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Bernstein: Symphony No 2, Etc / Judd

Naxos

$9.99 ~~$19.99~~ Save 50% Jul 01, 2003

"The opening "Candide" Overture is particularly poignant, for it reveals a band full of life and spirit eagerly responding to Mr. Judd's forward-leaning and even accelerating tempo. But perhaps the most valuable item here is Bernstein's Symphony No. 2, "The Age of Anxiety," a strong work -- alternately atmospheric and excitable, and ultimately carefree -- that is not overrecorded. Jean Louis Steuerman is a deft piano soloist, and the orchestra again does itself proud under Mr. Judd's steady hand." - James Oestreich, NEW YORK TIMES

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Bernstein: Symphony No 2, Etc / Judd
Naxos Jul 2003
CD
~~$19.99~~ $9.99

SAINT-SAENS SONATES ET TRIO

ERATO

$17.28 Jan 08, 2021

2021 marks 100 years since the death of Camille Saint-Saens, one of the acknowledged masters of French music. Pianist Bertrand Chamayou, violinist Renaud Capucon and cellist Edgar Moreau salute him with this album of three of his finest chamber works: the Violin Sonata No 1, Cello Sonata No 1 and Piano Trio No 2. "These are splendid works," says Bertrand Chamayou, "but only relatively rarely performed and recorded. This is essential French Romantic chamber music and French performers of our generation have a duty to share it with audiences."

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SAINT-SAENS SONATES ET TRIO
ERATO Jan 2021
CD
$17.28

Schubert: Piano Trios Nos. 1 & 2 - Piano Trio in B flat majo
Gramola Records Nov 2011
CD
$31.99

Rachmaninoff: Cello & Piano Music

Urania Records

$21.99 Jan 16, 2026

Rachmaninov, considered by academics to be a late romantic, often draws on Baroque models: an eclecticism of languages. He experiences music as a memory of affection, and in few places, as here, his insatiable Faustian aspiration to 'stop the moment' reaches a similar intensity. Op. 19 breathes a sense of a return to life and the otherworldly cello calls shatter according to a principle of hallucinatory suspension which is already the Rachmaninov of the Symphonic Dances op. 45. Piano Sonata No. 2 in E-flat minor, Op. 36 had a complex gestation, culminating in a 1931 revision in which the Maestro reduced a certain 'pleasant storytelling' in the style of Liszt, moving closer to the neoclassical matrix, but 'Russian-style', of his later works. As an ideal encore, the programme also features the Danse orientale Op. 2, No. 2, the adolescent Sergei's homage to that narrative of exotic landscapes, musical scales infused with chromatic enchantments.

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Rachmaninoff: Cello & Piano Music
Urania Records Jan 2026
CD
$21.99

Mix & Match

Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge

Aeon

$29.99 Feb 25, 2014

Bach's late, contrapuntal masterwork, left incomplete upon his death in 1750. Played here on an untempered piano and complete on 2 CDs. French/Swiss pianist Cedric Pescia has concertized throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Professor of piano at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Geneve. Gold Medalist - 2002 Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition in Salt Lake City, Utah (USA).

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Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge
Aeon Feb 2014
CD
$29.99

IMAGINARY CYCLE

ECM RECORDS

Vinyl

$45.79 Jan 03, 2025

Florian Weber - "Imaginary Cycle" [2 LP] Idiosyncratic, large-scale and in it's fundamental disposition one-of-a-kind, Florian Weber's Imaginary Cycle, conceived for the unique instrumentation of brass ensemble and piano, is a hybrid of multiple musical languages that seamlessly blends the harmonious with the oblique. Here, Weber presents a cycle in four parts, plus an opening and an epilogue, in which the German pianist is joined by a group of unexpected artists, together performing a work that blurs the line where improvisation ends and composition begins. 2 LP set. Verve Label Group; ECM; Jazz.

