SO SMOOTH, SO SWEET is a collection of vocal works from Harvard University composer Allen Sapp spanning from his early compositions in 1952 to later pieces written in the 1980s. The album features song cycles including The Lady and the Lute, Nursery Rhymes, Affliction, and Two Songs, each showcasing Sapp's thoughtful approach to text setting and harmonic color. Influenced by English Renaissance and Romantic-era poetry as well as Sapp's personal experiences, these works range from delicate and lyrical to harmonically rich and expressive. SO SMOOTH, SO SWEET exhibits the finely structured lyricism of Sapp's early works along with the stylistic contrasts of his later compositions.

The Caribbean Dance, Italian Dance, Danza Gaya and Valse francaise were all written from around 1959 onwards; the date of the Valse francaise is the most unclear, but it was not published until 1980. Shortly before Dring's death, pianists Eugene Hemmer and Leigh Kaplan suggested a disc of her two-piano works, including some of these dances. Dring wrote to Hemmer in 1976 that 'I am thrilled to think I may be put on record. It has cheered me up a lot.' She sent him the Valse francaise saying that she 'wrote it some time ago and then put it in an ivory-tower until I felt an understanding sort of person would find some use for it! So there it's been awaiting you like ye Princess.' With the Danza Gaya she included the note: 'I haven't put a metronome indication (always enough to bring me out in a rash!) - it's quite a romantic piece (surprize, surprize) - & can be played either with a slightly lazy feel or a little faster.' (The spelling and grammar is Dring's own - her spelling was atrocious, but I suspect that the misspelling of surprise here is deliberate.) Sadly Hemmer died before the disc could be made, but Kaplan did later record all four of these dances and the Tarantelle. Leah Broad 2023

Few can predict the impact a composer may have, but those who experience the vision and tutelage of a true musical inspiration surely know it. American composer Allen Sapp left such a mark on artistic culture, and LIVE PIANO WORKS pays tribute to his legacy with recordings from the Ohio State University Music & Dance Library's Allen Sapp Collection. Each piece on the two-volume collection highlights a studied and academic approach to composition, with deep, expert exploration of idioms and techniques. This album features performances by Sapp's wife, Norma Bertolami Sapp, recorded live over a period spanning three decades at the Patricia Corbett Theatre at University of Cincinnati College - Conservatory of Music, and a historic recording of Sapp himself from 1961.

Tchaikovsky Ballet Suites was enormously successful when released in 2016, and now reappears in a stereo re-issue. The album had the sisters Mari and Momo Kodama together for the first time in the recording studio, on scintillating form in lively arrangements of music from Tchaikovsky's ballets Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker. In another first, the release contains the first ever recording of Arensky's transcription of the timeless Nutcracker together with notable arrangements by Debussy and Rachmaninoff. The sisters Mari and Momo Kodama both pursue busy international careers. Momo specialises in French and Japanese composers and 20th century and contemporary composers; she has been widely praised for her 'attractive, lyrical tone' and 'technical brilliance'. Mari has established an international reputation for profound musicality and articulate virtuosity; she has recorded extensively for Pentatone. This album, which has been a huge streaming success on multiple DSPs, will now become available in Dolby Atmos as well, simultaneously to the physical stereo reissue.

The Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol.1 is the first volume of a new project that will see Mariangela Vacatello perform the entire cycle of Scriabin's piano sonatas.

Scriabin's Piano Sonatas (the ten to which the composer assigned an opus number) date from between 1891, during the last months of his studies at the Moscow Conservatory, and 1913, in his final phase dominated by the vast project of the "Symphonic Poem" Prometheus. They thus reflect the composer's entire artistic itinerary: from the fiery romantic gestures of Liszt to the dissolution of rationality in the more symbolic esotericism. And so it happens that the musical discourse, rather than being based on an orderly succession of different figures, is transformed into a sort of efflorescence of thematic recurrences between one movement and another (in the First, Third, and Fourth) and of self-quotations between the Fifth and the following Sonatas (becoming exacerbated in the Ninth and Tenth), with a network of cross references (of trills, fanfares, arpeggios, languid chromaticisms, etc.) that makes it possible to suggest the hypothesis of a single work (as such, monstrously intricate) that embraces the Sonatas from the Fourth to the Tenth as phases of a single spiritual experience, dominated by the mysteriosophic idiosyncrasies of the philosopher and mystic Vladimir Solovyov.

