Not only do you get performances to rank with the best, but also a bonus of the splendidly played Rondo.

Beethoven’s first two piano concertos share an abundance of lyric and virtuosic qualities. Concerto No. 1 in C major is expansive and richly orchestrated with a sublime slow movement that is tender and ardent, and a finale full of inventive humor. Concerto No. 2 in B flat major marries energy with elegance, reserving poetic breadth for its slow movement and quirky wit for the finale. Also included is the jovial Rondo, WoO 6, which Beethoven originally intended to be the finale of Concerto No. 2.

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REVIEWS:

Here’s a very promising start to what I assume will be a new Beethoven piano concerto cycle, featuring performances not otherwise included in Naxos’ “complete” Beethoven box. Boris Giltburg plays both works with the youthful panache that they require–the kind that makes you forget about any formal issues and just revel in the virtuoso passagework and good tunes. The standard for comparison in this coupling is Argerich/Sinopoli on DG–you might think an unmatchable team, at least pianistically, but Giltburg more than holds his own. Indeed, in Concerto No. 2 he matches Argerich’s fleet timing in the finale (and other movements) almost exactly, and in the First Concerto he’s even a bit quicker, all without sacrificing subtleties of touch, dynamics and phrasing for mere velocity.

Of course there are difference–welcome ones too. In the first concerto, Giltburg adds a couple of minutes to the central Largo, producing a genuine specimen of that particular tempo designation. His legato playing is beautifully sustained, making this early example of Beethovenian lyricism a real gem. Petrenko accompanies with real flair, proving himself a true partner in both concerto first movements. It’s so much more satisfying to have a real conductor working with a gifted soloist, rather than the single-person-at-the-keyboard approach so frequently offered these days. There’s just no substitute for full-time orchestral guidance. Giltburg also includes the original “Concerto No. 2 finale version” of the Rondo WoO 6, a considerable bonus, as are his intelligent and detailed booklet notes. Fine playing, fine conducting, fine engineering–in short, a really fine release generally.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Giltburg is a subtle artist who, despite his all-encompassing technique, rarely, if ever, engages in virtuosic grandstanding, preferring instead to interpret the music for maximum artistic yield. Nor does he employ radical or eccentric interpretive approaches. Yet, his performances are never bland but rather quite individual, typically rich in nuance and meaningful detail, and containing insights missing in other versions. His accounts of the two concertos feature well-chosen dynamics, main lines and inner voices perfectly balanced, and judicious tempos. In addition, he realizes these are the works of a youthful Beethoven, not of the mature, profound and serious-minded master of the three concertos that followed. Thus, he points up their lighter, more vivacious characteristics, his dynamics appropriately less weighty and his pacing never too relaxed.

Not only do you get performances to rank with the best, but also a bonus of the splendidly played Rondo.

– MusicWeb International

Tenor Lawrence Brownlee is largely considered by critics and audiences alike to be the world’s leading bel canto tenor. His previous release on Delos was an enchanting array of Rossini arias which garnered him a Grammy nomination. Brownlee has a rich and varied repertoire, which is evident on this release. He has mixed standards such as Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, and L’elisir d’amore and Bellinis’ I Puritani with lesser-performed pieces like Donizetti’s Rita and La Favorite. For this release, as in his previous, Brownlee is joined by Lithuania’s Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra and the Kaunas State Choir. The brilliant interpretations and sensitive reading from conductor Constantine Orbelian lend themselves beautifully to Brownlee’s impeccable voice.

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REVIEW:

The tenor’s renown owes much to his breathtaking flair for executing Rossinian fiorature, but the expansive melodic lines of Vincenzo Bellini and the dramatic bel canto of Gaetano Donizetti are equally apt outlets for Brownlee’s prodigious gifts. Avoiding the forcing that compromises many singers’ endeavors in this repertory, Brownlee’s singing on Allegro io son possesses an evenness spanning the full range that, though perhaps easier to control in the recording studio than in the theatre, cannot be faked. As with the sincerity of his expression, the authenticity of his vocalism is remarkable, especially as it is employed in the performances on this disc.