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IMAGINARY CYCLE
ECM RECORDS Jan 2025
Vinyl
$45.79

Schoenberg: String Trio, Four Pieces For Mixed Chorus / Craft, London Sinfonietta

Naxos

$19.99 Mar 30, 2010

SCHOENBERG String Trio, op. 45 1,2,3. 4 Pieces for Mixed Chorus, op. 27 5. 3 Satires for Mixed Chorus, op. 28 5. Septet-Suite, op. 29 1,3,4. Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene, op. 34 6 • 1 Rolf Schulte (vn); 2 Richard O’Neill (va); 3 Fred Sherry (vc); 4 Christopher Oldfather (pn); 4 Charles Neidich, Alan R. Kay (cl); 4 Michael Lowenstern (bs cl); 4 Toby Appel (va); 5 Simon Joly Chorale; Robert Craft, cond; 5 London Sinfonietta; 6 London SO • NAXOS 8557529 (79:12)

Robert Craft’s extensive new series of Schoenberg recordings continues apace with this release, Vol. 11 (for those who are keeping score at home). As indicated in my earlier review of his new version of Pelleas et Mélisande, this new series has far lusher, more reverberant sound than his earlier Columbia recordings, which obscures some detail even though it retains some of the old fire. I was very curious to hear this disc, however, as it contains works he did not previously record and indicates that his oeuvre will now include chamber pieces that don’t necessarily need a conductor, even though he is listed as such on the CD box and booklet.

Sixty years after his death, Schoenberg remains an acquired taste—to some, a taste they’d rather not acquire at all. The problem is not, and never was, that his music is completely inaccessible but that the rigorous rules of 12-tone music make it more of a mind game than an expressive device. Craft and the chamber musicians involved in the present release try to overcome this obstacle by infusing their performances with a goodly amount of real emotion. Despite their good intentions, however, the String Trio strikes me as overly busy and consistently neurotic. Atypical of Schoenberg, he published the trio with a detailed chart, measure by measure, of the form of the piece. Well, any music that needs that much explanation, even to the performers, isn’t going to do much to communicate to any but the most dedicated atonal buff.

On the other hand, the Four Pieces and Three Satires for mixed chorus are—for atonal music—quite a bit of fun to listen to. Here, Schoenberg breaks up the rhythmic patterns and, especially in the Four Pieces, produces some exceptionally fine choral writing. Most whimsical of all is the third Satire, “Der neue Klassizismus,” which keeps seesawing back and forth between 4/4 and 3/4, and even within the 3/4 time, fractions the beats to keep the listener off-balance. I loved it!

Also very playful, despite its density, is the Septet-Suite, which is very close in spirit and feeling to the Serenade (one of my personal favorite of all Schoenberg works, and to this day one of his most popular pieces). One thing that really makes this piece work, for me, is the sound quality. By switching recording venues to Master Sound Astoria Studios in New York, we are treated to absolutely superb sonics for such a chamber work, clear as a bell with only a bit of natural resonance. Would that the entire series was recorded this way. I’m not sure if Schoenberg indicated that the piano be somewhat recessed in volume, or if this was a decision by Craft or the musicians, but it works beautifully, making the instrument sound more like a xylophone in the way it fits into the musical texture. As the piano is pushed a bit back from the microphone, the bass clarinet is brought forward, and this, too, imparts a richness of balance to the sound texture that I find particularly warm and rewarding.

But Craft, and Naxos, save the best piece for last. Despite the over-reverberant, almost goopy ambience, Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene is an absolute masterpiece that morphs and grows and moves with a real Viennese rhythmic lilt despite its dense scoring and atonal structure. Craft explains the reason: The earlier of the nine episodes are written in somewhat slower tempos that build gradually toward the ninth and last, “Catastrophe.” I would, however, also give a large amount of credit for the work’s success to Craft’s wonderful sense of proportion and the way he builds and releases tension.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

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Schoenberg: String Trio, Four Pieces For Mixed Chorus / Craft, London Sinfonietta
Naxos Mar 2010
CD
$19.99

Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage Vol 2, Italy / Jenö Jandó
Naxos Feb 1992
CD
$19.99

