in a field that includes Ashkenazy (Decca), Zimerman (DG), Pollini (DG), Biret (Naxos), Gavrilov (EMI) and many others. But Glemser clearly trumps Kissin and probably all other individual performances of the Ballades and Scherzos that I can ever recall hearing.
Glemser, who has recorded all the Rachmaninov concertos and Prokofiev sonatas for Naxos—and much else, besides — is an extraordinary pianist, an artist I have found consistently excellent over the years. Here, in my first exposure to his Chopin, I can say this is astounding playing and not just from the technical point of view. Glemser’s dynamics are rich in graded nuance, his tempo choices centrist and always a natural fit, his phrasing sensitive to the minutest emotional tic and his overall interpretive grasp of the music incisive and fully convincing. If all his Chopin is this good, he can stand with or ahead of Rubinstein, Cliburn, Perahia and other icons in this repertory.
The disc’s layout is a bit unusual, but follows the chronological order given in the headnote: scherzos and ballades are presented in ascending order according to opus number, not in an alternating pattern, as it might first appear. But whatever order Glemser had chosen, his deft interpretations would have worked.
Notice the fleet but troubled agitation in his Scherzo No. 1, played as if to express a burst of negative energy that always slackens to recall painful memories. Glemser’s dynamics and phrasing here consistently capture the roller-coaster emotions and heartrending drama. His coda is utterly thrilling. The First Ballade is filled with equally troubled emotions, all expressed so deftly by Glemser: the main theme is lovely in its neurotic longing and poetry, and the big love theme brims with hope, but ultimately false hope, that is utterly disarming and beautifully sad.
Glemser’s Second Ballade opens with a lovely serenity that yields to angry agitation, the pianist once more capturing the mood swings with such a convincing grasp on Chopin’s expressive soul as to mesmerize the listener, as if no other way with this famous music is possible. The lovely Third Ballade, the only work here mostly free of troubles, gets a perfectly balanced mixture of serenity and vigor, the whole keeping the listener smiling and comforted. The other performances are similarly convincing and Oehms Classics’ sound is vivid and powerful. All in all, then, this disc is a treasure, a rarity to behold.
-- Robert Cummings, MusicWeb International
I have encountered relatively few instances in which an artist’s sensibilities have seemed perfectly attuned to the music presented. Here is one such case. Bernd Glemser grasps the full measure of the Chopin Scherzos and Ballades like no other pianist in memory. Lise de la Salle’s recent recording on Naïve was certainly compelling, even if the tempos were stretched a bit. Kissin (RCA), however, was my previous favorite in the Ballades, in a field that includes Ashkenazy (Decca), Zimerman (DG), Pollini (DG), Biret (Naxos), Gavrilov (EMI) and many others. But Glemser clearly trumps Kissin and probably all other individual performances of the Ballades and Scherzos that I can ever recall hearing.
Glemser, who has recorded all the Rachmaninov concertos and Prokofiev sonatas for Naxos—and much else, besides — is an extraordinary pianist, an artist I have found consistently excellent over the years. Here, in my first exposure to his Chopin, I can say this is astounding playing and not just from the technical point of view. Glemser’s dynamics are rich in graded nuance, his tempo choices centrist and always a natural fit, his phrasing sensitive to the minutest emotional tic and his overall interpretive grasp of the music incisive and fully convincing. If all his Chopin is this good, he can stand with or ahead of Rubinstein, Cliburn, Perahia and other icons in this repertory.
The disc’s layout is a bit unusual, but follows the chronological order given in the headnote: scherzos and ballades are presented in ascending order according to opus number, not in an alternating pattern, as it might first appear. But whatever order Glemser had chosen, his deft interpretations would have worked.
Notice the fleet but troubled agitation in his Scherzo No. 1, played as if to express a burst of negative energy that always slackens to recall painful memories. Glemser’s dynamics and phrasing here consistently capture the roller-coaster emotions and heartrending drama. His coda is utterly thrilling. The First Ballade is filled with equally troubled emotions, all expressed so deftly by Glemser: the main theme is lovely in its neurotic longing and poetry, and the big love theme brims with hope, but ultimately false hope, that is utterly disarming and beautifully sad.
Glemser’s Second Ballade opens with a lovely serenity that yields to angry agitation, the pianist once more capturing the mood swings with such a convincing grasp on Chopin’s expressive soul as to mesmerize the listener, as if no other way with this famous music is possible. The lovely Third Ballade, the only work here mostly free of troubles, gets a perfectly balanced mixture of serenity and vigor, the whole keeping the listener smiling and comforted. The other performances are similarly convincing and Oehms Classics’ sound is vivid and powerful. All in all, then, this disc is a treasure, a rarity to behold.
-- Robert Cummings, MusicWeb International
Rachmoninov: Piano Works, Vol. 5
Ars Produktion
Available as
CD
$26.99
Oct 29, 2013
Pianist and conductor Boris Bloch has long been regarded as one of the most important interpreters of classical and romantic piano music. Volume 5 on Ars Produktion contains live recordings of Rachmaninov's piano works.
