Back in 2015, Fanfare singled out Ekaterina Litvintseva's first solo album of Rachmaninoff, including the Moments musicaux Op.16, as an 'impressive outing. Her playing is tonally rich and extremely thoughtful.' Since then, she has assembled an impressive and critically acclaimed catalogue on Piano Classics, including most recently the great Trio elegiaque which Rachmaninoff wrote in memory of Tchaikovsky: 'an attractive and valuable disc' (Fanfare). Litvintseva now turns to a trio of uncontested masterpieces by the Russian composer, demonstrating within a single album the range of his stylistic evolution over the course of 40 years. He was still a teenager, studying at the Moscow Conservatoire, when he wrote his First Piano Concerto in 1891. On the instruction of his teachers, he took the Grieg Concerto as a model, and poured his own invention into it: a remarkably successful strategy, as it turned out, because the finished work is both strong and personal, touched with many of those fingerprints of gesture and harmony which we have come to think of as quintessentially Rachmaninoff. These include flights of lyric fantasy and equally sudden, unexpected turns towards melancholy introspection. Rachmaninoff had become an international celebrity by 1913, when he took his family to live the high life with him in Rome, at a home which Tchaikovsky had once used. In the Italian capital he began work on the imposing Second Piano Sonata, though the work had to be completed back at the family estate, Ivanovka, when his daughters came down with typhus. Rachmaninoff overhauled the Sonata in 1931, cutting and in some places simplifying it's form, and it is this version which Litvintseva plays: a stylistic bridge between mid-period and late-style in a composer whose capacity for reinvention has often been underestimated. By 1941 he was an exile living in the US and Switzerland, where he wrote his Variations on a theme of Corelli - the 'La folia' theme adopted by countless of his predecessors. Informed by decades of pianistic and creative mastery, Rachmaninoff makes the theme his own with a neoclassical severity and haunting economy of expression. Thus, taken as a whole, Ekaterina Litvintseva's new album pays a wide-ranging and personal tribute to a composer who has inspired her playing since her formation in Siberia. - Ekaterina Litvintseva is one of the most remarkable pianists of her generation. Her recordings won her enthusiastic acclaim in the international press: "a notable moment in the history of Chopin interpretation" (Fanfare); "a sense of spontaneous invention" in Mozart's K.271 (Gramophone) and "an expressive depth" in Brahms's 1st Piano Concerto (BBC Music Magazine). She previously recorded for Piano Classics an album with piano works by Dora Pejacevic (PCL10226), as well as the Works for Piano and Orchestra by Chopin (PCL10142 and 10274), which was a CD Of The Week at Classic FM. - In this new release Litvintseva displays her innate feeling for the idiom in works by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): the youthfully exuberant First Piano Concerto, the monumental Second Piano Sonata and the innovative Corelli variations Op. 42, cornerstones of the piano repertoire nowadays, and played with vigour, drama and a deep sense of poetry. The concerto is accompanied by the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, conducted by Vahan Mardirossian.

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.

