Elisabeth Leonskaja is one of the most celebrated pianists of our time, remaining true to herself and to her music, and in doing so, is following in the footsteps of the great Russian musicians of the Soviet era, such as Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels."A kaleidoscopic Mozart with a lifetime's wisdom and experience behind it" according to The Arts Desk after a Wigmore Hall concert
Hundsnes: Piano Sonata No. 2 - Winter Dances - Nuances de lumière / Mikkola
Grand Piano
CD
$19.99May 14, 2021
Norwegian composer SVEIN HUNDSNES has written a considerable number of works ranging from concertos to pieces for young musicians. His piano music is stylistically wide-ranging and occupies a significant place in his oeuvre. Piano Sonata No. 2 exemplifies his practice of working from tiny core motifs as he makes a series of connections between each vivid movement. Syncopated rhythms animate Vinterdanser (‘Winter Dances’) – a sequence of round dances; whereas torches swirling in the air, a cradle song and clouds of illuminated water particles are magically evoked in Nuances de Lumière (‘Shades of Light’). Finnish pianist Laura Mikkola, continues her critically acclaimed discovery, in this second volume of Hundsnes’ piano works.
Evgeni Koroliov announces himself again with a recording of the Late Piano Sonatas of Beethoven (opp. 109, 110 and 111). A heavy, powerful touch is not his thing. Playing loudly where it is called for, Koroliov attempts to capture the listener’s attention in a different way, seducing one with his nuanced touch and an almost all-absorbing intensity. “If I could chose just one piece and soloist on a lonesome island, I would chose Koroliov. I would listen again and again to his recordings, dying of thirst and hunger till my last breath.” György Ligeti
Schubert: Piano Sonatas D664 769a & 894 - Stephen Hough - The late G major sonata followed such landmarks as the 'Great' C major symphony and Schubert's last string quartet, and explores similarly expansive terrain; the A major is an earlier, genial work. These frame the brief D769a fragment, which adds to the uniqueness of Stephen Hough's marvellous recital.
Christlieb Siegmund Binder (1723-1789) was a German composer, organist, and harpsichordist active in Dresden during the mid-18th century. He belonged to the musical circle surrounding the Saxon court, which at the time was a major cultural hub, closely tied to both German and Italian traditions. Though not as widely remembered as his contemporaries Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach or Johann Adolf Hasse, Binder's works reflect the stylistic shift from the late Baroque to the empfindsamer Stil and early Classicism. Among his surviving works, the Six Harpsichord Sonatas stand out as his most notable contribution to the keyboard repertoire. These pieces display a balance between contrapuntal craftsmanship and a more galant, expressive style. Unlike the ornate fugues and suites of the earlier Baroque, Binder's sonatas emphasize clear melodic lines, graceful ornamentation, and a lighter texture, qualities that aligned with the taste of Dresden's aristocratic audiences. Each sonata reveals Binder's sensitivity to expressive nuance. The slow movements often highlight a singing quality, echoing the influence of opera, while the faster movements showcase rhythmic vitality and elegant figurations well suited to the harpsichord's brilliance. Though less technically demanding than some of Domenico Scarlatti's sonatas, they nevertheless require finesse and attention to articulation, as the musical interest lies in subtle contrasts of mood and character. Binder's sonatas also provide a window into the transitional aesthetic of the 1740s and 1750s. They combine traces of learned counterpoint-expected from a Dresden organist trained in the Lutheran tradition-with the charm and immediacy of the galant style. In this sense, his music bridges the world of J.S. Bach with the more modern sensibilities of Haydn and Mozart. Played on a Mascheroni harpsichord by P. Taskin, 1769, by Paolo Gazzola. Born in Piacenza in 1992 he obtained a Master of arts in music performance in Organ at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana with Stefano Molardi.
After their first recording, Nuits parisiennes, Manon Galy and Jorge Gonzalez Buajasan open the door to the inner worlds of Romanticism. Surrounding Mendelssohn's rare Sonata in F major MWV Q 26 (his only mature violin sonata), Brahms's Second, and Grieg's Third are a few poetic and intimate gems, such as Sibelius's Berceuse and Fibich's Poeme. Between "melancholy waltz and languorous vertigo," violin and piano become the exalted yet nostalgic voice of the composers' most personal confidences.
