Search results: Search results

840 results

Products

Skalkottas: Concertos For 2 Violins, Pianos / Christopoulos

BIS

$21.99 Jul 01, 2008

SKALKOTTAS Concerto for 2 Violins (orch. Demertzis). Concertino for 2 Pianos. Characteristic Piece, “Nocturnal Amusement” 1 • Vassilis Christopoulos, cond; Georgios Demertzis (vn); Simos Papanas (vn); Maria Asteriadou (pn); Nikolaos Samaltanos (pn); Dimitris Desyllas (xyl); 1 Thessaloniki St SO • BIS 1554 (55:02)

BIS has lavished a great deal of attention on Nikos Skalkottas (1904–1949), a former student of Arnold Schoenberg, who, like Alban Berg, took dodecaphony in a somewhat different direction from that of Schoenberg’s or Anton Webern’s. Kostis Demertzis’s booklet notes describe Skalkottas’s efforts to combine the system with popular elements that would entertain its listeners. He did so, for sure, in his Concerto for Two Violins (an unorchestrated version of which appeared on BIS 1244), a piece from 1944 that he never completed (or heard performed) and that he apparently intended to finish after he had completed his Second Symphonic Suite in the last year of his life. The Concerto’s first movement integrates the two bustling violin parts into an orchestral web (not only that of Kostis Demertzis’s orchestration but that of the engineers) more in the manner of Bach’s Double Concerto than in that of, say, Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola. As did Berg’s Violin Concerto, Skalkottas’s slow movement incorporates a borrowed tonal melody, this one, according to the notes, a rebetiko by Vassilis Tsitsanis that Skalkottas had chromatically enhanced. This popular-style melody slinks, if not as suggestively, in the sultry manner of the Blues from Ravel’s Violin Sonata, though the outer, fast, movements have been influenced by, and pay tribute to, a popular idiom of a different kind—folk music. The Concerto is substantial in both length (almost 38 minutes in this performance) and in substance, despite its emphasis on accessibility and entertainment. While the ardent violin lines in the slow movement emerge, as do those in the outer movements, from sonorous, highly colored tuttis, the third movement returns to the whirlwind manner of the first, with the violins emerging now in bands of melody reminiscent of Corelli’s trio-sonata textures, and now in sharply articulated folk-inspired thematic statements. A brilliant cadenza about two-thirds of the way through the finale showcases the two violins’ virtuosity. The soloists play with great energy and élan in the outer movements and an appropriate sultriness in the slow one; Christopoulos and the Orchestra provide highly colorful, enthusiastic orchestral support.

If anything, the Concertino for Two Pianos (from 1935) sounds even lighter and chattier in its first movement, affecting a boulevardier’s breeziness (as did Poulenc’s) but couched in the rigorous procedures of serialism. Demertzis’s notes trace some of the tone-row manipulations, while the lighthearted style will—especially in this engaging performance by Maria Asteriadou and Nikolaos Samaltanos—tempt a willing listener’s ear away from those compositional elements.

The Characteristic Piece (from 1949), almost—almost—firmly tonal, serves as a sort of fireworks display that brings the program to a close in an intoxicating performance with all the carnival appeal of George H. Green’s Fluffy Ruffles . It’s like musical licorice, and it’s hard not to listen again several times.

Charles Warren Fox, the Eastman School’s protomusicologist, used to insist in his classes on the 20th century that dodecaphony didn’t necessarily imply any particular compositional style. Skalkottas’s music, placed beside that of Webern, seems to reinforce the point of view upon which Fox so vehemently (and disdainfully) insisted. In any case, even in an era in which serialism’s sun may be setting, Skalkottas’s music, for its energetic forging of a novel, syncretistic, idiom, should appeal to a new generation of listeners. Recommended.