­– Voix des Arts

This new studio recording contains three works for piano and orchestra that virtuoso pianist Orion Weiss and conductor Leon Botstein first performed in concert at the Bard Music Festival. Together, the three works span almost a century of musical Romanticism and are as different from one another as the generations they represent. In each piece, the virtuoso genre becomes a means by which the composer responds to a specific source of inspiration—in the first case (Korngold), a performer and family friend who had suffered a horrendous tragedy, in the second (Rimsky Korsakov), a venerated old master, and in the third (Chopin) a melody from a beloved opera.

REVIEWS:

All the performances on this album, featuring the brilliant pianist Orion Weiss, are excellent.

– New York Times

Thoroughly entertaining.

– BBC Music Magazine

Liszt turned to the composition of large-scale orchestral works after his success as a touring virtuoso and wrote a sequence of ground-breaking symphonic poems that in their narrative-driven structures directly influenced such composers as Richard Strauss and Sibelius. The piano transcriptions that Liszt supervised and produced saw these vivid scores transformed into the virtuoso piano medium in which form their pictorial richness could be enjoyed anew. This volume includes the memorably evocative Les Préludes and Orpheus.

Called the ''Van Cliburn of today'' by the BBC, pianist Alexander Kobrin has placed himself at the forefront of today's performing musicians. His prize winning performances have been praised for their brilliant technique, musicality, and emotional engagement with the audience. The New York Times has written that Mr. Kobrin was a ''fastidious guide'' to Schumann's ''otherworldly visions, pointing out hunters, flowers, haunted corners and friendly bowers, all captured in richly characterized vignettes.'' ''This was a performance that will be revered and remembered as a landmark of the regeneration of exceptional classical music in Central New York'' - critic wrote after Mr. Kobrin's performance of Second Piano Concerto by Brahms with the Syracuse Symphony in Syracuse, NY. On this release, Mr. Kobrin performs Mussorgsky's ''Pictures at an Exhibition'' and Tchaikovsky's ''The Seasons, Op. 37bis''.

Wife of Robert Schumann, Clara Wieck Schumann was a great piano virtuoso. She also was a wonderful composer of piano works. Korean-born pianist Junghwa Lee brings these works to life with vital performances. Junghwa Lee performs actively in solo recitals, chamber concerts and lecture recitals, and has frequently appeared in concerto performances as a soloist including those with the Korean Symphony Orchestra, Salina Symphony Orchestra, Hutchinson Symphony Orchestra and Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra among others. Lee has presented solo performances in Korea, Holland, France, Hungary, Romania, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, China, the United Kingdom and the United States, including appearances at the Arts Center Concert Series at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, Shenyang Music Cultural Exchange Exhibition Between China and Foreign Countries Festival in China, Beethoven 32 Sonatas Recital Series in Singapore, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series at the Chicago Cultural Center and her New York debut recital at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall as a winner of Artists International’s Special Presentation Award.

In the 1960s and in the decades following, the Budapest String Quartet’s mantle at Columbia was passed on to the Juilliard String Quartet. Over the years, with some changes in personnel, the ensemble repeatedly set down its famously lean, energetic and expressive interpretations of the Beethoven quartets in New York recording studios. These have remained catalogue staples. Less well known is the Beethoven cycle they recorded live in Washington at the Library of Congress in 1982. Gramophone singled out this complete traversal for its special depth and flexibility. Presented here on 9 albums, this is its first Sony release.

REVIEW:

The slow introduction to the C Major Quartet No. 9 is handled wonderfully, which sets up well for the rest of the movement and the work as a whole. These are followed by nice recordings of the “Harp” and “Serioso” quartets, thus bringing the middle period to an end.

The late quartets open with a really nice recording of the Nos. 12 and 13, with the first of these being particularly fine. The final disc of the nine houses the 15th and 16th quartets, which again receive fairly good recordings. Overall, the tempos selected here tend to be slower than in their earlier recording, which is usual for live recordings.

Overall sound quality is, at times, a bit of an issue here, even taking into account the live nature of these recordings, and overall isn't up to the sound quality of the quartet's highly regarded 1960s studio cycle of these works for RCA.

