John Corigliano is such an accomplished orchestrator that you might be surprised at how well his piano music sounds. The truth is, he simply has a gift for finding brilliant sonorities no matter what instrument he happens to be writing for. He uses the full range of the piano, often turning to extremes of register, but always to good musical and expressive purpose. The works here are highly varied in style and conception, but are invariably enjoyable.

Winging It, subtitled "Improvisations for Piano", is exactly what the name implies: three improvisations captured in real time and then subsequently notated. Chiaroscuro requires two pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart, but it never sounds gratuitously dissonant--there's that feeling for sonority again. Fantasia on an Ostinato, based on the famous Allegretto of Beethoven's Seventh, is one of Corigliano's best-known pieces. Kaleidoscope, also for two pianos, is an early jeu d'esprit, while the Etude Fantasy never lets the didactic element get in the way of musical enjoyment.

The performances here are pretty stupendous. Ursula Oppens takes all the solos, and she's joined by Jerome Lowenthal in the duo pieces. Her playing is spirited, subtle, colorful, and wholly winning. She conveys the freedom of the improvisations in Winging It and chooses an excellent timing for the optional repetitions in the Fantasia on an Ostinato (it lasts a bit more than 11 minutes). In Chiaroscuro, careful attention to balance and dynamics reveals the wonderful colors of this evocative score. The beautifully calibrated engineering, brilliant but never harsh or brittle, helps immeasurably. A disc to treasure.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

----------

Though there is not a lot of piano music by the American composer John Corigliano, his music that does exist for the instrument is varied and high in quality. All of the compositions here—written over the course of some 50 years, almost one per decade—each inhabits its own sound world. The earliest piece, Kaleidoscope (1959), is a two-piano work from Corigliano’s student days. It is a short work filled with the high-energy writing of a young composer. The next composition, the Etude Fantasy (1976), is a virtuosic tour de force . It is made up of five etudes, each dedicated to a different compositional device or technical aspect of performance—titled “For the Left Hand Alone,” “Legato,” “Fifths to Thirds,” “Ornaments,” and “Melody”—which are woven into a continuous fantasy. It is at times mysterious and foreboding, at others downright brutal. It shows off Corigliano’s wonderful sense of color and sonority and his overall sense of the dramatic in terms of building a larger work out of smaller ones. It is a wonderful composition that should be heard and programmed more often than it is. One of Corigliano’s more popular works, the Fantasia on an Ostinato (1985), was written for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In it Corigliano went for something a bit different, rejecting the idea of a technical showpiece, deciding rather to test the musical imagination and force the interpreters to create rather than re-create, as he describes it. It is his only self-proclaimed experiment in Minimalist techniques; in its original setting at the competition, the various performances ran from an overall timing of seven to more than 20 minutes. Oppens seems to find a time right in the middle (11:26), which to my ears works just about perfectly. Chiaroscuro (1997) is composed of three movements for two pianos tuned one quarter-tone apart. Before writing it, Corigliano struggled with the reasoning behind writing another work for this medium, finding his inspiration finally from a deadline for a commission for the Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition. By pre-tuning the instruments he felt that he could draw out the even more subtle and intense intervals between the standard ones. He has here come up with a highly enjoyable and easily listenable work. The final and latest composition, Winging It (2008), was a project in improvisation and transcription. Each of the three works (labeled just by the date he played and recorded them) started off as an improvisation. As the transcription took place, the pieces were altered slightly before reaching their current states. Throughout the recital Oppens (and her partner Lowenthal in the two-piano works) show off their flair for this music with readings of high energy, nuance, and subtlety. Corigliano could not ask for better advocates. Perhaps this fabulous recital will inspire the performance of more of this music. We could ask for nothing more.


FANFARE: Scott Noriega

Though unknown to many today, Margaret Ruthven Lang was one of America's pioneering woman composers. Distinguished pianist Lucy Mauro brings Lang's remarkable and underperformed keyboard creations to vibrant life with deep sensitivity, touching emotion, and admirable technical facility. These pieces will be exciting discoveries for any pianist or piano fan on the prowl for fresh repertoire.

