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Quartz Music

Grieg: Holberg Suite, Tone Pictures, Lyric Pieces / Katya Apekisheva

$18.99

Details

Composer
GRIEG, EDVARD
Artist
Katya Apekisheva
Format
CD
Label
Quartz Music
Released
Jan 01, 2008
Catalog #
QTZ2061
UPC
880040206125

About



Mesmerising playing from a young pianist who captures the essence of Grieg’s genius

Let me put my cards on the table and say that Katya Apekisheva is a young pianist who has already achieved artistic greatness. Not even Gilels, in his legendary DG Grieg recital, played more magically or, astonishingly, with greater finesse. How thrilled Irina Zaritskaya, Apekisheva’s teacher and my much-missed jury colleague, would have been if she had lived to hear the fruit of her work with this profoundly gifted artist. A sonority of beguiling warmth and refinement and a rare poetic empathy quickly make you abandon paper and pencil and listen mesmerised as Apekisheva captures the very essence of Grieg’s genius. Here, in her mixed programme, she tells you with an often painfully beautiful and unforced eloquence of how Grieg’s romantic temperament was easily clouded by depression and unease, of the way, for example in “Homesickness” and “Vanished Days”, a heartbreaking state of mind is only temporarily modified by memories of happier times. In the Aria from the Holberg Suite she is deeply sensitive to the way Grieg’s love and respect for the 18th century is coloured by a near-Franckian chromaticism and dark introspection. These works and everything else on this beautifully recorded album suggest an artistic fervour and commitment given to very few in any generation.

The sense of the Lyric Pieces as Grieg’s confessional diary is everywhere in Apekisheva’s recital, an inwardness and vision less evident in Daniel Propper’s bracing recording of four books of the Lyric Pieces. Nimble-fingered and musicianly, this Swedish-Viennese pianist, who now makes his home in Paris, shows Grieg’s art evolving from simple beginnings into a world of increasing complexity and harmonic richness. His “Little Bird” (from Op 43) blithely chirrups in a manner far removed from Messiaen’s more spiritual feathered friends, and his way with “Erotic” from the same book achieves a fine sense of how outward contentment abruptly changes to emotional instability. In “Butterfly” he hardly matches Eileen Joyce’s incomparable nuance and vivacity (Testament), yet these finely recorded performances are an admirable antidote to all possible sentimentality.

-- Bryce Morrison, Gramophone [9/2008]

Tracklist 23 tracks

  1. 1 I. Prelude 02:40
    Track
    1
    Title
    I. Prelude
    Duration
    02:40
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  2. 2 II. Sarabande 03:26
    Track
    2
    Title
    II. Sarabande
    Duration
    03:26
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  3. 3 III. Gavotte 03:20
    Track
    3
    Title
    III. Gavotte
    Duration
    03:20
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  4. 4 IV. Air 08:35
    Track
    4
    Title
    IV. Air
    Duration
    08:35
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  5. 5 V. Rigaudon 04:38
    Track
    5
    Title
    V. Rigaudon
    Duration
    04:38
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  6. 6 No. 1. Allegro ma non troppo 01:42
    Track
    6
    Title
    No. 1. Allegro ma non troppo
    Duration
    01:42
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  7. 7 No. 2. Allegro cantabile 02:07
    Track
    7
    Title
    No. 2. Allegro cantabile
    Duration
    02:07
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  8. 8 No. 3. Con moto 01:51
    Track
    8
    Title
    No. 3. Con moto
    Duration
    01:51
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  9. 9 No. 4. Andante con sentimento 03:34
    Track
    9
    Title
    No. 4. Andante con sentimento
    Duration
    03:34
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  10. 10 No. 5. Allegro moderato 01:35
    Track
    10
    Title
    No. 5. Allegro moderato
    Duration
    01:35
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  11. 11 No. 6. Allegro scherzando 00:51
    Track
    11
    Title
    No. 6. Allegro scherzando
    Duration
    00:51
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  12. 12 Lyric Pieces, Book 6, Op. 57: No. 2. Gade 04:02
    Track
    12
    Title
    Lyric Pieces, Book 6, Op. 57: No. 2. Gade
    Duration
    04:02
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  13. 13 Lyric Pieces, Book 3, Op. 43: No. 6. To the Spring 03:30
    Track
    13
    Title
    Lyric Pieces, Book 3, Op. 43: No. 6. To the Spring
    Duration
    03:30
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  14. 14 Lyric Pieces, Book 7, Op. 62: No. 4. Brooklet 01:34
    Track
    14
    Title
    Lyric Pieces, Book 7, Op. 62: No. 4. Brooklet
    Duration
    01:34
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  15. 15 Lyric Pieces, Book 9, Op. 68: No. 3. At your Feet 03:13
    Track
    15
    Title
    Lyric Pieces, Book 9, Op. 68: No. 3. At your Feet
    Duration
    03:13
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  16. 16 Lyric Pieces, Book 3, Op. 43: No. 2. Lonely wanderer 02:44
    Track
    16
    Title
    Lyric Pieces, Book 3, Op. 43: No. 2. Lonely wanderer
    Duration
    02:44
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  17. 17 No. 4. Halling 00:50
    Track
    17
    Title
    No. 4. Halling
    Duration
    00:50
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  18. 18 No. 2. Album leaf 03:33
    Track
    18
    Title
    No. 2. Album leaf
    Duration
    03:33
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  19. 19 No. 3. March of the Trolls 03:30
    Track
    19
    Title
    No. 3. March of the Trolls
    Duration
    03:30
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  20. 20 No. 5. Scherzo 03:44
    Track
    20
    Title
    No. 5. Scherzo
    Duration
    03:44
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  21. 21 Lyric Pieces, Book 6, Op. 57: No. 6. Homesickness 05:20
    Track
    21
    Title
    Lyric Pieces, Book 6, Op. 57: No. 6. Homesickness
    Duration
    05:20
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  22. 22 Lyric Pieces, Book 8, Op. 65: No. 6. Wedding-Day at Troldhaugen 06:30
    Track
    22
    Title
    Lyric Pieces, Book 8, Op. 65: No. 6. Wedding-Day at Troldhaugen
    Duration
    06:30
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg
  23. 23 Lyric Pieces, Book 6, Op. 57: No. 1. Vanished days 06:33
    Track
    23
    Title
    Lyric Pieces, Book 6, Op. 57: No. 1. Vanished days
    Duration
    06:33
    Composer
    Edvard Grieg