The Silver-Garburg Piano Duo has been successfully performing together for over 20 years and touring in more than 70 countries. Their new album on Berlin Classics, "Great Fugue, " is set to be released on June 27, 2025, and features a unique combination of works by Beethoven as well as newly written and arranged workds by Austrian composer Richard Dunser. The piano duo is accompanied on the recording by the renowned Artis Quartet. The album offers an exciting juxtaposition of Beethoven's versions of the Great Fugue for string quartet and four-hand piano, as well as pieces by Schubert and Dunser, bridging tradition and contemporary music. With "Great Fugue, " Silver-Garburg deliver a powerful statement full of passion and artistic precision.

George Lloyd approached the piano concerto form with imagination and individuality. His idiomatic solo writing avoids shallow virtuosity and empty rhetoric and there are no mighty tussles between piano and orchestral forces encountered in archetypal large scale concertante scores. Instead, the composer offers a series of deeply personal attempts to reconcile time-honoured elements of display with symphonic preoccupations of long-range tonality, rhythmic energy and melodic growth. In sum, Lloyd's four piano concertos constitute a compelling and distinctive branch of his creative legacy. Paul Conway

George Lloyd approached the piano concerto form with imagination and individuality. His idiomatic solo writing avoids shallow virtuosity and empty rhetoric and there are no mighty tussles between piano and orchestral forces encountered in archetypal large scale concertante scores. Instead, the composer offers a series of deeply personal attempts to reconcile time-honoured elements of display with symphonic preoccupations of long-range tonality, rhythmic energy and melodic growth. In sum, Lloyd's four piano concertos constitute a compelling and distinctive branch of his creative legacy. Paul Conway

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).

George Lloyd approached the piano concerto form with imagination and individuality. His idiomatic solo writing avoids shallow virtuosity and empty rhetoric and there are no mighty tussles between piano and orchestral forces encountered in archetypal large scale concertante scores. Instead, the composer offers a series of deeply personal attempts to reconcile time-honoured elements of display with symphonic preoccupations of long-range tonality, rhythmic energy and melodic growth. In sum, Lloyd's four piano concertos constitute a compelling and distinctive branch of his creative legacy. Paul Conway

George Lloyd approached the piano concerto form with imagination and individuality. His idiomatic solo writing avoids shallow virtuosity and empty rhetoric and there are no mighty tussles between piano and orchestral forces encountered in archetypal large scale concertante scores. Instead, the composer offers a series of deeply personal attempts to reconcile time-honoured elements of display with symphonic preoccupations of long-range tonality, rhythmic energy and melodic growth. In sum, Lloyd's four piano concertos constitute a compelling and distinctive branch of his creative legacy. Paul Conway

The Swiss composer Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865–1950) is best remembered for his development of Eurhythmics, which teaches the appreciation of music through movement. The buoyant miniatures recorded on this fourth album of his piano music document his fascination with dance, but nonetheless display a degree of variety: some are winsome and charming, others vigorous and folk-like, and occasionally they suggest echoes of some of his French contemporaries, not least Chabrier, Debussy, Fauré and Ravel.

Making and listening to music as an act of resistance against the relentless 24/7 rhythm of our era: with his beautifully clear new recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, released by GENUIN, Milosz Sroczynski offers a deliberate counterbalance to the accelerating pace of modern life. In an accompanying essay, he reflects on music as a response to the late-capitalist demand for constant productivity and endless wakefulness. His interpretation - with which he made a highly acclaimed debut at the Davos Festival 2024 - is shaped by filigree lightness and long, seamlessly flowing musical arcs: transparent, weightless, and deeply focused. A reflective artist at the piano, Sroczynski gives us time to listen - inviting us to immerse ourselves, variation by variation, in this music.

With its roots in the tradition of Borodin and Mussorgsky, the music of the Ukrainian-born Soviet composer Yuri Shaporin (1887–1966) sits between the late Romanticism of Scriabin and the harder edges of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, blending a mastery of counterpoint with an acute sense of Russian keyboard color. In Shaporin’s piano music his fondness for the epic – expressed in two large-scale sonatas and a mighty passacaglia – is contrasted with a number of gentle, almost whimsical miniatures.

Kirill Kozlovski is a Finnish-Belarusian pianist, harpsichordist and researcher. He holds a doctoral degree from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki for his research into the music of Dmitri Shostakovich (2017). His present research interests include Soviet music and cultural history, as well as performance practices within the Russian piano school.

REVIEW:

Shaporin is a composer of greater interest and merit than I had hitherto suspected, and it has left me wanting to hear more of his music. I strongly recommend this release to those interested in the Russian piano repertoire and those who would like to discover an unfamiliar but worthwhile Soviet-Russian composer.