On this release, Tactus continues the rediscovery of the archive of the S. Cristina monastery in Senigallia were are preserved a large amount of manuscripts by composer Giovanni Morandi, friend and collaborator of Rossini, married to the famous opera singer Rosa Morolli (acclaimed interpreter of the works of Rossini, Mozart, Cimarosa and Paisiello) and organ teacher to the nuns of the same convent. This chapter includes the organ transcriptions of operatic songs written by Morandi for the use of its nuns pupils (indisputable evidence of how the opera music could also come within the enclosure!). Morandi re-writes and adapts to the organ, symphonies and arias of the greatest opera composers of the time, Rossini's first and foremost, but also Verdi, Donizetti, Pacini, revealing interesting aspects on the performance practice of theatrical styles in the realization of the cadences or variations in the arias. Federica Iannella, specialist in nineteenth-century repertoire, here plays the Giacomo Bazzani 1856 organ, example of the organ theatrical aesthetics in the Marche region.

Krenek, E.: Piano Sonatas Nos. 2 and 4 / George Washington V

This release continues Carlo Grante's series of Domenico Scarlatti's complete keyboard works. This series is the only one ever recorded with the same pianist playing all of the works.

"...beautifully played, and recorded, the first box in Music & Arts' series is profoundly impressive." - Jonathan Woolf, Music Web International

"Carlo Grante is one of the most astonishing artists I have ever known and worked with." - Fabio Luisi, The Metropolitan Opera's Principal Conductor

In 1757 the young Catalan composer Antonio Soler was appointed to a distinguished position at the Escorial, the palace of the Spanish Court. The keyboard sonatas he wrote there, many specifically for the son of King Carlos III, Don Gabriel, constitute his best known achievement as a composer. The Sonatas heard on this fifth volume once again reflect the influence of Domenico Scarlatti and the latest central European models but Sonata No. 57 also draws inspiration from Spanish folk music while Sonata No. 61 ends with use of the Scotch snap rhythm.

Alfred Cortot: Piano Arrangements

"•On her latest CD, with the Sonatas No. 32 in C minor op. 111 by Ludwig van Beethoven and the one in B flat major D 960 by Franz Schubert, Dora Deliyska combines both composers' respective last piano sonatas. In them, the young Bulgarian pianist fathoms profound emotions and explores the compositions as interactions between the creative paths of the composers with the unknown dimension - death. With her interpretation, Dora Deliyska offers the listener the opportunity to experience unknown and alien spheres as the fulfilment of our human course and to immerse himself in the light of music. Part of this edition includes a bonus CD with videos of Dora Deliyska from Schönburg Palace in Vienna with works by Beethoven, Wagner/Liszt and Verdi/Liszt. • Dora Deliyska began piano lessons at the age of five. Surrounded by music in her family, she held her first concert at the age of nine. After musical training in her Bulgarian home, she moved to the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna, where she received instruction from the Professors Jürg von Vintschger and Stefan Vladar. In 2010, she graduated there with an M.A. in Prof. Noel Flores' class. The same year, she obtained her postgraduate diploma at the Oxana Yablonskaya Piano Institute in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, Italy. • Her artistic development has been strongly influenced by master classes and private lessons with respected musicians such as Dmitri Alexejew, Mikhail Voskresensky, Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Boris Bloch and others. Dora Deliyska is considered one of the most important Liszt interpreters of the young generation. Her discography comprises CD recordings with piano works by Franz Liszt (2008), by Liszt and Chopin (2010), transcriptions of Franz Schubert songs by Franz Liszt (2011) as well as by Franz Schubert (2013)."

Classical Music

Classical Music

With this release of works by Mussorgsky, Liszt, and Beethoven, pianist Yuko Batik explores human imagination and fantasy. One of the most important examples of programmatic music, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition impresses upon the listener the visions that would befall a viewer watching gallery paintings. The techniques required to play this work on a single instrument display Batik’s virtuosity. Yuko Batik travels globally performing in concert halls in Austria, Hungary, Bosnia, Turkey, Japan, Italy, and Germany.