The young Dutch violinist Noa Wildschut has been described as "a miracle of musicality", while Anne-Sophie Mutter has singled her out as "undoubtedly one of the musical hopes of her generation". For her debut as a Warner Classics recording artist, Noa has chosen a programme of Mozart that combines concertante and chamber works. As she says: "I'm showing two sides of Mozart - and also two sides of myself." Noa Wildschut, the young Dutch violinist, turned 16 in March 2017, but was just 15 when she signed an exclusive agreement with Warner Classics and recorded her debut album for the label. It is entirely devoted to Mozart: the Violin Concerto No 5 and the Adagio K.261 (with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra under the leadership of Gordan Nikolic), and the Violin Sonata in B flat major, K.454 (with prizewinning pianist and festival director Yoram Ish-Hurwitz - Noa's uncle). "Mozart's music has such a feeling of purity, " Noa says. "and the Fifth Violin Concerto is so gorgeous. Of all his violin concertos, this is the one that contains the most humour. It's almost like a kind of opera, with all those different characters, really, a story is being told." Noa herself composed the cadenzas she plays in the concerto, with some help from Dutch composer Max Knigge. "Max came up with the concept, and I invented some things around it... it really became something by us together. It has been written in a way that does justice to Mozart, including lots of little jokes." The album release coincides with the release date of the documentary 'Zusjes' (Sisters), about Noa and her family, which will run in cinemas in Holland in autumn 2017. Worldwide release of the documentary is planned for early 2018. Noa has been a member of 'Mutter Virtuosi' since 2014, a string ensemble led by Anne-Sophie Mutter, and since May 2015 Noa has held an official scholarship from the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation - their youngest ever member
After a prolonged period during which they were ignored wholesale, the compositions of both Philipp and Xaver Scharwenka are performed again - occasionally, anyway-and some of them have been seen the light of day on record. However, no discographic attempt has yet been made to explore their music in relation to each other, which might seem surprising, given their very similar artistic influences and the close connection between the two composing brothers. In this collection, Yoerae Kim and Matteo Weber demonstrate their sensitivity to a dramaturgically cohesive program, which highlights those intriguing biographical connections. They pair a violin sonata by each brother with a serenade and a suite, spanning a creative period of some 35 years.
The programme presented here is particularly interesting from the point of view of Henri Vieuxtemps's Grande sonate concertante op.12, in four movements, a rare work written during the youth of the Verviers composer. Tatiana Samouil won the Grand Prix Vieuxtemps in Verviers in 1998, just after her arrival in Belgium. This prize marked the start of her major international career. She went on to win prizes at the Queen Elisabeth, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky competitions... Henri Vieuxtemps always held a special place in the heart of the violinist, who dreamt of giving the Vieuxtemps sonata a new lease of life in concert halls and on recordings. Her meeting with the brilliant Belgian pianist Johan Schmidt, winner of several major international competitions (Queen Elisabeth, Van Cliburn, Tchaikovsky...) was to make her wish come true! Tatiana Samouil and Johan Schmidt started from the original manuscript to create a new version of the score that is more accessible and readable in terms of interpretation and sound. Louis Vierne's Sonata for violin and piano in G minor Op.23, another rare gem dedicated to Eugene Ysaÿe, is considered to be his first major chamber music score and his first unanimously acknowledged masterpiece. It is a masterly work, full of strength, passion and tenderness. A CD between romanticism and modernity that illustrates the stylistic evolution of the French aesthetic with it's characteristics of clarity, balance and elegance.
SCHUBERT: PIANO SONATAS NOS. 16 & 17 IMPROMPTU N 2
ALTO
CD
$11.49Mar 06, 2020
Richter's interpretations in these years had an elemental power, unselfconscious abandon that was refined and tempered in later life. These entirely unedited performances, given over more than three decades from the mid 1950s to late 1980s, feel not only live but somehow extraordinarily real. Not that Richter ever gives the impression of playing for the microphone, and his vision of musical structures remains constant whether in the studio or concert-hall.... The Schubert D major Sonata (studio recording 1956) is a tower of inner strength
Domenico Scarlatti: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 12
TACET Musikproduktion
CD
$21.99Mar 20, 2026
Who would have thought at the beginning of the great Scarlatti adventure 15 years ago that there would be no CD at the end? The four of us, who sail the two-voiced oceans of the world in the Scarlatti boat, certainly not: Captain Christoph Ullrich at the steering wheel (keyboard), Gerd Finkenstein in the engine room (grand piano), me as radio operator (recording), and Thomas Seedorf (scientific support and texts) in the crow's nest. All old white men with weathered faces. Well, the CD is still alive. But the project needs another two years... We're going to see it through! Who knows, maybe it will be the last serious big complete edition ever produced for this medium? Then, among many other things, it will also be a tribute to the days when you could still hold what you loved in your hands. Our current position: Domenico Scarlatti wrote 555 piano sonatas. This is volume 12 of 17. Volumes 14 and 15 are already available, a total of 12 double and 2 triple CDs so far. Volumes 13 (already recorded, not yet released), 16 (30 sonatas), and 17 (12 sonatas) are still missing. This means that 513 of the 555 sonatas have been recorded and 477 released. There are still 42 left to go to the home port. We are getting closer to our goal! There are so many interesting, admirable, and thought-provoking aspects to this opus! It would fill books. But we'll save that for the end. Turn these 30 new sonatas into an Advent calendar! Or a January calendar. Every day is unique; every day deserves a different sonata by Domenico Scarlatti!