-- Fanfare

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 (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.

A new album on GENUIN from the internationally performing pianist Sophia Weidemann! A prizewinner at numerous international competitions, she thrilled both critics and audiences with her album of works by Fanny Hensel. Now she follows up with a recording devoted to Bach: the program features the world-famous Goldberg Variations, which show off the phrasing and tonal artistry of this young pianist from Swabia to brilliant effect. She takes her listeners on an exciting and moving journey through the 30 variations - a work in which, for Bach, an entire world is contained. To quote the composer himself: "A most joyful delight for the soul!"

She questions the simplicity in this program of "simple" piano sonatas and demonstrates her virtuosity by filling the few notes with as much musicality as possible. Shows different interpretations and styles of the genre "Sonatine" with works by Beethoven (No. 25, op. 79), Reynaldo Hahn (IRH90), Ravel (M. 40), Mozart (KV 545), Hermann Goetz (No. 1, op. 8) and Nikolai Medtner (op. 56)

The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin launches a series of Mozart symphonies to appear on Pentatone, starting with the composer’s “Paris” and “Haffner” symphonies. On this first album, the works are coupled with his enchanting Oboe Concerto – performed by the ensemble’s first oboist Xenia Löffler - and the bold overture to Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Mozart’s own woodwind arrangement. Taken together, these pieces demonstrate the rich palette and expressive power of Mozart’s music in the period between 1777 and 1783, during which he finally managed to spread his wings and leave his hometown of Salzburg.

The Akademie für Alte Musik is generally seen as one of the best period-instruments ensembles of today, and has a substantial Pentatone discography, including CANTATA with Bejun Mehta (2018), Handel’s Concerti grossi Op. 3 and 6 (released in 2019 and 2020), Telemann’s Miriways (2020), Handel’s Messiah (2020), Haydn’s L’isola disabitata (2021) and La Passione with Christina Landshamer (2022).

The large-scale Bach Organ Landscapes project featuring J.S. Bach's entire organ oeuvre recorded on a range of instruments aims to provide an overview of organ-playing and organ-building traditions that were key to Bach's composing. With a keen eye to the unique cultural organ legacy of the places associated with Bach, Halubek has placed Bach's original sound at the heart of his project. The recordings are accompanied by digital material that offer an almost tactile access to the great composer's sound universe.

Pianist Naoko Christ-Kato is dedicated to bringing to light the works of forgotten and persecuted Jewish composers. On her new GENUIN album, she now presents music by the Dutchwoman Rosy Wertheim - a rediscovery of delicate, multi-layered sounds that have been forgotten for far too long. The musical arc extends from the charming Sonatina, through imaginative character pieces, to the large-scale Variations on a Theme by César Franck. With refined and committed playing, Naoko Christ-Kato compellingly brings this music - so deserving of being heard - to the public's awareness.

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

As composer, pianist and educationalist, the Prussian-born Philipp Scharwenka (1847-1917) was one of most highly respected musicians of his day, although his star faded soon after his death. His music - more conservative and classical in orientation than that of his pianist-composer brother, Xaver - sits somewhere between Chopin and Brahms, with echoes of Schubert and Schumann. This second instalment of a survey of his piano music is intended to put these immediately attractive works before the public once again - for the first time in over a century.

For the internationally acclaimed soloist Jennifer Lim, it has been a long, cherished wish to record the complete Mozart pianos sonatas. She has finished just that with GENUIN, where her last, critically acclaimed recordings were also released. She invites her audience to Mozart's piano universe, from the first, youthful and stormy works of the teenager to the glowing and infinitely complex sonatas of his final years. She groups the works according to musical aspects rather than chronological order. This offers a special listening pleasure and reveals unexpected and connective relationships between the works.

No wonder the stellar team of pianists Eric Zuber and Boris Slutsky found Rachmaninoff's works for two pianos irresistible. The two had a shared history: Mr. Slutsky was Mr. Zuber's piano teacher beginning when the latter was a mere 11. Here, instructor and student have now become equal partners with a shared aesthetic. "Like many pianists (and listeners), I've always felt deeply connected to Rachmaninoff's music," says Eric Zuber. "Precisely identifying what makes it resonate so profoundly with so many people is challenging, but for me, it's his sincerity of expression, emotional honesty, and exceptional craftsmanship in writing for the piano. Through his distinctive musical language, Rachmaninoff captures the complexities of human emotion-our joys, loves, and sorrows-in ways words alone cannot fully express.