'His music tastes good': this was Debussy's tribute to the art of Deodat de Severac (1872-1921). Goodness and love are words that recur frequently when speaking of Severac, so much so that the pianist Blanche Selva - his teacher and biographer - wrote: 'The soul of Severac's music is love, because true love, in reality, is an aspiration, a cry, a caress of goodness.' Born in Apulia, a graduate of the conservatoire in Bari, Serena Valluzzi now gives recitals across Europe, while engaged as professor of piano at the conservatoire in Foggia. This album of Deodat de Severac marks her debut on Piano Classics, and is distinguished with the sensitive musicianship which won her prizes at the Busoni International Piano Competition and elsewhere. Descended from an ancient Languedoc family, related on his mother's side to the Aragons of Spain, Severac received his first music lessons from his painter father. He studied and worked further afield, becoming a friend and assistant to Isaac Albeniz, but his heart and his musical language remained rooted in his native Languedoc. Thus he was inspired to write en Languedoc, premiered by his friend (and Ravel's) Riccardo Vines in 1905. Impressionism meets folkloric colour and melody in the five movements of en Languedoc, evoking a lakeside reverie, a horseback gallop, a village feast and a profound elegy. This 'Coin de cimetiere au printemps' (Cemetery Corner in Spring) is one of his most inspired works: his friend Alfred Cortot admired it's 'resignation and ardour, tenderness and bitterness', with 'a long, slow melody that expands in all it's religious fervour and inconsolable melancholy.' Cerdana is another vividly picturesque five-movement suite, cousin to the likes of Albeniz's Iberia and Granados' Goyescas, deserving recognition alongside them as a major cycle of Franco-Spanish impressionism from the early 20th century. Serena Valluzzi completes this illuminating introduction to the art of Deodat de Severac with a teasingly allusive portrait in sound of bathers in the sun, 'Baigneuses au soleil', from 1908. - Deodat de Severac was a French composer whose work represents a bridge between the impressionist styles of Debussy and Ravel and the traditional music of southern France. Born in the Languedoc region, Severac's music is deeply rooted in the cultural and musical heritage of the French countryside, particularly the Occitan tradition. His piano music, while often categorized alongside the impressionists, is distinguished by it's rich evocation of regional landscapes and folk elements, making it uniquely vibrant and evocative. - This new recording presents the beautiful Baigneuses au Soleil, the suite en Languedoc, and the suite Cerdana. These compositions are marked by a lyrical sensitivity and a deep connection to nature, often eschewing the complex harmonic language of his contemporaries in favor of a more direct, folk-inspired style. - Despite his relatively small output, Severac's piano music is celebrated for it's warmth and ability to transport listeners to the idyllic landscapes that inspired him. His work remains an important, if somewhat underappreciated, contribution to early 20th-century French music, offering a refreshing contrast to the urban-centric themes prevalent in much of the music of his time. - Played with great sensitivity and feeling for colors by young Italian pianist Serena Valluzzi, winner of the Premio Alkan and prize winner of the Busoni and Casagrande competitions.

The third volume Ciro Longobardi's Messiaen, after the universal critical success of Volumes 1 & 2, focusing on the composer's best-loved piano cycle. With his Piano Classics collection of the Preludes, Quatre etudes de rythme, La fauvette des jardins and other shorter works, Ciro Longobardi announced himself as a Messiaen pianist of remarkable imagination and accomplishment. The critics duly took note: 'Longobardi showcases tremendous technical skill and an exceptional attentiveness. This album is a lush, intricate success-meaningful for Messiaen enthusiasts and enjoyable for those new to his work. I highly recommend it.' (Fanfare). The Catalogue d'oiseaux continued to attract superlatives: 'Hs performance makes you listen, through it's diverse use of dynamics and the expert use of silences. His playing is concise and bright and is best listened to with the accompanying booklet, in which his notes on the music expertly set the scene.' (MusicWeb International). Now the Italian pianist turns to the Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus in which Messiaen most successfully synthesised a Lisztian tradition of virtuosity and tone-painting on the piano with his own spiritual and musical preoccupations: Catholic devotion, birdsong and Indian rhythmic syntax among them. Messiaen had lately completed what became a 'Tristan' trilogy of works including the Turangalila Symphony when, in 1948, he was commissioned by French radio to write pieces to accompany a broadcast of Christmas-themed poetry. The commission quickly outgrew it's original purpose, and Messiaen instead created a thematically unified cycle of pieces taking in contemplations of monumental reverence, jazz-inflected improvisations, fabulously intricate toccatas and more. At the heart of Vingt Regards lies the ineffable tenderness of the kiss bestowed on the sleeping infant by his mother in the most famous piece of the cycle, Le baiser de l'enfant Jesus. As a generous pairing, Ciro Longobardi also includes the 1985 cycle of piano miniatures, Petites Esquisses d'Oiseaux, which distil his lifelong love of birdsong into six exquisite portraits. These, like the Vingt Regards, are dedicated to his wife, the pianist Yvonne Loriod, who inspired his piano writing throughout his mature career, bringing a cyclical unity of it's own to the album.

De Gambarini: Complete Works for Keyboard

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).