Selected from the 1578 Obras de Musica published by blind keyboard master Antonio de Cabezon's son Hernando, these glosas enrich the vast resource of Renaissance vocal music through variation and elaboration. Extra layers of polyphony and ornament crystallize the tradition of improvisation on pre-existing works, both in the splendour of the sacred, and in chansons and madrigals with more secular emotions. Antonio de Cabezon's Tientos y Glosados can be heard on Naxos 8.554836, and Glen Wilson's acclaimed recording of his complete Tientos and Variationsis on 8.572475-76.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

R E V I E W S

No easy listening here. Groh offers a monumental reading of the Sonata hewn from stone, with dark colors, generally measured tempos, and a crushing weight. In his curious program note (it’s framed as a letter to Liszt, but it tells the composer mostly things he already knows), Groh not only points to the Faust legend, but also suggests that the sonata has “parallels with the story of the Creation in the Bible.” His lengthy analysis, though, pretty much drops the analogy once it’s gotten past the opening measures—and rightly so. For the progress of the Liszt Sonata has nothing in common with Genesis; and what little light and Edenic joy the music might contain is blocked out by the almost unrelievedly grim intensity of the interpretation. Not even the fugue (played with exceptional clarity) has much spark or impetuosity.

In the end, then, Groh’s reading brings the music closer in spirit to Byron’s Manfred (with its self-lacerating guilt) than to either Faust or the Bible—but the music certainly supports that interpretation, and Groh the performer (as opposed to Groh the writer) makes a persuasive advocate. The careful shading of the opening measures holds out the promise of a performance of great expressive depth, taking nothing for granted—a promise that’s fulfilled in the artful shaping of the recitatives, the inevitable growth of the crescendos, the assurance of the phrasing, and the staggering conviction of the climaxes. I’m not quite ready to admit this CD to the inner circle with Argerich, Horowitz (the early recording), Ernst Levy, Hough, Pollini, Richter, and a handful of others; but it’s certainly close, and readers with several recordings on their shelves already should find this a gripping alternative view.

The Fantasy and Fugue responds well to the same epic approach—but I’m marginally less convinced by Totentanz. No complaints about his technique: in that regard, this is as stunning a performance as its companions. But Groh gives us a remarkably unironic reading of a piece that’s fueled by sardonic wit—and for all the detail, for all the striking contrasts, it seems to be a bit too monolithic. Still and all, this is a significant contribution to the Liszt catalog—and I’m eager to hear more from this remarkably talented musician.

FANFARE: Peter J. Rabinowitz

German pianist Burkard Schliessmann is a performer with a passion and vision, to seek out and interpret the forms, colors and textures, indeed the soul and expression: the poetic impact, of works we believe have already been fully explored. His previous recordings have received worldwide acclaim "Schliessmann is too good a pianist for anyone to pass on this" - American Record Guide; "without equal" - Fanfare. This triple SACD set with state of the art sound and luxury packaging chronicles the works of Chopin in order, showing the composer's development and is thus informative for scholars as well as being a superb recital. Chopin is the composer above all who has inspired Schliessmann and his interpretative style.

The music of the Czech-born Viennese composer Kornauth (1891-1959) was once a staple of Austrian concert-halls. It has been largely forgotten in the half-century since his death. In this pioneering recording, British pianist Jonathan owell uncovers the many strands that fed into Kornauth’s rich and full-bodied compositions.

REVIEW:

This is the first full disc of piano music by Egon Kornauth, a composer born in what is now Olomouc in the Czech Republic (and was then Olmütz) who studied with Robert Fuchs in Vienna and then later with Schreker and Franz Schmidt.

Jonathan Powell is one of the most eloquent commentators on the music he plays I have come across, whether that be Sorabji or Kornauth, and his booklet note is a source of great interest. The angular, active Fantasy (1915) contains distinctly Richard Straussian turns of harmony and phrase in the sweet contrasting themes (that influence is less obvious in the more Schwung sections); the overt lush Straussian gestures sound more like a reduction of an orchestral tone poem. The op. 25 Klavierstücke (1920) are more modernist, probably because of his experiences of Schreker. The first is decidedly Bergian (think the op. 1 Piano Sonata), while the central Improvisation sounds exactly like that. Most fascinating is the final “Walzer,” a very sprightly evocation of Viennese dance, a bit like an Austro-Germanic Ravel La Valse in places.

The Kleine Suite (1923) has fewer ambitions than the other works on the disc and receives another fantastic performance from Powell. The Barcarolle (third movement) sums the suite up in essence, reflecting the less demanding demeanor of the piece, while the penultimate “Walzer” elicits a phenomenally light touch from Powell before the cheekily scampering Finale rounds things off with a smile.