– MusicWeb International

Bethany Beardslee is renowned as one of the great lyric sopranos of the twentieth century, and the inspiration for dozens of composers who wrote specifically for her voice. Born in Lansing, Michigan, she trained first at Michigan State College, and later at the Juilliard School. Accompanied by pianists Richard Goode and Lois Shapiro, Ms. Beardslee's performances of lieder by Brahms, Schumann and Schubert display her exquisite artistry. USC Professor of Music and Journalism Tim Page writes: "Her flexible, expressive voice, with its silvered timbre and warmly caressing middle range, was suited not only to the premieres and first American performances she sang (by composers ranging from Schoenberg to Stravinsky to Milton Babbitt) but also to the Romantic repertory." While she retired officially in 1984, she performed and recorded a number of times in the decade that followed. These recordings, from 1984 and 1986, have been remastered by Grammy award winning engineer Adam Abeshouse.

The cathedral organist Daniel Beckmann from Mainz has assembled original organ works by Schumann and works for the pedal piano, which the composer worked intensively on in Dresden in 1845. The instrument used was built in 1836 by Bernhard Dreymann for St. Ignaziuskirche in Mainz and represents very well the upheaval in German organ building away from the baroque tradition and towards the romanticism. Daniel Beckmann was appointed as the principal organist at the age of 29 at Mainz Cathedral by Cardinal Lehmann in 2010. In this capacity he is responsible for the liturgical and non- liturgical organ music in the cathedral. Prof. Beckmann initiated the Internationaler Orgelsommer, an international organ festival and the monthly Orgelmatin�e. Currently, his focus is on the major renovation of the cathedral organs. In 2014, Daniel Beckmann started teaching an international organ class at the Mainz School of Music, an integral part of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. An active concert activity has led him to well-known organ and music festivals in Germany and abroad. Daniel Beckmann has been awarded several prestigious prizes: the 1st prize at the International Organ Competition of Saint-Maurice (Switzerland/2009), a scholarship of the "Deutscher Musikwettbewerb" (Berlin/2005), the membership of the 50th National Selection of Young Artists of the "Deutscher Musikrat", the Kulturpreis des Kreises Olpe 2011 (cultural award of his home county Olpe) and the nomination as first "Mainzer Stadtmusiker" (2016).

Badura-Skoda has long been a symbol of the cultivation of Viennese classical music. The holder of the prestigious Paul Badura-Skoda is well-known around the world for his interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. With this release "The Other Badura" a light is shed on a elsser known part of this great Austrian pianist: At the beginning of his career, Badura-Skoda also enjoyed playing virtuoso "crowd pleasers", e.g. great piano works of the Romantic era, particularly of the Russian sphere. In the 1950's together with the renowned conductors Sir Adiran Boult, Artur Rodzinski and Hans Swarowsky he released very popular recordings of the piano concertos No. 1 in B minor, Op. 23 by Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, the concerto in C sharp major, Op. 30 by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov and the concerto No. 1 in E flat major by Franz Liszt. Badura-Skoda's teacher was Edwin Fischer; his discoverer, Wilhelm Furtwängler. His composer friend, Frank Martin, composed a piano concerto for him and he shared a long professional friendship with the great Russian violinist David Oistrach. Badura-Skoda has long been a symbol of the cultivation of Viennese classical music. The holder of the prestigious Bösendorfer-Ring, he is a celebrated guest at major international music festivals. Earlier in his life, Badura-Skoda collaborated wtih such renowned conductors as Hans Knappertsbusch, Herbert von Karajan, Georges Szell and Karl Böhm. He has also worked with Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Georg Solti and Sir John Eliot Gardiner, to name but a few.

In his Sixth Symphony, the "Pastoral", Ludwig van Beethoven conveys his musical message in such a way that lets the listener literally "see" images of beautiful nature, tempestuous storms, and shepherds singing in the fields, whereas in his Seventh Symphony, Beethoven lets the music speak for itself. The performances of these works by the Gewandhausorchester under its conductor laureate Herbert Bomstedt give the uplifting feeling that the intentions of both composer and performers are united in serving the musical message. In the lively, subtly differentiated interpretation of the works, sincere happiness, deep respect, piety, joyful, serenity and an affinity to nature as well as passion, vitality and spirit can all be felt. This is what the "authenticity" of making music is all about. The humanist and musician Herbert Blomstedt embodies this truth in a unique way, creating an atmosphere where the wonders of music all become true.

Tobias Koch: “This recording of eleven Beethoven sonatas was made during several recitals entitled Beethoven – in search of new paths. These sonatas were written in short succession from 1797 to 1802: one practically led to the next. It was the same period in which Beethoven is said to have revealed to a friend that he was “dissatisfied with his previous works” and intended to “embark on a new path”. Indeed, in those years, the composer seems to have stepped on the turbo accelerator, innovating sonata form in a series of energetically concentrated experiments. Beethoven’s musical propositions are often bold, unconventional, and extreme, something which we often tend to overlook and smooth out with today’s knowledge of all that was to come.