Three vividly picturesque piano suites, evoking the colours and rhythms of Spanish life, in a new recording by a native artist trained within the long and distinguished Spanish piano tradition. Pedro Piquero trained with the Spanish pianist Esteban Sanchez, who had himself studied with Alfred Cortot before returning to his native Spain to pass on his insights into the kind of repertoire recorded here. Brilliant Classics issued a box of Sanchez's recordings of Albeniz, and this new recording of Turina's music by his former student forms a fitting sequel. The piano lay at the centre of Turina's life and work, as it did for his near contemporary Maurice Ravel. The piano became the expressive complement to the other instrument that accompanied Turina for most of his life: the camera. An amateur photographer, with an impeccable eye, he captured "objective" images with his camera and then "subjectivised" them in his music. Seville, his native city, was always with him, whether in presence or in essence, and was his most frequent source of inspiration, starting with his second published work. This 'painterly suite' in three movements takes extended snapshots of an orange grove; a prayerful night-vigil shortly before the Easter festivities; and then the celebrations of the Easter fair itself. Writing the suite in Paris in 1908, Turina describes in Debussyan style not so much the picturesque details of his chosen scenes, but the way he remembers them from far away. Expression reigns over illustration. In just the same way, the opening 'Exaltacion' of the Danzas fantasticas, encapsulates his relationship with Spanish folk music: evocation, rather than quotation or re-creation. After the atmospheric introduction, Turina conjures the jota, but his own version of the dance - as is also true of the seguidilla in the central section. This Op.22 set of dances, composed in 1919, became best known in Turina's later orchestration, but a pianist as capable as Pedro Piquero can evoke a palette of orchestral colours on the piano. One Spanish musicologist has described the Cinco danzas gitanas, composed in 1929, as 'unquestionably one of [Turina's] pianistic masterpieces.'

Ravel, Wagner & Liszt: Transcriptions for Piano 4-Hands

Recording Ravel's piano music for Piano Classics, the pianist Fran�ois Dumont won glowing reviews for performances to the manner born. 'There is much to envy and admire in Dumont's lucid and refined performances. He is ideally sensitive and accurate in 'Le gibet' (Gaspard) in a manner that would surely have won Ravel's admiration. Cool, elegant and affectionate... you will never catch him playing for effect, always respecting the composer's wish that his music should be played rather than interpreted.' (Gramophone) Dumont now brings his polished technique and refined musicianship to bear on music less frequently encountered in the concert hall but no less sophisticated, and often imbued with the most profound melancholy, the Nocturnes of Faur�. A previous set of the Chopin nocturnes also won golden opinions for Dumont's exquisite touch - the French high-fidelity magazine On-Top Audio rated it among the finest cycles on record - but Faur�'s universe is, if anything, even more private, more overtly expressive than Ravel's watchmaker delight in textures, yet flowing with undercurrents of troubled modernity. Composed over almost half a century, one by one unlike Chopin's sets, Faur�'s Nocturnes display the composer's style in evolution, from the apparent spontaneity and relatively carefree tone-pictures of the early pieces to the unfathomable interior world of the late works. Faur� himself had no special attachment to the genre, nor was he especially concerned to paint night-time moods and scenes. Rather, he poured into the genre many of his own private concerns and passions as a composer, experimenting time and again with syncopated rhythms and with luminous harmonies in order to create a mood of serenity and nostalgia that is uniquely his own. Dumont's new recording is accompanied by a personal essay from the pianist in which we gain valuable insight into each Nocturne from the perspective of a performer immersed in the idiom. On this recording he plays a Gaveau piano from 1922.

Thanks to his prodigious technique and phenomenal sight-reading ability, Earl Wild (1915-2010) became pianist for Arturo Toscanini in 1937, while still in his early 20s, and played Rhapsody in Blue with them in 1942. Gershwin also forms the centrepiece of this third volume in Giovanni Doria Miglietta's comprehensive survey of Wild's own music. The Grand Fantasy on Porgy and Bess works all the best-known themes from the opera into a spectacular half-hour of pianistic devilry and enchantment. Lisztian in scope - and in the use of 'Reminiscences' in it's title - Reminiscences of Snow White (1995) opens with glistening high-note scales, taking the listener into fairy-tale territories, with fragments of the principal themes of Disney's movie scattered across the musical texture, most notably 'Whistle while You Work'. Like Liszt, Wild had the gift of bringing popular music and high art together without compromising either idiom. Miglietta closes this dazzling album with Wild's outrageously entertaining transcription of Jarabe Tapatio, otherwise known as the Mexican Hat Dance. Before that he plays four reworkings of classical repertoire, all respectful of their originals and yet imbued with Wild's own effervescent personality: Le Rouet d'Omphale of Saint-Sa�ns, the Air and Variations from Handel's harpsichord suite 'The Harmonious Blacksmith', and two Tchaikovsky pieces, a song and a dance from Swan Lake. 'This is tremendously challenging music,' remarked Fanfare of the first volume in this series containing Wild's Piano Sonata, 'and Miglietta certainly has the virtuosity that it requires... Fans of this repertoire will want to hear his perspective - and will eagerly await the rest of the series.'