FANFARE: Robert Maxham

View Full Page

Skalkottas: Concertos For 2 Violins, Pianos / Christopoulos
BIS Jul 2008
CD
$21.99

Bach: Cello Suites Nos. 2, 4 & 5

Fontenay Classics

$20.99 Apr 21, 2017

There is a certain time for everything in life. And while we have all the time in our lives to become familiar with and play Johann Sebastian Bach's six suites for unaccompanied cello, there is only a very limited amount of time to record them. (Niklas Schmidt) Encouraged by his recording producer, Niklas Schmidt recorded the remaining suites II, IV and V in a space with an especially fine sound: the Andreas-Kirche church in Berlin Wannsee. For Schmidt this is not just any album, but the completion of a lifelong dream.

View Full Page

Bach: Cello Suites Nos. 2, 4 & 5
Fontenay Classics Apr 2017
CD
$20.99

Hovhaness: Concerto No. 2; Works for Violin and Piano

Naxos

$19.99 Jul 25, 2025

The music of Alan Hovhaness, one of America's most prolific composers, enchants with his signature synthesis of East and West. Influenced by his Armenian heritage and a fascination with nature and spirituality Hovhaness sought to create music "for all people, music which is beautiful and healing." This collection of works featuring the violin includes several premiere recordings. Concerto No. 2, one of a series of ten concertos for various instruments, requires the soloist and ensemble to play using distinctive effects including tone clusters, melisma, and playing without strict measure. Evocations of Armenian liturgy contrasted with dizzying Scottish jigs can be heard in the Violin Sonata.

View Full Page

Hovhaness: Concerto No. 2; Works for Violin and Piano
Naxos Jul 2025
CD
$19.99

Chopin: Complete Works for Piano & Orchestra, Vol. 2
DUX May 2010
CD
$21.99

Dodgson: Mirage - Piano Music

SOMM Recordings

$20.99 Apr 19, 2024

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce the release of Mirage, a recital of piano music by Stephen Dodgson performed by Osman Tack in his impressive label debut.

Featuring 24 first recordings, Mirage is the third volume in a series marking the 10th anniversary of Dodgson’s death in 2013, and celebrates a composer of “urbane and civilised” music, as Robert Matthew-Walker describes it in informative booklet notes.

The recital spans seven decades from 1956’s Eight Fanciful Preludes – “a judiciously varied suite… bound by the directness of utterance that so distinguished Dodgson’s music” – to the Six Bagatelles composed between 1998 and 2005 when “his inspiration burned brightly in his eighties”.

Also included are the “vastly impressive” Piano Sonata No.7 (Dodgson’s last) from 2003; the “significant” Three Impromptus (1962, revised 1985), and the varied, impressionistic Four Moods of the Wind Suite (1968).

A bonus track, the Rondo in A flat from 1953, will be available for downloading on digital platforms.

Osman Tack is a former Chandos Young Musician of the Year who has performed throughout the UK and internationally as a soloist, accompanist, and chamber musician (having won the Pro-Corda Festival competition).

Dodgson’s Songs Volume 1, The Peasant Poet (SOMMCD 0659) was hailed by Opera Today as “an incredibly interesting and engaging disc… done excellent service by all the performers”. Of Volume 2, The Distances Between (SOMMCD 0673), the British Music Society said “the performances (by some prestigious names) and the warm, lifelike recording are impeccable”.

SOMM’s championing of British song includes Stanford’s Children’s Songs (SOMMCD 0655), “fairly and squarely in the great English song tradition” (MusicWeb International), and Roderick Williams and Susie Allan’s Celebrating English Song (SOMMCD 0177), lauded by Gramophone as “a treat”, and Somervell’s A Shropshire Lad and Maud (SOMMCD 0615), “performances of much beauty, empathy, and sensitivity” (British Music Society).