Following up its recent box of his 78 and early LP recordings for RCA, Sony Classical is now issuing a 5-album set of Chopin recordings made by the Ukrainian-American pianist Alexander Brailowsky in stereo for American Columbia in the early 1960s. The new reissue contains the complete Preludes, Waltzes, Mazurkas, Polonaises, Andante spianato, B minor Sonata, Fantaisie-Impromptu, Berceuse as well as numerous other works.

REVIEW:

If Brailowsky's Polonaises don’t match Arthur Rubinstein’s finesse and red-blooded ardor, they’re at least idiomatic and shapely, as are the sensitively turned-out Chopin/Liszt song transcriptions and the Berceuse.

– ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

Two very rare operas in one act. Pigmalione was Gaetano Donizetti’s first opera, written to a libretto by Simeone Antonio Sografi in just two weeks at the age of nineteen. The “lyrical scene” Pigmalione, as Donizetti himself defined it, is the composer’s only approach to a mythological subject and tells the story of a sculptor whose statue becomes alive. The main role is sung by Antonino Siragusa, who gives a masterful interpretation, especially in the long and significant recitatives, and displays a polished and colourful voice. Excellent also is the Japanese soprano Aya Wakizono, Galatea, whose enticing voice well suits the requirements of her short part. Che originali! is a little-known farce in a single act on a libretto by Gaetano Rossi, and was, from the very beginning, one of Giovanni Simone Mayr’s most successful operas. The opera tells the story of a music fanatic, Don Febeo: in his house everybody must know and love music. Emanuele Sinisi’s beautiful sets are almost surreal but well suited to Febeo’s bizarre affair. The direction is humorous, often verging on the grotesque, in line with the style of the farce but always elegant and well-structured from a dramaturgical point of view. The protagonist, Febeo, is entrusted to Bruno de Simone, an excellent actor endowed with a clear and precise voice, and a master in the fast spelled-out passages.

This never-before-released-in-any-format, newly re-mastered, 1960 live performance of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman features the soprano Anja Silja (b. 1940) as Senta in her electrifying Bayreuth Festival debut. +Ms. Silja was a sensational presence on the Bayreuth stage throughout the 1960’s. + Conducted by the eminent Wolfgang Sawallisch, this recording also features tenors Franz Crass and Fritz Uhl, and bass Josef Greindl, noted Wagnerians all, in leading roles.

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Also available on Blu-ray

Recorded live at the Gwandhaus in 2018, this excellent program from the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and their conductor Andris Nelsons features Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, and 6, as well as works by Mozart, Mussorgsky, Shostakovich, and Weinberg, making for a thrilling and well-rounded programme. Andris Nelsons is Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. These two positions, in addition to his leadership of a pioneering alliance between both institutions, have firmly established Grammy Award-winning Nelsons as one of the most renowned and innovative conductors on the international scene today. “Andris Nelsons conducted with concise focus and vigor and elicited the orchestra both tonal beauty and technical precision and visible enthusiasm.” (THE BOSTON GLOBE)

 

REVIEW:

 

Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” shows a dynamic use of tempo: In general, the fast music is very fast, the slow music quite slow, and Nelsons speeds up and slows down as the mood of the music changes. The first movement has lovely woodwind solos, particularly the important ones for clarinet. There is fine attention to dynamics, particularly in the second and fourth movements. The ending disappears into silence, and the hall remains silent for what seems like an impossible length of time before finally erupting into applause.

 

Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony is a fairly standard reading, although there is lots of rubato and expressive use of tempo modifications. The first movement is exciting; the second-movement horn solo is excellent.

 

This all-Russian concert concludes with Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Nelsons’s approach is similar to the way he conducts the Fifth: standard tempos which are modified according to the nature of the passage; rhythmic precision, notably in the difficult development section of the first movement; and, no funny business like a huge ritardando or unwritten pause in the coda. The second movement is effective at a rather slow tempo, with excellent dynamics. The Scherzo is fast and virtuosic, the Finale energetic.