3 Sonatas, Op. 10

Challenge Classics

$16.99 Feb 20, 2026

Beethoven's three Sonatas Op. 10, written between 1796 and 1798, mark a decisive step from the Classical clarity of Haydn and Mozart toward a bolder, more individual language. Each sonata displays a distinct character: the C minor No. 1 combines tragic urgency with structural concentration; the F major No. 2 reveals Beethoven's emerging humor and rhythmic invention; and the expansive D major No. 3 unfolds an unprecedented emotional and architectural scale, crowned by the visionary Largo e mesto. The unifying rhythmic motif of "short-long" pulses through the set, foreshadowing the composer's later dramas. Performed on an 1820 Conrad Graf fortepiano, Roberto Prosseda's interpretation restores the music's raw contrasts, speaking timbres, and anti-rhetorical gestures that modern pianos often smooth away. In his personal note, Prosseda explains how returning to these works on a historical instrument transformed his understanding of Beethoven's expression. The fortepiano's transparency, differentiated registers, and responsive mechanism invite a freer phrasing and more rhetorical, speech-like delivery. He aims not for novelty but sincerity-seeking to rediscover familiar music through it's original sound world. Prosseda is one of Italy's leading pianists with a distinguished career, celebrated for his complete Mendelssohn and Mozart recordings and for reviving the pedal piano. This Beethoven Op. 10 album follows his acclaimed Op. 2 set for Challenge Classics, continuing his exploration of early Beethoven on period instruments.

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3 Sonatas, Op. 10
Challenge Classics Feb 2026
CD
$16.99

Mix & Match

C.P.E. BACH: WURTTEMBERG SONATAS

ECM RECORDS

$23.07 Jun 30, 2023

Keith Jarrett's account of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's W�rttemberg Sonatas is a revelation. "I'd heard the sonatas played by harpsichordists, and felt there was room for a piano version," says Jarrett today. This outstanding recording, made in 1994 and previously unreleased, finds the pianist attuned to the expressive implications of the sonatas in every moment. Recorded at Keith Jarrett's Cavelight Studio in May 1994, the album includes liner notes by Paul Griffiths. 2 CD.

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C.P.E. BACH: WURTTEMBERG SONATAS
ECM RECORDS Jun 2023
CD
$23.07

Raff: Piano Four-Hands Sonatas / Wikman & Wikman

Sterling Records

$20.99 Nov 04, 2022

It was common practice in the nineteenth century for major orchestral and chamber works to be made available in piano four-hand reductions, as concert and recital-going was still a novelty and many middle-class homes had a piano, and these editions made such large works accessible to a much wider piano-playing public. What was less common was that Raff prepared his own piano four-hand arrangements, as often this time-consuming task was farmed out by composers and publishers to separate arrangers. However, Raff was also a skilled arranger himself. In addition to the original works mentioned above, he wrote a further eight works for piano four-hands which were either early pieces based on the melodies of other composers or more straightforward arrangements and transcriptions of the works of others, made at the request of publishers.

The Piano Four-Hands Sonata in E minor Op. 73b was arranged from the Violin Sonata No. 1, probably early in 1854 shortly after Raff finished work on the Sonata itself, but was not published by Schuberth until 1867, eight years after the original work, which had become the most successful of his five violin sonatas. The second work in the series, the Piano Four-Hands Sonata in A major Op. 90b, is an arrangement of the String Quartet No. 2, and was probably made immediately after Raff finished the Quartet in May 1857. The Quartet was published in 1862, but the Sonata remained in manuscript during Raff’s lifetime although it appears that as late as August 1881 Schuberth was preparing to publish it, as the company acknowledged receipt of Raff’s corrections of the proof. Publication never took place however, possibly because his death in June the next year intervened, and so it was not until the composer’s bicentenary year that Edition Nordstern published a first edition in 2022.

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Raff: Piano Four-Hands Sonatas / Wikman & Wikman
Sterling Records Nov 2022
CD
$20.99

Silver Lining Suite

TELARC

$16.49 Oct 08, 2021

Hiromi's latest album, Silver Lining Suite pairs her virtuosic and emotive piano with a string quartet assembled by violinist Tatsuo Nishie, concertmaster of the New Japan Philharmonic. Devised for a series of live-streamed concerts at the Blue Note Tokyo during the Covid pandemic, the results blur the lines between classical music and jazz, crafting a vibrant hybrid possessed of the fervent, rock-inspired energy and cinematic beauty that Hiromi has always instilled in her music.

