What would it mean to 'compose like a woman'? The present collection answers the question, in a literal sense, while undoing the premise on which the question was asked in the first place. In social and historical terms, it means enjoying privileges of upbringing, education, and/or wealth that were historically denied to the vast majority of women. It means, on the part of the women represented here, a single-minded determination in pursuit of their vocation, helping them to overcome prejudice and sexism in a cultural, social and political milieu that has consistently denied women the opportunity to find and express their own voice in music. Only with movements of emancipation in the last century, and much more rapidly in the last 50 years, has this situation begun to be addressed and corrected. What composing like a woman does not mean - as the music in this collection makes clear - is a definable set of qualities or characteristics to the music itself which would distinguish the work of female composers from the music composed by men.
This remarkable set gathers many individual recordings of music by women composers, which Brilliant Classics has quietly yet actively championed in their catalogue for decades, uniting it with exciting new outings, so that a comprehensive historical picture of the highly varied struggles and successes of women composers through the ages to our present time are chronicled and celebrated.
Other information:
- Recordings date from 1994-2024
- Booklet in English contains liner notes by Peter Quantrill
- The revival of interest in female classical composers reflects a growing recognition of their overlooked contributions to music history.
For centuries, women composers were marginalized, their works overshadowed by their male counterparts. However, recent efforts by musicians, scholars, and institutions have brought these composers into the spotlight, highlighting the richness and diversity of their compositions.
- This renewed focus stems from a broader movement toward inclusivity in the arts, challenging traditional narratives that have historically excluded women. The rise of feminist musicology has also played a key role, offering fresh perspectives on these composers' lives and works.
- This comprehensive box set offers a wide spectrum of works by female composers, from the Medieval mystic Hildegard Von Bingen (1098-1179), through the Renaissance Isabella Leonarda (baptized 1620-1704), Francesca Caccini (1587-1640) und Barbara Strozzi (baptized 1619-1677), traversing the Baroque and Classical eras, and arriving in the contemporary field, with composers such as Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) and Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969).
- A long due homage to the art and voice of female composers, spanning nearly a thousand years!
Beyond Debussy and Ravel: the world of the French piano in all it's dazzling variety, and in critically acclaimed recent recordings. Beyond a sensitivity to tone colour, very little unifies this eclectic list of French composers, who flourished from the end of the Romantic era into our own time. To move from the deft sketches of Reynaldo Hahn's Le Rossignol eperdu, and the scented harmonies of Benjamin Godard's Op.58 cycle of 20 Pieces, to the introverted gloom of Les Heures dolented by Gabriel eduard Xavier Dupont and the four-movement Solitude by Louis Vierne, and from the dense, Wagnerian counterpoint of sonatas by Vincent D'Indy and Paul Dukas, to the restless but crystalline textures of the early Sonata by Henri Dutilleux, is to stop off at quite different stations on a map of creative work full of destinations as distinct as any to be found on the Paris Metro. Critics have recognised that each of the artists involved has invested intellectual energy as well as technical mastery in immersing themselves within these individual worlds and personalities. Mark Viner captures Chaminade the poet beyond and further than the salon composer of repute, as well as measuring up to Alkan at his most surprisingly charming in some of the Etudes Op.35. Emanuele Torquati lends a more romantic sensibility to Roussel than we tend to associate with him, while Sofia Andreoli shows that there is an impressionist side to Magnard beyond the densely worked chromaticism of his symphonies and cantatas.
The famous Rarities of Piano Music from Husum When Peter Froundjian conceived a festival devoted exclusively to unknown and rarely played piano music, some might have thought the idea too ambitious or even foolhardy. It proved to be a stroke of genius, and since 1987 the strong support of audiences from many countries has been consistent. It has kept it's intimate atmosphere, with a maximum of 130 listeners in the Rittersaal of Husum castle, and 40 more beyond an open door, with a TV screen to keep in touch. It's influence around the world has been considerable, with more ambitious concert programmes in evidence and record companies willing to take on a wider repertoire. This disc contains a particularly large number of short pieces by ten different composers. However, the producers have arranged them thoughtfully into groups and sequences which should make for a coherent listening experience. If these examples encourage listeners to seek out other examples of music by the composers, then they have surely served their purpose. As usual Peter Froundjian made the initial choice of music, with the agreement of the performers. His co-producer Jesper Buhl and the team at Danacord took care of the technicalside, including the final order of tracks and the maximum duration to suit most CD players - about 79 minutes these days. The recordings are all taken from live performances with no editing. If the very noccasional 'noises off' can be heard, they only serve to show how quiet and concentrated the Husum audiences are most of the time.