The Präludium und Passacaglia offers maximal contrast, the B♭-Minor twilight of Bachian rigor and severity of the Prelude meeting the storm clouds of Chopin’s finest turbulence; the Passacaglia continues the gloominess. Powell paces it superbly: The close is truly crushing before the final surprise major-key end. The op. 44 Klavierstücke of 1940 is also sometimes known as the Second Suite. It is shot through with sweet nostalgia. The five pieces (“Präludium”; “Intermezzo”; “Capriccio”; “Mährische Ballade”; “Walzer”) speak of sweet nostalgia. Powell lavishes them with an attention to detail that almost makes them sparkle (in a retrospective sort of way). The “Mährische Ballade” (Moravian Ballad) is the highlight. Its almost folkish mode of discourse hides a strong compositional rudder steering the work perfectly; the final “Walzer” is the suite’s longest movement, and drips with charm.

This is a fascinating disc (as we are beginning to expect from Toccata Classics). The recording (made at Durham University, U.K.) is excellent.

-- Fanfare

Kuhlau: Fantaisies & Divertissements for Solo Flute

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The title of this release, Triangle of Resistance, is taken from the three-part suite by Miya Masaoka which opens this album. During World War II, under Executive Order 9066, Masaoka’s family was imprisoned in a Japanese internment camp, which was the inspiration for the piece. The final work, Four Moons of Pluto, explores musical intervals like orbits of planets. The detuned bass used for this piece delves into sonic depths that mirror the music of the spheres. Miya Masaoka is based in New York City. She has written works for traditional instrumentations as well as pieces for solo koto, laser interfaces, laptop and video, and sculpture installations. She frequently works with the sonification of data, and has mapped the behavior of plants, insect movement, and brain activity to sound.

Compositions for piano have held a prominent position throughout George Rochberg’s long career. The earliest works on this recording, the Twelve Bagatelles, are fully-formed lyrical pieces each of which, despite its brevity, is a complete and fully evolved story. His Three Elegiac Pieces comprise a distinct set with a clear emotional progression. Sonata Seria (composed in 1948, revised during the mid-1950s and published in 1998) is an overpoweringly intense tour de force.

As a composer of art-song, Ian Venables is considered to be one of the most important writing today. The Songs of Ian Venables (8.572514), Volume 21 of Naxos' critically acclaimed English Song Series, was the first devoted to a living composer. This new recording introduces US to his music for solo piano and brings together works written between 1975 and 2001. It is Venables' singular melodic gift and highly inventive use of harmony that combine to give US works that range from the deeply reflective and wistful to those in a lighter vein, full of charm and joie de vivre.

Classical Music

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote music for the lute throughout his career. He had in his possession not only a lute but also two lute-harpsichords (Lautenwerke), gut-strung keyboard instruments allowing a fuller range of sound than the normal lute. For the present recording Elizabeth Farr plays a lute-harpsichord reconstructed by Keith Hill from Bach’s own specification for one of his two instruments. -- Naxos

R E V I E W S:

"The harpsichord and its repertoire can make for a sensual, intimate avenue of aural escape. That takes not only a sensitive player, but an alluring instrument and the right acoustics. Even those who think they are allergic to the harpsichord may find themselves beguiled by the tone of the lute-harpsichord. This mysterious Baroque hybrid, strung mostly in gut like a lute rather than in metal like a harpsichord, combined the compass of a keyboard with the warmth of a plucked instrument. A fan of their ravishing sound, Bach owned a couple of lute-harpsichords. Robert Hill's sublime 1999 release in Hänssler's complete Bach edition has been the go-to disc for the lute-harpsichord works. But American keyboardist Elizabeth Farr—whose William Byrd collection was one of last year's best recordings [Naxos 8.570139-41]—measures up with this bargain-priced double-CD set...the clarity of Farr's playing has its own poetry, matched by transparent sound. As on her Byrd set, Farr plays a beautiful instrument by top American builder Keith Hill." -- Bradley Bambarger, The Star-Ledger (New Jersey USA), August 26, 2008

"Very expressive and colorful playing in a simply delightful listen."