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Silver Lining Suite
TELARC Oct 2021
CD
$16.49

Brahms: Early Piano Works Vol 2 / Hardy Rittner

MDG

SACD

$24.99 Nov 01, 2008

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

3250600.az_BRAHMS_Piano_Sonatas_1.html

BRAHMS Piano Sonatas: No. 1 in C; No. 3 in f • Hardy Rittner (pn) • MDG 9041538 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 67:51)

“One of the best new solo Brahms albums to come my way in quite some time” was how I described Volume 1 of Hardy Rittner’s survey of Brahms’s early piano works in 32:1. Volume 2 adds the First and Third Sonatas to the Second Sonata, Variations on a Theme of Schumann , and ballades previously released. For this recording, Rittner plays a slightly earlier piano, one made in 1849–50, from the workshop of Ignaz Bösendorfer. On Volume 1, he played an instrument made in 1851.

I’ve always wondered why Brahms never wrote another piano sonata after having written three huge and enormously difficult essays in the form before his 21st birthday. It wasn’t for lack of wanting to. We know that his initial sketches for what would eventually become the D-Minor Piano Concerto began as a sonata for two pianos. The same is true of the F-Minor Piano Quintet, which Brahms did preserve and publish as op. 34b. But in both cases, these were conceived for two keyboards, not one. Brahms was an accomplished pianist, appearing publicly in that capacity on a regular basis, so one would think that the solo piano sonata would have been a logical vehicle for him to exploit. My conjecture—and it’s just that—is that even though the piano, by every evidence of the sound of the instrument on this disc (an instrument of exactly the same vintage as the sonatas), had evolved to its approximately modern-day state, it was still incapable of producing the symphonic sound and textures Brahms was able to achieve in his chamber works that joined piano with strings. The Bösendorfer here—serial number 1665—is of the new rounded case design with separate fallboard, a compass of seven octaves, and a length of over seven and a half feet. It also has both damper and una corda pedals.

A reading of any history of the piano’s evolution will tell you that, except for body length, which increased to approximately nine feet in the early 20th century, and continuing refinements to the frame and key mechanisms, most of the technical innovations, such as the double escapement action, the single piece cast iron frame, felt-covered hammers, the sostenuto pedal, and over-stringing were all inventions and improvements of the 19th century, some dating from even before Brahms was born. So, for all intents and purposes, Rittner’s Bösendorfer is much closer to a Steinway Model D than it is to any instrument Mozart would have known.

The sonic impact of this hybrid multichannel SACD is palpable, as it was on Volume 1. I find myself, however, not quite as wowed by Rittner’s readings of these two sonatas as I was by his previous release. His playing, technically, is still most impressive. But he is competing here against a number of pianists who have earned very high marks in this repertoire. I’m thinking in particular of Emanuel Ax and Mikhail Rudy. What seems ever so slightly lacking to me in Rittner’s performances is Brahms’s youthful exuberance, the sense of a young man barely out of his teens feeling, if not sowing, his oats. There’s just a bit of reserve or holding back in some of the go-for-broke passages, where Ax and Rudy throw caution to the winds and abandon themselves to Brahms’s unleashed passions.

This is a very minor criticism and should not put anyone off from acquiring this disc. Just to hear these works performed on an instrument that Brahms himself might have played, and captured in a recording of such depth and physical presence, is enough to offset any trifling reservation I may have expressed. If Rittner and MDG are planning a full run at all of Brahms’s works for solo piano, I definitely look forward to future installments.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

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Brahms: Early Piano Works Vol 2 / Hardy Rittner
MDG Nov 2008
SACD
$24.99

The Lost Art of Jacob Lateiner, Vol. 2

PARNASSUS

$14.63 Oct 28, 2022

Volume One was warmly received by critics and pianophiles alike. Jacob Lateiner's reputation was massive in his lifetime but he did not make very many studio recordings. This release and it's previous volume correct that anomaly with great distinction. Noted as a Beethoven interpreter, this album combines the Greatest of his Beethoven interpretations with the most famous of works by Schumann, Ravel and Liszt.

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The Lost Art of Jacob Lateiner, Vol. 2
PARNASSUS Oct 2022
CD
$14.63

Works For Solo Piano 1955-2005

Kontrapunkt

$41.99 Jan 10, 2006

Denmark’s leading composer Ib Nørholm started his musical education at the age of nine with piano lessons and began to study organ at 15. It is with keyboard instruments that Nørholm developed and matured both as composer and performing artist (Nørholm received diploma as organist and has been the appointed organist at Copenhagen’s Bethlehem Church for a number of years.) This 2-CD set of superbly performed piano works traces Nørholm’s footsteps in the past 50 years and illustrates the exceptional career of a great contemporary composer.

