Small Is Beautiful / Yoko Hirota

$16.99
Label
Navona
Release Date
November 20, 2020
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      VARIOUS
    • PERFORMER
      Yoko Hirota
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      November 20, 2020
    • UPC
      896931005944
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      NV6294
    • LABEL
      Navona
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Classical
    Works ⌄

    1. No. 1. Leicht, zart

      Composer: Arnold Schoenberg

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    2. No. 2. Langsam

      Composer: Arnold Schoenberg

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    3. No. 3. Sehr langsam Viertel

      Composer: Arnold Schoenberg

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    4. No. 4. Rasch, aber leicht

      Composer: Arnold Schoenberg

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    5. No. 5. Etwas rasch

      Composer: Arnold Schoenberg

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    6. No. 6. Sehr langsam

      Composer: Arnold Schoenberg

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    7. No. 1. Etude

      Composer: Ernst Krenek

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    8. No. 2. Invention

      Composer: Ernst Krenek

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    9. No. 3. Scherzo

      Composer: Ernst Krenek

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    10. No. 4. Toccata

      Composer: Ernst Krenek

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    11. No. 5. Nocturne

      Composer: Ernst Krenek

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    12. No. 6. Waltz

      Composer: Ernst Krenek

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    13. No. 7. Air

      Composer: Ernst Krenek

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    14. No. 8. Rondo

      Composer: Ernst Krenek

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    15. Invention

      Composer: György Ligeti

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    16. 6 Encores: Erdenklavier

      Composer: Luciano Berio

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    17. 6 Encores: Brin

      Composer: Luciano Berio

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    18. 6 Encores: Leaf

      Composer: Luciano Berio

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    19. 90+

      Composer: Elliott Carter

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    20. Retrouvailles

      Composer: Elliott Carter

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    21. The Music Room

      Composer: John Beckwith

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    22. Fantasy

      Composer: Bruce Mather

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    23. Elegy for a Misty Afternoon

      Composer: Brian Cherney

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    24. CanOn Stride

      Composer: John Weinzweig

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    25. I. —

      Composer: Aris Carastathis

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    26. II. —

      Composer: Aris Carastathis

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    27. No. 1. —

      Composer: Gary Kulesha

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    28. No. 2. —

      Composer: Gary Kulesha

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    29. No. 1. —

      Composer: Robert Lemay

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    30. No. 2. —

      Composer: Robert Lemay

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    31. No. 3. —

      Composer: Robert Lemay

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    32. No. 4. —

      Composer: Robert Lemay

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    33. No. 5. —

      Composer: Robert Lemay

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    34. No. 6. —

      Composer: Robert Lemay

      Performer: Yoko Hirota

    35. Tanze vor Angst, "Hommage à Paul Klee"

      Composer: Robert Lemay

      Performer: Yoko Hirota


Japanese-Canadian pianist Yoko Hirota stuns with impeccable pianism on SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL: MINIATURE PIANO PIECES. Originally recorded in 2009, this remastered edition brings out the intricacies of 20th- and 21st-century piano composition with a clarity that was previously unheard of. The first half of the album's track list reads like an exhaustive compendium of 1900's compositional celebrities: Schoenberg, Krenek, Ligeti, Berio. It's a brainy choice: the tracks on SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL aren't ordered by length, as one might intuit, but instead in geographical and roughly chronological order. Vienna's modernists may have laid the foundation, but North America's modernists took serial and atonal composition to the next level. And so, to do the matter justice, there is a splendidly representative selection of Elliott Carter’s oeuvre, along with pieces by Canadian composers - John Beckwith. Despite the immense differences in cultural background and era – the selection spans almost a century, after all – they are all united by one distinguishing feature: They are short pieces, with lengths between 31 seconds and six-and-a-half minutes. Yoko Hirota, who holds a doctoral degree in piano performance and currently teaches the piano at the Music Department of Laurentian University in Ontario, Canada, plays all of these pieces with academic precision, regardless of their respective geographical or temporal provenance. A recording veteran with six previous contemporary albums under her belt, her grasp of the modernist zeitgeist is not only palpable, but extraordinary. And it shows: there is a subtle lyricism even where traditional harmonies clash, a sensitivity not just for the musical language of the era, but for the greater principles that underpin them. SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL doesn't just serve as an index of contemporary piano composition and its roots, it's a worthwhile addition to a modernist record collection on merit of Hirota's powerful interpretation alone.