These rarely heard piano transcriptions of Wagner and Verdi operas share a common theme: Love and Death, the two most important themes of opera, as a reflection of human life and fate. First the pianist Abdiel Vazquez presents his own "Meistersinger Rhapsody", a stunning pianistic tour de force. The three Wagner transcriptions (Ride of the Valkyries, Siegmund's Love Song, Love Scene and Transfiguration from Tristan) are by Carl Tausig, Liszt's favourite pupil, an awesome pianist and composer, died tragically young. The Concert Fantasy over themes from La Forza del Destino is by Italian composer Giuseppe Martucci (a wonderful composer with a fine ear for instrumental colours), followed by two famous paraphrases by Liszt (Rigoletto, Aida). The disc finds a spectacular conclusion in the fiendishly difficult Trovatore Paraphrase by Gy�rgy Cziffra. Abdiel Vazquez is one of the foremost pianist of Mexico, a 1-rst Prize Winner of the New York Shining Stars Debut Series, which brought him his Carnegie Hall debut.

Classical Music

Following on her Piano Classics recording of Schubert's Impromptus, Hungarian-born Klora Wurtz turns to her compatriot Bela Bartok, presenting a representative selection of his piano works. Her reading of the Sonata is powerful and rhythmically vital, the Suite colorful and vibrant and the Allegro Barbaro uncompromising in it's power. The disc also includes a selection of pieces from Mikrokosmos and for Children. In these latter pieces, one can appreciate her innate feeling for the (musical) language of the Hungarian children's songs and nursery rhymes. Klera Wortz studied at the Liszt Ferenc Academy in Budapest, imbibing the rich musical culture and knowledge of such teachers as Gyergy Kurtog, Ferenc Rados, and Zolton Kocsis.

Born in Kiev in 1925, Igor Shamo studied with the elder statesman of modern Ukrainian art music, Boris Lyatoshinsky. Schumann, Mussorgsky and Rachmaninov were the giants of the past who seized the young Shamo's attention, and traces of their impassioned, lyrically centered idioms may be discerned throughout the early works on the first portion of this new recording such as the Ukrainian Suite, Classical Suite and Shamo's own take on Pictures at an Exhibition in his suite of Pictures by Russian Painters. The second portion is occupied by two more substantial cycles, of 12 Preludes from 1962 and six impressionistic Aquarelles from a decade later - both the appreciation and execution of painting was important to Shamo throughout his life. The final portion gathers up piano pieces throughout Shamo's career, from the Marche fantastique, which so impressed the professors of the Kiev Conservatoire when the composer elected at the last minute to play it for his entrance exam, to three dances composed in 1972 and inspired by the folk culture of nearby Soviet republics, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. A counterpoint to their uncomplicated charms may be found in the three Songs of Friendship from 1954, in which Shamo treats melodies from Poland, Romania and what was then Czechoslovakia. Though jazz and minimalist techniques periodically surface in Shamo's music, it bears the stamp of it's Soviet times in it's generally sunny character and clearly laid-out forms - though the serenity of the Ninth Prelude is answered by the machine-gun-fire Tenth, and Bart�k casts a shadow over this music almost as often as Prokofiev. Dmitri Tchesnokov is, like Shamo, a native of Kiev, born in 1982 and long resident in France, where he pursues a career as both composer and pianist, as well as founding a directing a well-established festival of contemporary piano music in Paris.

Composed in the early 19th century, the four grand piano sonatas by Carl Maria von Weber round out the Classical age and herald in the Romantic style. All four of these sonatas are featured on this two-disc set, as well as Weber’s Rondo brilliante in E flat major, Op. 62, and Aufforderung zum Tanz, Op 65. +Pianist Michelangelo Carbonara studied at Lake Como Academy under such pianists as Dimitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, and Alicia de Larrocha. He has won several international competitions, including the Schubert International Piano Competition.