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Works For Solo Piano 1955-2005
Kontrapunkt Jan 2006
CD
$41.99

PIANO

MUSIC ON VINYL

Vinyl

$67.49 Dec 19, 2025

'There's something about sitting there-just me, the keys, and the silence. No beats, no drops. Only raw emotion. ' Amid the euphoric rush of electronic dance music, Armin Van Buuren found space in the quiet to write his most honest music yet. As someone who knows better than anyone what moves a crowd, he set out to discover what moved him. And often, that instrument is the piano. Containing 15 intimate piano songs, this album shows a different side to the world-famous DJ and producer: more personal, more emotional. First recorded on his Steinway, then arranged into proper scores alongside piano teacher Geronimo, this body of work is saturated with the vulnerability of stepping beyond his comfort zone: swapping the grandiosity of the mainstage for rich piano tones lingering in silence. It's pure, reflective, and as much as the beat-driven music he's released over his storied career-100% Armin Van Buuren. Piano is available on a 2LP set, complete with 16-page booklet including pictures and liner notes by Armin. LISTEN: https://www. Youtube. com/user/arminvanbuuren * 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL * DELUXE HEAVYWEIGHT SLEEVE * INCLUDES 16 PAGE BOOKLET * BRAND NEW ALBUM FEAT. 15 INTIMATE PIANO SONGS, INCLUDING A COVER OF ROBERT MILES 'CHILDREN' * BLACK VINYL Track listing: Side A 1. Here For you 2. Longing 3. Sonic Samba 4. Fathers and Sons Side B 1. Be My Lighthouse 2. Waltz 3. Temporality 4. Setting Sail Side C 1. Autumn Leaves 2. Equanimity 3. Ballerina 4. Synchronicity Side D 1. Clouded Window 2. Soaring Kite 3. Children

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PIANO
MUSIC ON VINYL Dec 2025
Vinyl
$67.49

Gerhard: Don Quixote (Complete Ballet); Suite from Alegrias;

Chandos

$21.99 Aug 02, 2024

The Catalan Roberto Gerhard studied piano with Granados, and was the only Spanish composer to study with Arnold Schoenberg. It was, however, over twenty years before he committed himself to writing twelve-tone music. In the interim, his output brought a new focus and precision (owing more to Stravinsky and Bartok) to the Spanish style. All the works on this album were composed in that period. Dating from the early 1940s, his ballet Alegrias was originally conceived for two pianos, but soon evolved into the four-movement suite heard here. The flamenco-inspired movements are linked in pairs, and show Gerhard's brilliance and humour in equal measure. During this same period Gerhard decided to mark the centenary of his first teacher, Felipe Pedrell (who had also taught Albeniz, Granados, and de Falla), with a three-movement symphony, Homenaje a Pedrell (CHAN 9693). Gerhard failed to secure a performance of the work, but in 1954 was invited to re-work the final movement for a BBC Symphony Orchestra concert, which became Pedrelliana. Gerhard's ballet on episodes from Cervantes's Don Quixote evolved for almost a decade, from a work for chamber orchestra, for a touring company (abandoned because of the war), via a version for radio and an expanded orchestral suite, to the work recorded here, in it's full and final orchestration for performances at the Royal Opera House in 1950, choreographed by Ninette de Valois. Robert Helpmann danced the title role and Margot Fonteyn Dulcinea.

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Gerhard: Don Quixote (Complete Ballet); Suite from Alegrias;
Chandos Aug 2024
CD
$21.99

Szczerbinski: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 2 / Koukl

Grand Piano

$19.99 Mar 04, 2022

Polish composer Alfons Szczerbiński was a Romantic who revered Bach, Haydn and Mozart above all others. Many of his scores were lost during the First World War or destroyed by the composer himself. His most extrovert music exudes the panache and rhythmic brio of Chopin whilst his series of Chansons sans paroles display a flair for harmonic fantasy and melodic beauty reminiscent of Mendelssohn. Giorgio Koukl’s second volume of Szczerbiński’s complete piano music reveals yet more discoveries by this unjustly neglected composer.