View Full Page

Dodgson: Mirage - Piano Music
SOMM Recordings Apr 2024
CD
$20.99

Brahms: Piano Sonatas No 1 & 2 / Idil Biret
Naxos Jun 1991
CD
$19.99

Beethoven, L. Van: Piano Works (Complete), Vol. 2 - Sonata
BIS Jun 2005
SACD
$21.99

Weber: Piano Sonatas 1 And 2 / Hamish Milne
CRD Records Jan 1995
CD
$20.99

Rachmaninoff: Suites for Two Pianos; Music for Piano Trio

Divine Art

$20.99 May 12, 2023

A new album of chamber works by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
This outstanding recording was made at two venues in Poland: the
Łódź Academy of Music, and the Czestochowa Philharmony. The
principal performer is pianist Barbara Karaśkiewicz who has made
several highly praised recordings for Divine Art (and before that the
esteemed Polish label Acte Preable). She performs two piano duos
with her musical partner Michał Rot. The chamber works are played
by the Huberman Piano Trio whose Divine Art recording of
20th Century Chamber music was also acclaimed by critics.
Both the performances and the perfectly engineered recording offer
a sumptuous program of Rachmaninoff that will delight listeners.
The Huberman Trio was formed at the initiative of Barbara
Karaśkiewicz, named in honour of the great Polish artist Bronislav
Huberman, famed for his performances and transcriptions of works
by Chopin and others.

View Full Page

Rachmaninoff: Suites for Two Pianos; Music for Piano Trio
Divine Art May 2023
CD
$20.99

Peterson-Berger: Complete Piano Music , Vol. 2
Swedish Society Feb 2001
CD
$20.99

Brahms: Piano Concerto No 2, 5 Intermezzi / Van Cliburn
RCA Jun 2008
CD
$17.99

Chopin: Piano Concerto No 2 / Nebolsin, Wit, Warsaw Philharmonic [blu-ray Audio]

Naxos AudioVisual

Blu-Ray

$8.49 ~~$16.99~~ Save 50% Feb 22, 2011

This is an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players.

Using the new Polish National Chopin Edition, acclaimed pianist Eldar Nebolsin and Poland’s national orchestra conducted by the renowned Polish conductor Antoni Wit, here present fresh interpretations of Chopin’s great works for piano and orchestra. The Second Piano Concerto was written before the first and completed in 1830, the year in which the composer set out for Vienna and then Paris. Chopin’s Variations on Là ci darem la mano, bear witness to his admiration for Mozart, instilled by his earliest teacher, the Bohemian Wojciech ?ywny. The Grande Polonaise brillante in E flat, Op. 22, was written in Vienna, and later augmented with the introductory Andante spianato.

Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

View Full Page

Sale

Chopin: Piano Concerto No 2 / Nebolsin, Wit, Warsaw Philharmonic [blu-ray Audio]
Naxos AudioVisual Feb 2011
Blu-Ray
~~$16.99~~ $8.49

Chopin: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2
Ars Produktion Mar 2010
SACD
$21.99

SCHUMANN, R.: Piano Sonata No. 2 / Nachtstucke / Arabeske
Naxos Apr 1994
CD
$19.99

Mussorgsky: Pictures at and exhibition - Glazunov: Piano Sonata No. 2 - Balakirev: Islamey / Biret

Idil Biret Archive

$6.49 ~~$12.99~~ Save 50% Sep 24, 2021

In November 1949, at the age of eight, Idil Biret entered the studios of ORTF (Radiodiffusion Television Francaise) in Paris and made her first recordings; these were works by Couperin, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. In the following decades she made nearly 100 LPs and CDs, released on ten record labels (Pretoria, Vega, Decca, Atlantic/Finnadar, Pantheon, EMI, Naxos, Marco Polo, Alpha, BMP) and many recordings for radio and television stations around the world. These included the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov as well as the Sonatas of Boulez and the Etudes of Ligeti. The Idil Biret Archive (IBA) is now bringing together her past and present recording; as the copyrights are obtained, old recordings no longer available commercially are being released together with her new recordings. The current album features showcases her interpretations of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Glazunov’s Piano Sonata No. 2, recorded in March 2017, and Balakirev’s Islamey “Oriental Fantasy,” recorded in concert at the Lille Festival 1993.