Alkan: Etudes Op. 35, Grande Sonate, Impromptus, Marches, No
Piano Classics
CD · 8 discs
$44.99Nov 06, 2026
The captivating and mysterious world of Charles-Valentin Alkan, explored by his most insightful modern interpreter, in recordings which have already won definitive status among international pianophiles. According to Liszt, Alkan possessed the finest technique he had ever seen - yet he preferred the life of a recluse. His compositional output comprises some of the most extraordinary music ever conceived for the piano. His mighty Douze Etudes dans tous les tons mineurs, Op.39 (1857) - the epic sequel to the Douze Etudes dans tous les tons majeurs, Op.35 (1848) - is the fullest embodiment of his creative powers. This monumental set of studies runs to 277 pages and comprises some of Alkan's finest music including a Symphony and Concerto for solo piano and a magnificent set of variations on an original theme, Le festin d'Esope. Other major works include the Trois Grandes Etudes pour les deux mains separees et reunies, (1840), the Grande Sonate, Op.33 (1847), the Sonatine, Op.61 (1861) and the 48 Motifs ou Esquisses, Op.63 (1861). All these works and many others feature in this compilation of Mark Viner's Alkan recordings for Piano Classics, now gathered as a budget-priced box. On their original release, each album garnered enthusiastic reviews, affirming Viner's status as not just a pianist committed to bringing this still unfamiliar music to wider attention, but an artist with the technique and the insight to present Alkan as the figure so admired by Liszt and many other contemporaries. Reviewing these albums in Gramophone, Jeremy Nicholas has remarked: 'The more one listens to Alkan, the more one realises what an extraordinary composer he is The album that captured my imagination and admiration like no other this year came from the extraordinary (and hugely under-rated) Mark Viner, whose playing of Alkan's early works is simply staggering, putting one in mind of Marc-Andre Hamelin and Earl Wild.' This set includes Viner's own introduction to Alkan's life and work, making it the definitive starting-point for any listener seeking to investigate one of the most fantastical figures of Romantic pianism.
Rarieties Of Piano Music At "Schloss Vor Husum" From The 2019 Festival / Various Artists
Danacord
CD · 1 disc
$18.99Oct 16, 2020
Founded in 1987 the annual Rarities of Piano Music Festival in the North German town of Husum is a major event. Danacord is proud to release the recording from the 3rd Festival in 2019 featuring again rare piano music played by some of the leading pianists of today. Among the highlights you will find the truly remarkable pianist Cyprien Katsaris and very rare piano works by Bizet and Fontana. Many of the works are first ever recordings and, as usual, all are unedited live performances. All lovers of piano music will want this release, not only because of the first class pianism from truly outstanding performers, but also because the quality of the often unknown and rare mostly romantic piano music is of such invaluable substance. Critics are raving about the piano sound and the long and informative booklet.
Alkan: 25 Preludes dans tous les tons majeurs et mineurs, Op. 31 / Viner
Piano Classics
CD · 1 disc
$21.99Oct 04, 2019
First published in 1847, these preludes form a highly original set of pieces, effectively Alkan’s first foray into the genre of cyclic shorter pieces. The set stands aside from so many in its consistently reflective and introspective approach to a genre recently redefined by Chopin. The key sequence guides us through all the major and minor keys, but instead of settling for all 24 major and minor tonalities, Alkan comes full circle for a twenty-fifth and final C major prelude to complete the set. Alkan had in mind that the Preludes might equally effectively be played on piano or organ – that they might even serve liturgical functions as chorale preludes or instrumental antiphons. However, they have always been regarded as piano music first and foremost, albeit possessed of an often tranquil and reflective temperament, anticipating the mystical works of Liszt such as the Harmonies poétiques et réligieuses (it will be remembered that Liszt regarded Alkan alone as a serious rival to his pianistic prowess). Mark Viner has made his name playing Alkan’s music, and he is widely regarded as among the composer’s most persuasive advocates on record. ‘His playing is never showy,’ remarked the Guardian when reviewing a previous Piano Classics album of the Op.35 Etudes: ‘he emphasises that these are profound explorations of early romantic sensibility first and extreme technical challenges second, and that is a totally convincing way of dealing with some of the most remarkable piano music of its time.’ Viner was praised by The Sunday Times for ‘turning Alkan’s forbidding torrents of notes into real music’. This much-anticipated new album is enhanced by Viner’s own, authoritative booklet essay giving full context both to the Preludes and their reception.
Pianist Klara Wurtz has an impressive oeuvre of recordings, with over 35 CDs to her name. For this new release, her fourth with Piano Classics, she has chosen music from Janacek and Kodaly. Wurtz has chosen this program largely in part to the intimacy these works present, and their close relation to their native country’s folklore. Klara Wurtz’ previous releases have attained critical acclaim. Of her prior Schubert recording with Piano Classics, Classicstoday.com writes, “Klara Wurtz’ intelligence, technical finesse and innate musicality serve the Schubert Impromptus well.”