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Szczerbinski: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 2 / Koukl
Grand Piano Mar 2022
CD
$19.99

Le concert c'est moi

Gramola Records

$24.99 Nov 28, 2025

Rome 1839, Palazzo Poli: one of Liszt's Roman concerts has gained significance in the history of music. A prominent audience of high ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries listened to Liszt's performances. Strangely enough, it was at this concert that Liszt took the risk of introducing a new type of program, as he decided for the first time to dispense with the participation of other artists and to conduct the evening entirely on his own. This was the first "solo piano recital" or, as Liszt jokingly put it: "The first of my boring musical monologues, which I now want to give everywhere in future. Le Concert c'est moi!" This album by Kateryna Titova presents live recordings as well as recordings made as part of an eponymous exhibition at the museum at Liszt's birthplace Raiding, featuring, among others, the so-called Dante Sonata, Liebestraume Nos. 2 & 3, two Paganini etudes as well as the first Mephisto Waltz.

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Le concert c'est moi
Gramola Records Nov 2025
CD
$24.99

Mix & Match

Shostakovich: Jazz & Variety Suites / Litton, Singapore Symphony Orchestra

BIS

SACD

$21.99 Apr 01, 2022

Dmitri Shostakovich was a versatile composer: popular and serious styles came to him with equal ease and are frequently found together in the same work. In his twenties, before the heavy hand of Soviet officialdom slapped him down in 1936, music of every kind poured out of him: symphonies, operas and full-length ballets but also a great amount of music for film and theatre. Here Andrew Litton leads the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in a program which explores this lighter side of a composer who is otherwise often regarded as unrelentingly serious.

The album opens with Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1, which Litton conducts from the piano. Consisting of three brief movements, it is the only truly original work on the disc, written in 1934 for a competition aimed at making ‘Soviet Jazz’ more respectable. The remaining suites are all reworkings of existing music, such as the ballets The Age of Gold – about the adventures of a Soviet football team visiting the decadent West – and The Limpid Stream, portraying a group of entertainers visiting an idyllic collective farm. The Suite for Variety Orchestra is a compilation that the composer made in the late 1950s from three film scores, a ballet movement and four piano pieces. Closing the album is Shostakovich’s 1927 orchestration of a Broadway classic, Vincent Youmans’ "Tea for Two," which had become a hit under the title "Tahiti Trot."

REVIEW:

Entitled Jazz & Variety, this album encompasses four of Shostakovich’s more popular-style suites, mainly drawn from his ballet and theatre scores. These range from the poker-faced, Kurt Weill-like stylization of 1920s dance music, complete with plunking banjo, in the Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1 (1934), via the Prokofiev-like burlesques of The Age of Gold – a 1930 ballet about the vicissitudes of a Soviet football team in the wicked West – to the more straightforwardly traditional ballet numbers of The Limpid Stream(1935/45) set on an idyllic collective farm, and the Suite for Variety Orchestra put together from various pieces from the 1950s.

One item, the Waltz from the Jazz Suite, recurs twice: more fully orchestrated in The Limpid Stream, and in yet a third arrangement with a different, more banal middle section, in the Variety Suite. The collection culminates in Shostakovich’s twinkling orchestration of a version of ‘Tea for Two’, entitled Tahiti Trot (1927). Yet, in the middle of all these frolics, the searing intensity of the extended Adagio from The Age of Gold reminds us of the other, tragic side of Shostakovich.

Andrew Litton and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra lavish more care and subtlety on these pieces than the quality of invention in some of the music maybe deserves, additionally flattered by BIS’s spacious recording – though the Jazz Suite might have more bite in a drier acoustic. Still, this is a superior collection for those who relish this lighter, sometimes naughtier side of Shostakovich.