View Full Page

Sale

Mussorgsky: Pictures at and exhibition - Glazunov: Piano Sonata No. 2 - Balakirev: Islamey / Biret
Idil Biret Archive Sep 2021
CD
~~$12.99~~ $6.49

Bach: Orchestral Suites - Transcribed for Piano Duet by Eleonor Bindman

Grand Piano

$19.99 Nov 11, 2022

To watch a live Q&A with pianist Eleonor Bindman discussing the recording of her transcriptions of Bach's Orchestral Suites, click here.

Eleonor Bindman’s new arrangement of Bach’s Orchestral Suites for piano duet follows her widely admired recording of the six Brandenburg Concertos (GP777–78). Once again, the transcription reimagines Bach’s writing using the modern piano, in this case a Bösendorfer. Bindman and her Duo Vivace partner, Susan Sobolewski, draw upon the suite’s dance movements to suggest how Bach might have distributed the material, ordering them for maximum contrast, and succeeding in conveying the music’s vitality and beauty in a new medium.

REVIEW:

This is the world premiere recording of Eleonor Bindman’s arrangement for four hands at one piano of Bach’s four Orchestral Suites. Much like Bindman’s arrangements of the Brandenburg Concertos, this is not a small undertaking. Bindman’s partner for the Brandenburgs was Jenny Lin, and here Susan Sobolewski fills that role admirably. The pianists trade places on the piano bench, so each gets two suites playing the upper part and two playing the lower.

Nothing I heard in these arrangements seemed out of place, and the phrasing and dynamic shaping of the lines were exceptional. This new set is satisfying and very musical. It will give you a fresh look at some of Bach’s greatest works in piano arrangements that work quite well.

-- American Record Guide (James Harrington)

View Full Page

Bach: Orchestral Suites - Transcribed for Piano Duet by Eleonor Bindman
Grand Piano Nov 2022
CD
$19.99

FLAGELLO: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3 / Credendum
Artek Aug 2005
CD
$18.99

Carl Czerny: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2 / Martin Jones

Nimbus

$32.99 Jun 01, 2010

Quite simply exemplary and splendidly recorded as well.

The in this series was what I called ‘a valuable corrective to the partial, more generally held view of Czerny as a composer of an exhaustive number of pedagogic studies.’ This view is simply reinforced by volume 2 which is, similarly, a two disc set and which offers the same tangible musical rewards as the earlier volume.

There is nothing in the second volume quite as extensive as the massive Sixth Sonata of 1827. Nevertheless we do get four powerfully proportioned sonatas from his maturity played, as before, with powerful eloquence by Martin Jones, one of the most exploratory and energising pianists before the public. The interesting thing about Czerny’s sonatas is that the primary influence is not that of Beethoven. Rather it often sounds to have been Schubert who exerted the greater pull. The opening movement of the Eleventh Sonata, for example, sounds like a Schubert finale, though Brahms’s name is evoked by sleeve note writer Calum MacDonald. The sonata’s slow movement is a romantic soliloquy, its finale a songful, almost Schumannesque one played with warmth and clarity. This sonata dates from 1843. Nearly a quarter of a century earlier his first effort shows similar virtues. It’s a sonata that was admired by Liszt, who dedicated his Transcendental Etudes to Czerny, and is a powerful, exciting and generous spirited five-movement work. In this nourishing piece the central Adagio is hard to overlook, so richly cantabile is it, and so finely played too. Czerny is careful to balance the two faster inner movements; his Prestissimo agitato is galvanically brisk, whereas the Rondo is altogether more relaxed.

The Second Sonata is not unlike the First in that it too has five movements, one fewer than the Sixth where, one feels, Czerny did at least emulate Beethoven’s multi-movement example in his late string quartets. It is however much more concise than the earlier work. It has a most touching slow movement and an Allegro agitato that reminds one of the similar movement in the First. Another link comes from Czerny’s schema which is to end both these sonatas with a Fugue. In the First sonata the fugue is linked to earlier material, but not in the Second where the fugue stands, in effect, as a separate entity. The effect is grand, but it does lessen the sense of cumulative tension that the earlier work generated. The Sonatine is more compact still, but belies its name by virtue of its elevated and highly personal powers of reflection. And there are two small pieces. The Chanson sans paroles is spiced with delicious filigree, whilst the Character Etude Op.755 is a lissom and decidedly lovely effusion.