– Fanfare

Joseph Gabriel Rheinberger is one of those late Romantic composers who enjoyed extraordinary popularity during his lifetime, but whose works are largely forgotten today. In 1890 Rheinberger wrote one of his most personal and soulful works, the Christmas cantata "Der Stern von Bethlehem" for solos, choir and orchestra, for which his wife, the then-published poet Franziska von Hoffnaaß, had written the text. The cantata premiered on December 24, 1892, at the Kreuzkirche in Dresden and soon became one of Rheinberger's best-known and most beautiful oratorical creations. His nine "Advent Motets" were written in 1893, composed as a contribution to the traditional cultivation of the chants of the church service, which changed according to the church year. These motets are assigned to the liturgy of the four Sundays of Advent and form a coherent cycle for the Advent season.

For their 88th year the prestigious Arena di Verona Festival paid tribute to internationally acclaimed Italian stage director Franco Zeffirelli. Zeffirelli delivers an opulent staging of the fairy-tale story of the Chinese Princess Turandot, who will only marry a prince capable of solving her riddles. Russian soprano Maria Guleghina gives a brilliant rendition of Turandot. Salvatore Licitra's trump card is his imposingly radiant tenor voice of which he remains in sovereign control even in the role's much-feared highest register. The soprano Tamar Iveri is a beautiful and sensitive Li�. Romeo et Juliette had not been performed at the Arena since 1977. The new production was entrusted to Italian director Francesco Micheli, who opted for a personal, highly original version: 'An arena within the Arena, like a blood-red Elizabethan theatre. A senescent world that will not let it's own children live.' Juliette is sung by Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze, returning to one of her early roles at the Salzburg Festival. Stefano Secco, often heard at the Opera Bastille in Paris and other international venues, is Romeo. Artur Rucinski interprets Mercutio, Romeo's friend and the rival of Jean-Francois Borras's Tybalt. The page Stephano is sung by soprano Ketevan Kemoklidze. Aida To celebrate the bicentennial of Giuseppe Verdi's birth, La Fura dels Baus opens the 'Centenario Festival 2013' of the Arena di Verona. Carlus Padrissa and Alex Olle sign a brilliant new version of Aida. Aida is the most popular opera at the Verona Festival, the only one performed every year, 17000 spectators enjoy the show every evening. This new production is designed by La Fura dels Baus. They transform the arena into a huge desert, creating mechanical animals and manufacture a solar power plant. They use their experience in leading large-scale shows and opera to create the Aida of the XXIst century splendidly conducted by a young talented conductor : Omer Meir Wellber.

Bottesini has enjoyed a new lease of life recently, thanks to recordings by distinguished double bassists such as Rick Stotjin and Leon Bosch. This CD, featuring Davide Botto and an impressive cast of players drawn largely from the Philharmonic Orchestra of Turin’s Teatro Regio, provides yet another compelling argument for the composer’s sprawling repertoire.

Much of this music was written for the very specific purpose of demonstrating the extraordinary possibilities of what was then—as for much of the 20th century—tragically ignored as a solo instrument. Consequently, there is always the danger with these pieces that they become mere excuses for empty technical display. Thankfully, Botto’s mature, restrained style sweeps away these doubts, even when he is joined by the equally capable Davide Ghio on the recorded premiere of the Capriccio, a remarkable duet that is essentially structured to exhibit the various qualities of the bass.

The consummate fluency with which the pair tackle virtuoso passages is lightly worn, with deft use of thumb position to manage the dizzying array of harmonics and double-stopped notes, and a gorgeous bel canto bowing style. Also worthy of praise, Alessandro Dorella’s sensitive contribution on the Duetto for bass and clarinet suggests an unlikely kinship between these mellow instruments.

-- The Strad

As winner of the inaugural Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958, Van Cliburn was lauded by the greats, including Shostakovich, Gilels and Sviatoslav Richter, who is said to have proclaimed 'he is a pianist, the others are not'. The three Chopin performances on this DVD were filmed by the BBC just one year later, when Cliburn was still very much in his prime. His performances of these three popular Chopin works exude controlled brilliance - grandeur and virtuosity without ostentation. Claudio Arrau, recognizable for his rich, sonorous tone and often described as 'Prince', 'Emperor', and 'King' of the keyboard, is an excellent companion to Cliburn on this DVD. Widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, he was renowned for his definitive interpretations of almost every composer he engaged with, although he remains most celebrated for his Beethoven.