-- BBC Music Magazine

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Shostakovich: Jazz & Variety Suites / Litton, Singapore Symphony Orchestra
BIS Apr 2022
SACD
$21.99

An Introduction To Dmitri Shostakovich

Chandos

$13.99 Aug 01, 2006

This CD combines Shostakovich's most popular symphony with other orchestral hits, including the thrilling 'Festive Overture' and the witty arrangement of Vincent Youman's 'Tea for Two'. The conductor and the soloist in the Piano Concerto No.2 are the composer's son and grandson, giving the performance great authority and representing a unique perspective on the music. Neeme Järvi's Shostakovich CDs with the Scottish National Orchestra are some of the most famous recordings of the digital era. 'Most probably the finest Shostakovich disc ever issued and without doubt my choice.' - Fanfare 'Neeme Järvi's understanding of the bleak world inhabited by Shostakovich's symphonies continues to impress. Chandos' sound is superb as always.' - American Record Guide

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An Introduction To Dmitri Shostakovich
Chandos Aug 2006
CD
$13.99

Andris Nelsons conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker

C Major Entertainment

Blu-Ray

$45.99 Oct 17, 2025

Andris Nelsons and the Wiener Philharmoniker explore the brilliance of Bela Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 2 and the emotional depths of Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony. Passionate but restrained, Andris Nelsons conducts both masterpieces with superb clarity and precision: Mahler's famous Adagietto unfolds with "unreal shimmer and dark glow" (BR Klassik). Yefim Bronfman is the soloist in one of the most difficult piano concertos ever written and impresses with "impeccable technique, expressive power, and a touch of swing" (Der Standard). The concert is part of the Wiener Philharmoniker's Mahler cycle with Andris Nelsons.

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Andris Nelsons conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker
C Major Entertainment Oct 2025
Blu-Ray
$45.99

WHOREHOUSE PIANO
GHB JAZZ FOUNDATION Jul 2011
CD
$13.86

Schumann, R.: Violin Sonatas (Complete)
Azica Records Jan 1995
CD
$18.99

Fratres - Corigliano, Part / Maria Bachmann

Catalyst

$17.99 Jan 14, 2011

Here's a double-barrelled surprise: gripping new music for violin and piano and a performing style that revisits a sweet-scented immediacy more typical of previous generations.

Here's a double-barrelled surprise: gripping new music for violin and piano and a performing style that revisits a sweet-scented immediacy more typical of previous generations. Maria Bachmann, a pupil of Ivan Galamian and the late Szymon Goldberg, has a bright, winsome tone and a heartwarming interpretative manner. The works that particularly suit her are Corigliano's 1963 Violin Sonata and the two pieces that were written with her in mind, Albert Glinsky's Toccata-Scherzo and Paul Moravec's Sonata. Of the latter two, the Glinsky is the more memorable—a sort of Sarasate for the 1990s, its lyrical centre-piece flanked by brilliant outer sections. The Moravec is busy and pleasant, but even Bachmann's dextrous advocacy can't quite mask its stylistic anonymity. The Corigliano, on the other hand, harbours the kind of juicy 'tunes' that modern players search for in vain but hardly ever find in contemporary music. The Lento is strikingly memorable, whereas elsewhere Corigliano demands all the tricks of the fiddler's trade—harmonics, pizzicatos, sal pondcello and so on, all couched in an appealing musical context that might best be described as Stravinsky-cum-Samuel Barber.

Turning then to Fratres and comparing Bachmann with Gidon Kremer (ECM), I was interested to note how Bachmann arpeggiates pizzicato chords, a gesture totally in keeping with her warmer, less spidery approach. Ksemer's rougher-edged but rather more ethereal reading still gets my vote, but Bachmann provides an engagingly demonstrative alternative. Messiaen himself said of his "Praise to the Immortality of Jesus" that it "specifically addresses the second aspect of Jesus, namely His human aspect, the Word that has become flesh, resurrected immortal to give Him life." And it's as well to bear that in mind when listening to Bachmann's unusually sensuous performance, an affectionate, this-worldly option to the more withdrawn manner of, say, Luben Yordanoff (with Barenboim on DG).

Bachmann receives sympathetic support from Jon Klibonoff and both are nicely recorded. I thoroughly enjoyed this recital, and I sincerely hope that there's another on the way. But if and when it arrives, I do hope that RCA drop their tiresome idea of fold-up annotation: within a day or so, my copy was already beginning to look like an old shopping list. Booklets are far better. Incidentally, why photograph the immensely personable Maria Bachmann entangled in net curtains?

-- Robert Cowan, Gramophone [12/1993]

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Fratres - Corigliano, Part / Maria Bachmann
Catalyst Jan 2011
CD
$17.99