John Walsh's Sonate per cembalo, Op. 7, composte dal Sig.r G
GLAUX RECORDS
CD
$21.99Jun 05, 2026
In 1758 the London publisher John Walsh, sensing a marketing opportunity, issued a collection of harpsichord sonatas under the name of Johann Adolf Hasse. The volume includes genuine compositions by Hasse alongside some works that are in all likelihood not by him. Walsh's editorial decisions reveal a discerning musical judgment, and the pieces gathered in the collection are of consistently high quality. The present recording offers the complete set, performed on an original 1768 harpsichord by the Amsterdam builder Carl Fredrik Laescke.
Mozart Legendary Interpretations - Lili Kraus - The Piano Sonatas
Sony Masterworks
CD
$41.99Jan 20, 2010
These 1967/68 recordings are not to be confused with the earlier Mozart cycle Lili Kraus made for the Haydn Society and recently reissued by Music & Arts. Close microphone placement yielded a bright, slightly flinty sonority that I remember from CBS/Odyssey's vinyl incarnation. Although I have not heard Sony's earlier CD reissue, the present edition's warmer, more rounded equalization unmasks subtleties of touch and nuance that showcase Kraus' pianism in more flattering, colorful light than before. In contrast to Joyce Hatto's operatic cultivation, Walter Gieseking's classical poise, and András Schiff's ornamental flair, Kraus is all passion and drama. An expressionist aesthetic governs her boldly contrasted dynamics, hard-hitting accents, and faster-than-common slow movements, along with angular phrasings and pedal effects that underline harmonic felicities and underplay barlines.
This approach best suits darker, more serious pieces such as the C minor Fantasy/Sonata K. 475/457 and the A minor K. 310 sonata. Similarly, Kraus' gaunt, stinging way with K. 331's famous first-movement variations and concluding Rondo Alla Turca liberates the music from decade's worth of interpretive cotton candy.
Perhaps the early sonatas, the bubbly D major Rondo, and "easy" C major K. 545 lack surface charm and elegance, largely due to Kraus' tendency to "think ahead" and push rapid passages slightly ahead of the beat (a habit of her one-time teacher Artur Schnabel), yet her nervous energy always enlivens rather than obliterates Mozart's intentions. I only wish that Kraus also had recorded the wonderful F major Sonata K. 533/494. It's good to have these invigorating, often provocative performances available again.
Following a successful concert series of Felix Mendelssohn's complete organ works at St Paul's Cathedral in 2021, Samuel Bristow marks the 30th anniversary of the installation of the Mander organs at Chelmsford Cathedral by recording Mendelssohn's revolutionary set of Organ Sonatas, Op. 65. The sonatas contain such a wide breadth of moods and textures that an equally wide range of colours can be explored on both contrasting yet complementary instruments. This album acts as a testament to the completion of a unique musical vision, with Mendelssohn's music a perfectly fitting vehicle to celebrate their strengths.
Mikhail Kollontay, prize-winning pianist/composer out of postwar Russia has been on forefront of the intriguing modern Russian contemporary music.
His works represent fascinating melting spot of traditional Russian music and radical modern Western music.
The collaboration between Armenian violinist Nikolai Madojan and Danish pianist Elisabeth Westenholz produced a series of outstanding CDs starting with the Prokofiev Sonatas and Five Melodies (32185) in 1994. The Madojan/Westenholz duo has since been performing and recording to critical and popular acclaim.
The world’s press wrote of their performances:
“…Madojan…has a natural feel for the right inflexion…his is the more thought-provoking…Westenholz refreshingly tender-hearted and imaginative.” (Gramophone)
“…Madojan is superb in capturing the expressive, genteel nature of the music. …His intonation is superb as well as timbre, and carefully balanced with the partnership of Westenholz.” (Intune)
“…Madojan and Westenholz are a strong, articulate, well-proportioned and mutually reciprocal partnership.” (Gramophone)
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."
