From March to May 2015, John Zorn composed 300 new tunes that were eventually collected into a book of music he called The Bagatelles. Volume 7 is a remarkable solo piano performance by Brian Marsella who has become a lynchpin of Zorn's crew of musical masters. Blending classical and jazz into an exhilarating and varied suite, Brian presents a group of thirteen Bagatelles as a beautiful set of theme and variations. This is piano virtuosity at it's finest-a profound exploration into the world of Zorn's Bagatelles.
From March to May 2015, John Zorn composed 300 new tunes that were eventually collected into a book of music he called The Bagatelles. Volume 8 presents the long-awaited premiere recording of John Medeski's psychedelic organ trio. Featuring David Fiuczynski (Screaming Headless Torsos) in a striking Hendrix/Blood Ulmer mood and the powerhouse drummer G. Calvin Weston (Ornette Coleman, Lounge Lizards), the music is fierce, imaginative and endlessly creative. Touching on funk, jazz, psychedelic rock, metal and more-this is one of the most intense interpretations of the Bagatelles ever conceived. This music will sear your brain!! Essential.
Schumann: Gesange Der Fruhe; 7 Fughetten; Kreisleriana / Dina Ugorskaja
CAvi-music
CD
$19.99Oct 25, 2010
SCHUMANN Gesäng der Frühe. 7 Fughetten. Kreisleriana. Geistervariationen • Dina Ugorskaja (pn) • AVI MUSIC 8553217 (77:25)
The piercing and almost hypnotic eyes of pianist Dina Ugorskaja on the back cover of the booklet betray a perception and intelligence that serves her very well in this recording of three of Schumann’s late, tough pieces, and yet she has the flash and poetic power to give us an equally penetrating reading of Kreisleriana.
This last work, based on Hoffmann’s novel Views on Life by Murr, the Cat, along with a Fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, Jotted Down on Wastepaper Found by Chance (got to love those long titles), has the hero actually going mad at the end. Schumann found himself enthralled by the possibilities inherent in the rational/irrational aspects of the story, and the music certainly reflects this maddening dichotomy, replete with a variety of forms and a connecting inconsistency that somehow, in the end, makes sense after all. I have been big on Horowitz and (recently) Clara Würtz in this music, but Ugorskaja makes quite a play for my affections here, and definitely moves easily into a very competitive field.
The other works on this disc are very late and from Schumann’s last years when he was trying to forge a different sort of music and even tonality. The Songs from Early Morning is an attempt to forge something out of the aesthetics of Hölderlin’s writings, which had taken a turn towards looking back at earlier models. Schumann did the same, perhaps even an early shot at neoclassicism for the time, using sparse harmonies and very vague tonal references. It’s haunting and beautiful all at once, and definitely a look into the future, something that so intimidated Clara that she never once performed it in public.
The composer fought the idea of fugues for many years, ultimately giving in to them in 1849. But his Seven Piano Pieces in Fughetta Form from just a few days before his Rhenish suicide attempt explores the structure to a remarkable degree, looking back to Bach with a quote from the “Royal” theme in the Musical Offering and presenting us with really unique harmonic constructs and odd voice-leading. It is one of the great mysteries of music to wonder about the path he might have taken had he made it into his 50s.
We don’t really know what caused Schumann’s final breakdown and illness. Could it have been a slow awareness of the relationship that Brahms had forged with his wife, platonic or otherwise? Or maybe the idea of failure in Düsseldorf haunted him—hard to say. But the chaos, real or imaginary, in his head was killing him quickly. At one point in February of 1854 he suddenly got out of bed and wrote down a theme that he said had been dictated by angels to him. The theme of these five variations (which he wrote down in the following days) had been used before in his Violin Concerto. But after he had finished with these “ghosts” he tossed his wedding ring into the Rhine and followed soon after. Clara nixed both publication and performance of this piece, and the first edition is from 1939, though Brahms made a set of four-hand variations (op. 23) on the theme.
Ugorskaja makes a great case for these late works as being every bit as important as Schumann’s earlier piano music. She brings a heightened sensitivity to all her playing coupled with an extraordinary facile ability to convey the complexities of this music in an easily assimilated way. Great piano sound, too, and I can recommend this as one of the top choices for these late works, nicely gathered in one place, with the additional spice of a fully competitive Kreisleriana as well.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Complete Piano Works, Vol. 2
Audite Musikproduktion
CD
$36.99May 15, 2026
In the second instalment of Alfredo Perl's complete recording of Beethoven's piano works, the sonatas, variations, bagatelles and individual pieces composed during the so-called "classical" period (1801-1814) take centre stage. Their expressive power and innovative virtuosity constitute a landmark in the history of piano music.
Beethoven: Complete Bagatelles, Diabelli and Eroica Variatio
Piano Classics
CD
$20.99May 01, 2020
Winner of the prestigious Premio Venezia prize, Vincenzo Maltempo 'rides high among many young and gifted Italian pianists.' (Gramophone, January 2015). His recordings on Piano Classics have won critical acclaim for their technical finesse and musical sensitivity. His latest release is a timely one, celebrating the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth in Bonn with the two major variation sets and the ever-elusive, whimsical Bagatelles which have taxed the hands and imaginations of all the greatest pianists. All the works here derive ultimately from the composer's instincts as an improviser and thinker at the keyboard: playing continually with ideas both physical and intellectual, working them over and around the body of the instrument that was his own principal medium of expression. The Op. 34 variations marked a seachange in the composer's treatment of his form, sharing the expressive reach of his sonatas and concluding with an ambitious fugue. Even the Eroica Variations, however, give little notice of the visionary transformation wrought upon an upbeat but modest waltz, sent to him by his publisher Diabelli, in his final work in variation form. They occupied Beethoven on and off for five years, during which time he explored every possibility of the theme and of variation-form itself. The result is, in the words of Alfred Brendel, 'the greatest of all piano works.' Here and in the final Bagatelles we find Beethoven challenging even the outer limits of his own prodigious imagination as well as the fingers of his performers and the minds of his listeners. Amid the cavalcade of Beethoven releases in 2020, Maltempo's new album is a big event.