There is one remaining volume in this series, and one awaits it with anticipation. Jones’s playing is, quite simply, exemplary and he has been splendidly recorded as well.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

View Full Page

Carl Czerny: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2 / Martin Jones
Nimbus Jun 2010
CD
$32.99

American Classics - Ives: Piano Sonata No 2, Etc / Mayer

Naxos

$19.99 Aug 01, 2004

This recording has a lot going for it. Ives' music permits such a wide latitude of interpretive options that it's difficult to criticize any performance on grounds other then technical incompetence, and Steven Mayer not only plays extremely well, he has interesting ideas about how this music should sound. The Concord Sonata receives a magisterial performance, some 10 minutes slower than Marc-André Hamelin's benchmark recording for New World, but the music itself is so dense that it never sounds slow. Quite the contrary. If Mayer sacrifices some typical Ivesian wildness, he compensates by allowing us to hear more of what's going on in even the densest passages. He's particularly adept at pointing up, say, Beethoven's Fifth on its various appearances in "Emerson", and despite his comparative leisure, he highlights the abrupt contrasts of tempo and dynamics in "Hawthorne" as well as anyone.

Mayer's relaxed reading of the "The Alcotts" has special charm and a warmth that's just right for this portrait of two girls practicing the piano at home. "Thoreau" is let down a bit by the recording, which fails to back off far enough to realize a true pianissimo, even though Mayer scales down his dynamic range as Ives requests. Indeed, about the only other quibble I have aside from this one is that Mayer doesn't give us a true "very fast" in the 7/4 section of "Emerson", though of course it's an open question whether or not Ives himself would have cared. In the final analysis, this performance makes an excellent introduction to the work, combining a healthy dose of Romantic expressiveness with great clarity, concentration, and boldness. Even the readings between movements (of bits of Ives' own essays and fragments taken from the eponymous writers, an aspect of the performance I truly dreaded) are sonorously but simply intoned by Kerry Shale, coming off well as a sort of palate-cleansing sorbet between the larger courses.

The three shorter works, all more or less related to the sonata (everything in Ives tends to be related to everything else anyway), make for a very interesting and entirely appropriate bonus. I particularly enjoyed the wacky and truculent Varied Air and Variations, a riotously obnoxious piece that doesn't get as much attention as it should. As noted, the sonics, though generally good, tend to put the microphones a touch too close to the piano, and in consequence somewhat limit the dynamic range while capturing a bit of performance noise besides--but this isn't really troublesome. If you're looking for a satisfying, low-priced way to get to know some truly remarkable piano music through intelligent and sympathetic performances, you can't go wrong here.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

View Full Page

American Classics - Ives: Piano Sonata No 2, Etc / Mayer
Naxos Aug 2004
CD
$19.99

Shostakovich: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2
Naxos Aug 1995
CD
$19.99

Rachmaninov, S.: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2
Nimbus Oct 1996
CD
$20.99

PIANO BOOK 2

DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON

$23.49 Oct 17, 2025

Lang Lang - "Piano Book 2". This new album continues to build the brand Piano Book, following the unprecedented success of the original released in 2019. A collection of the most popular short pieces for piano known, taught and played by players and piano lovers of all ages everywhere. Including iconic classical pieces, works by contemporary composers including soundtracks, gaming and anime, as well as unique arrangements. The album reflects Lang Lang's love of the piano, the joy of music making and his wish to inspire others, which he does through activities including Lang Lang Foundation. 2 CD Digipak.

View Full Page

PIANO BOOK 2
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON Oct 2025
CD
$23.49

Mix & Match

RAVEL: Piano Works, Vol. 2
Naxos Nov 1994
CD
$19.99

Mendelssohn: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 - Concerto for 2 P
Berlin Classics Jun 2007
CD
$10.99

PIANO SOLO 2
INTAKT RECORDS Feb 1995
CD
$18.35