New Piano Albums

Emili Brugalla:2023-06-14

Granados – Goyescas

One of the most important works for piano in the Spanish repertoire, Goyescas was inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya (1746–1828). The suite, subtitled Los majos enamorados, ‘Young people in love’, conjures up Spanish life in Goya’s time – gallant and sensual, melancholic and dark.
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Aris Alexander Blettenberg:2023-06-12

Hommage à Beethoven

Aris Alexander Blettenberg won first prize in the Beethoven Piano Competition Vienna in 2021, and continues to pay tribute to the composer. Here, the Sonata op. 101 is surrounded by Liszt's transcription of the Allegretto from the 7th Symphony, Schumann's unfinished Beethoven Variations, and Blettenberg's own transcription of the song An die Hoffnung.
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Simon Bürki:2023-06-11

Reminiscence

For his debut album Simon Bürki has chosen sixteen miniatures, most of them by Rachmaninov, including four contrasting Études-tableaux which range all the way from a lyrical melody to thrilling climaxes. The album also includes works by Liszt, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Scriabin, largely bonded over themes of night and melancholy.
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Shorena Tsintsabadze:2023-06-10

Dedication – Schumann, Brahms, Liszt

Liszt published his Sonata in B minor in 1854 with a dedication to Robert Schumann in response to the latter’s dedication of his Fantasie in C to Liszt. Liszt loved the Fantasie very much but although he had played it to Schumann in private, he never performed it in public. Shorena Tsintsabadze combines the two monumental works on her new album.
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Giorga Tommasi & Carlo Maria Griguoli:2023-06-08

Rachmaninoff – Suites & Song transcriptions for 2 Pianos

Giorga Tommasi and Carlo Maria Griguoli are two thirds of the PianoS Trio, known for performing masterpieces of symphonic literature transcribed for three pianos by Griguoli. This recording includes Rachmaninov's two Suites for 2 Pianos, as well as Griguoli's transcriptions of songs by Rachmaninov.
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Luisa Imorde:2023-06-06

C. Schumann & C. M. von Weber – Piano Concertos

Luisa Imorde's previous albums have been dedicated to Beethoven/Wölfl, Bach/Kapustin, and Couperin/Messiaen, illustrating her predilection for interesting juxtapositions. The new CD features Clara Schumann's and Carl Maria von Weber's Piano Concertos, complemented by solo piano pieces.
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Geoffrey Duce:2023-06-05

Fantasies & Rhapsodies – C.P.E. Bach, McCabe, Schubert, Dohnányi

Since the Renaissance, keyboard composers have used the titles Fantasia and Rhapsody to designate a work that has a relatively free form, where they could allow their imaginations to take flight without the necessity of being restricted to previously existing models. Geoffrey Duce has chosen a program of both these forms for this recording with works spanning the Baroque to the 20th Century.
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Peter Jablonski & Elisabeth Brauss:2023-06-03

Bacewicz – Piano Concerto, Concerto for 2 Pianos

Grazyna Bacewicz was a major Polish composer known for her inventive, complex, and original musical language. Her Piano Concerto is an early work composed in 1949 for a composition competition celebrating the 100th anniversary of Chopin’s death. When she wrote her Concerto for Two Pianos two decades later, she was a well-established composer whose status alone almost guaranteed success.
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Rodolphe Menguy:2023-06-02

Rhapsodies hongroises – Liszt, Bartók, Kodály

On this album, Rodolphe Menguy raises the issue of how Hungarian composers have dealt with traditional music and traces the influence of Liszt on the two pillars of Hungary’s cultural revival in music: Bartók and Kodály. Menguy was awarded the ‘Young Soloist Prize’ by the Public French-speaking Media in 2021, and has previously been named Classical Newcomer of the Year.
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Wouter Valvekens:2023-05-31

Masques – Szymanowski, Schumann and others

This album peruses the mystery of masks. "Sometimes masks are used as disguises or distractions for devious intentions, other times for entertainment and society events. The stage is set at a masquerade ball, where a range of characters present themselves, without us ever really being able to truly see who they are, what’s on their minds, what they are up to."
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Barbara Karaskiewicz & Michal Rot:2023-05-30

Rachmaninov – Suites for Two Pianos

In Rachmaninov's Suite No. 1 for 2 pianos, each movement is inspired by a poem, where romantic scenery provides a background for human passions. The second suite was composed together with the second Piano Concerto, when the composer was returning to full creative strength after a breakdown caused by the failure of his 1st Symphony.
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Garrick Ohlsson:2023-05-28

Beethoven – Complete Piano Concertos

Garrick Ohlsson learned his first Beethoven concerto sixty years ago, and in a lifetime of performing these essential concertos, he has played each more than one hundred times. "I was thrilled when Donald Runnicles, one of my favorite collaborators, invited me to record them with the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, an ensemble of star players."
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Jonathan Phillips:2023-05-26