Liszt: Weihnachtsbaum & Two Movements from Christmas
Piano Classics
CD · 1 disc
$19.99Oct 11, 2024
Christmas chez Liszt, imagined by one of the UK's most exciting piano virtuosos. Composed and compiled by Liszt between 1873 and 1881, the 'Christmas Tree' suite has more to offer than carol transcriptions and twinkly sketches of festive joy. It begins with one of the composer's typically free transcriptions of a plainsong Christmas hymn harmonised in the 17th century by Michael Praetorius, and takes in the procession of the Magi towards Bethlehem and a lullaby at the cradle, but also cuts away to contemporary times with a sparkling scherzo to depict the lighting of candles on the tree. The last four of the suite's twelve movements bear only tenuous connections to the festive season, yet they bring some of the most memorable inspirations of all: evocations of evening bells, of 'Yesteryear' in the composer's searching late style, and then Hungarian- and Polish-themed themed pieces. As Mark Viner remarks in his detailed booklet introduction to the album, there is nothing quite like Weihnachtsbaum even in Liszt's own prodigiously varied catalogue. It is impossible to categorise, and yet every bar sounds uniquely Lisztian. Perhaps even less familiar to most listeners, on account not least of it's sheer scale, is the vast three-part oratorio which Liszt based on the life of Christ. Liszt made solo-piano transcriptions of two Christmas-themed orchestral movements from the oratorio's first part, picturing in turn the Shepherds at the Manger and, once more, the 'march' of the Magi. In complement, Mark Viner presents the composer's pianistic translation of the ancient carol Christus natus est. Mark Viner's recordings for Piano Classics have attracted international acclaim. 'The melodies in his hands are not simply played, they are sung on the piano!' (Fanfare, reviewing a previous Liszt album, PCL0116). 'If Alkan could play it as Viner does here, no wonder he was the only pianist in front of whom Liszt was hesitant of playing.' (Gramophone, reviewing Viner's latest volume in his Alkan cycle, PCL10275).
Mark Viner’s survey of the complete solo piano music of Alkan continues to turn up discoveries and reveal previously little-known or misunderstood sides of a protean figure in late French romanticism. Viner himself regards Alkan as ‘the most enigmatic figure in the history of music as a whole’.
The sixth volume of his survey focuses not on the grand cycles which have won this series such uniformly glowing reviews, but on sketches and miniatures which demonstrate Alkan’s capacity to charm as well as astound and dazzle his listeners. All these pieces are further illuminated, as before, by his own comprehensive booklet notes. Several of them will be unfamiliar to all except the most dedicated of Alkan connoisseurs.
One of the better known pieces included here, the Toccatina Op. 75, can be counted among Alkan’s finest shorter pieces for the piano, demanding phenomenal dexterity and lightness of touch. At the other end of the expressive scale, Désir is a little fantasy, one of Alkan’s most homely-sounding miniatures, yet still colored by his characteristic use of the ninth.
Felix Blumenfeld (1863-1931) was a virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher whose class comprised the likes of Simon Barere, Maria Grinberg and Vladimir Horowitz. But he was also a composer of an oeuvre of breathtaking beauty, originality and sophistication. Even in his mid 20s Blumenfeld began teaching at the St Petersburg Conservatoire but resigned in protest at Rimsky-Korsakov’s dismissal following the senior composer’s support of the protestors killed in the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1905. At length he returned to his post but left for Kyiv on the outbreak of the Russian revolution, and became rector of the conservatoire founded by Mykola Lysenko (where he taught Horowitz). Chopin, Wagner, and other Romantic-era masters all make their presence felt in the surging melodies and passionate harmonies of Blumenfeld’s own music.
Published in 1892 by Belaieff and dedicated to Rimsky-Korsakov’s wife, the Op.17 form a quintessential work of Slavic late Romanticism. They are structured in four books of six preludes, touched with the solemnity of Orthodox chant at points and often aspiring to a grand and tragic idiom despite their relative brevity and tending towards melancholy even in the major-key pieces. The Op.17 Preludes are complemented in this new recording by Blumenfeld’s study for the left hand Op.36 – relatively familiar as an example of the technique and widely promoted by the likes of Godowsky and Lewenthal. The Op.24 Etude de Concert is a dazzling accumulation of piano sonority requiring the deftest of hands and care over voicing to bring its towering chords to life.
Described by International Piano as ‘one of the most gifted pianists of his generation’, Mark Viner is steadily gaining a reputation as one of Britain’s leading concert pianists; his unique blend of individual artistry combined with his bold exploration of the byways of the piano literature garnering international renown. Having set down dazzling accounts of the knuckle-breaking studies and solo Concerto, Mark Viner here shows his ability to distil the spirit of Alkan’s more intimate and spiritual works.
Alkan was a serious scholar of Jewish learning and ancient biblical texts, a preoccupation, not a pastime, that took precedence for him over music and the piano. The atmosphere and design of this Op.72 cycle (completed in 1867) harkens back to the grave passion instilled in the earlier 25 Préludes Op.31 (1847 - PCL10189). Several of the pieces venture beyond evocations of devotion to present psychologically probing dialogues of conflict and reconciliation. From the Revivalist sturdiness of the cycle’s opening number through the inward contemplation of No.2 to the austere fugue of No.3 and beyond, Alkan continues to spring surprises on the listener, including sudden harmonic clashes which abruptly break the tonal fabric and anticipate 20th-century trends of modernism. To the Op.72 cycle, Mark Viner adds a rarely heard Etude which Alkan originally composed for a pianistic encyclopedia compiled by his former professor. He concludes with the Etude Alla-Barbaro which was rediscovered as recently as 1996.