Garrick Ohlsson- winner of the 1970 Chopin Competition, one of the greatest Chopin specialists of our time, honored during the 2018 August Chopin and His Europe festival with the Gloria Arts Gold Medal- has recorded two Chopin recitals for The Fryderyk Chopin Institute: one on modern piano, the other on period piano. The same program in two different sound versions. This is now The Fryderyk Chopin Institute’s fourth such double album; these albums are of extraordinary knowledge-building value, permitting sensitive listeners to acquaint themselves with the particular beauty of early instruments in confrontation with their modern version. Garrick Ohlsson’s newest recordings acquaint us more closely with Chopin in two different ways, in both cases with the greatest of expertise in his music. For this recording, Garrick Ohlsson selected genres characteristic of Chopin: a ballade, nocturnes, a scherzo, mazurkas. The artist played this recital on a Steinway piano.

When in March 2018 the first bars of Schubert's "Unfinished" reached the recording equipment, this was not the everyday life of musicians who fulfilled their daily tasks, but the birth of a new body of sound: the KlangKollektiv Wien. Under the baton of R�my Ballot, musicians from Vienna's leading orchestras gathered to celebrate the music of Viennese Classicism and collectively rediscover it. In order to take into account the unique sound culture of this young ensemble, the producers of this recording at Gramola insisted on using even the highest quality analog recording device. In each bar of the Symphony No. 1 D 82 and the "Unfinished", the consonant love of music is felt, with which the KlangKollektiv Vienna embarks on it's self-imposed mission.

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This disc forms part of Chandos’ ongoing Richard Hickox legacy series. The re-release features Rossini's Stabat Mater, performed by Richard Hickox and the City of London Sinfonia. They are joined by the London Symphony Orchestra Chorus and four excellent soloists: Helen Field, Della Jones, Arthur Davies and Roderick Earle.

Three events were decisive for Paul Badura-Skonda’s beginnings: Furtwangler and Karajan hired the still unknown musician for their concerts in Vienna in 1949. By standing in for the sick Edwin Fischer at the Salzburg Festival in 1950 he became an international star. Major tours as a soloist followed. Further highlights in his career were his first tour of Japan, where he appeared in Tokyo alone 14 times, and the first, highly successful tour through the Soviet Union in 1964, which was followed by many other tours. In 1979, Paul Badura-Skoda was the first Western pianist to perform in China after the Cultural Revolution. In the Mozart jubilee year 1991, he played the cycle of all Mozart’s sonatas in Paris, Vienna Munich, Madrid, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc. Paul describes his performance of the B minor Sonata by Franz Liszt from March 29, 1965 in the Carnegie Hall in New York as “one of the most inspired achievements of my career as a pianist.” To confront a perficious and nasty critique two weeks before in the same venue, Badura-Skoda played as unleashed, with an enormous energy, fuelled in part by internal fury. This concert recording which is to an extent owed to that heat of the moment is being published now, featuring a second interpretation of the same Sonata, a studio recording made in the Mozartsaal of the Vienna Konzerthaus six years later. This version is more controlled and, in the calmer passages, more internalized and contemplative than the New York interpretation. Let it be up to the listener to decide which of the two versions is the preferred one.

British pianist Imogen Cooper has studied with some of the finest in the piano world, including with Kathleen Long in London, with Jacques Fevrier and Yvonne Lefebure in Paris, and with Alfred Brendel, Jorg Demus and Paul Badura-Skoda in Vienna. She is widely recognized for her interpretations of Schubert and Schumann. This release follows her three very successful recordings of Schumann. For this album, Cooper has chosen some of the greatest works of Chopin. The album programme makes up an outstanding recital. Coopers virtuosity and emotional wisdom creates a new lense through which to view this frequently performed repertoire. Following this release, Imogen Cooper will embark on a world tour, performing recitals that will include the repertoire included here, and visiting several of Europe’s most prestigious venues before venturing to other continents.

The 20th century compositions asssembled on this disc embody the reaction of the ensemble to the political misuse of music. The Unmilitarised Zones by HK Gruber are islands of peace in a chaotic sequence of the most varied march fragments that go from the Badenweiler March via Sousa's Washington Post march to the Hungarian march of Berlioz. (Capriccio)

Verdi: Rigoletto

Ponchielli: La Gioconda, Op. 9