J. S. Bach – Tranquillity

Bach's music is the bedrock Jonathan Phillips has returned to over his lifetime, but until recently it remained a private affair. "I was encouraged to share this repertoire by a friend, after playing most of it at an intimate recital in April 2019. Deeply humbled by the response, I decided it was worthwhile recording and offering my interpretation of it to the wider music-loving world."
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Zhenni Li:2023-05-23

A Letter – Sergei Bortkiewicz Piano Works

Zhenni Li-Cohen's new album, her second for the Steinway label, is dedicated to the Ukrainian composer Sergei Bortkiewicz. Her reaction after hearing this music for the first time was profound: "I found yearning, nostalgia, and the ineffable, expressing the whole spectrum of emotion that makes us human; I found tears, joy, sweeping love, passion, and humor.”
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Marie Rosa Günter:2023-05-21

Kosmos und Fragment – Beethoven, Webern, Kallmeyer

After her solo debut featuring Bach's Goldberg Variations, Marie Rosa Günter once again brings out a program with highly demanding and profound music – combining Ludwig van Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata and his Bagatelles Op. 126 with Anton Webern's aphoristic Variations Op. 27, as well as the world premiere recording of Ulrich Kallmeyer's Variations on the hymn "Jerusalem".
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Jean-Marc Luisada:2023-05-19

Au cinéma ce soir

Jean-Marc Luisada plays piano works ranging from Mozart to Nino Rota, used in some of his favorite movies from the 60s and 70s. But the most personal and profound tribute in this album is to his parents. "They taught me to love films and music. At the cinema, we saw great Hollywood movies together, masterpieces of French cinema, of Italian neorealism, and so much else."
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Giorgi Gigashvili:2023-05-17

Meeting my Shadow – Scarlatti, Beethoven, Brahms, Scriabin, Messiaen

A student of Nelson Goerner in Geneva, supported by Martha Argerich, the Lisa Batiashvili Foundation and the Géza Anda Foundation, Giorgi Gigashvili is a current Classeek Ambassador Programme artist. Alongside his career as a classical pianist, he is passionate about Georgian folksongs, which he likes to arrange and sing; he also performs with an electronic, experimental music group, Tsuneba.
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Anna Fedorova:2023-05-15

Rachmaninoff & Silvestrov – Piano Concerto 3, The Messenger

With this album, Anna Fedorova completes her cycle of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos on Channel Classics Records. "Unfortunately, the situation in my native country Ukraine overclouds the celebratory mood…Many people think we should not perform Russian music for a while, but I find performing his music very important nowadays, not just because his music is so beautiful, powerful and emotionally fulfilling, but also because of his story: he himself was a victim of Russian state…we need Rachmaninoff by our side fighting for life, humanity and all that is good in this world!"
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Kotaro Fukuma:2023-05-13

Fantasy – Scriabin & Rachmaninoff

First Prize winner at the 15th Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2003, Kotaro Fukuma has since released more than fifteen albums. This one focuses on works with the theme of “fantasy” from the early periods of Alexander Scriabin, whose 150th anniversary we celebrated in 2022, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, one year his junior.
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Shani Diluka:2023-05-11

Pulse – Philip Glass, John Adams, Terry Riley, and others

Pulse pays tribute to the hypnotic music of minimalism, with works by John Adams, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, John Cage and Moondog, among others. Shani Diluka: "It resonates with the pulsing beat of the world itself – not only to the fluttering of streams and the breathing of trees, but also to the man-made will-o’-the-wisp that is the urban metronome."
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Ekaterina Litvintseva:2023-05-09

Chopin – Works for Piano and Orchestra

Among Ekaterina Litvintseva's previous eight albums are highly acclaimed live recordings of piano concertos by Mozart, Chopin, and Brahms – “a notable moment in the history of Chopin interpretation”, wrote Fanfare Magazine in 2015. The new album features Chopin's other works for piano and orchestra: Variations on “Là ci darem”, Fantasia on Polish Airs, Krakowiak, and Andante spianato et Grande Polonaise.
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Philip Edward Fisher:2023-05-06

John Corogliano – Complete Solo Piano Music

John Corigliano is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, five GRAMMY Awards, the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, and an Oscar. His solo piano music, presented here by Philip Edward Fisher, ranges from the virtuosic and theatrical Piano Concerto, the minimalist techniques of the Fantasia on an Ostinato, the devilish discipline of Étude Fantasy, and Winging It, based on improvisations.
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Lukáš Vondrácek:2023-05-03

Rachmaninoff – Complete Piano Concertos, Paganini Rhapsody

When Lukáš Vondrácek triumphed at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2016 (the first-ever Czech pianist to do so), he did so with a performance of the feared but beloved Piano Concerto No. 3 by Rachmaninov. For the Russian composer's 150th anniversary, he has recorded all four Concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody.
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Roderick Chadwick:2023-05-01

Souvenirs d'oiseaux – Messiaen and others

Roderick Chadwick often performs some of the most challenging works for piano, and is a particular expert on Messiaen. This double album is a continuation of his journey through Messiaen's Catalogue d'oiseaux (Bird Catalog), programming it alongside an array of solo piano works that share its themes, atmospheres and inspirations.
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