New Piano Albums

András Schiff:2023-02-14

J. S. Bach – Clavichord

András Schiff's first encounter with the clavichord goes back to 1965, when he was a young student. It would take 40 years before he purchased his own two specimens, both by the Belgian maker Joris Potvlieghe. "They have enriched and altered my life. When I'm at home, my day always begins with Bach. It used to be on the piano, now it's on the clavichord, even before breakfast."
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Yevgeni Sudbin:2023-02-12

Romeo and Juliet – Tchaikovsky on the Piano

Some of Tchaikovsky’s most magical scores were written for the ballet. Yevgeny Sudbin decided to arrange a couple of real gems for himself and his 12-year-old daughter to play during the first lockdown of the pandemic. "Playing them provided a ray of sunshine (and some hope) during a grim time that felt like it was never going to end." They are included here as bookends to a selection of shorter original compositions.
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Nikolai Lugansky:2023-02-11

Rachmaninov – Ètudes-tableaux

Nikolay Lugansky adds to his already rich Rachmaninoff discography with another two major cycles. "Rachmaninoff’s pianistic language is extraordinarily complex; it seems as if no one knew better than he what the piano was capable of. Yet in this work, the images are incredibly bright and diverse, and Rachmaninoff seems to draw inspiration from those images, not from pianistic techniques."
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Dora Deliyska:2023-02-09

Études and Préludes

Arranging piano pieces in cycles consisting of 24 pieces offers a clear structure that has often and willingly been used by composers. In this programme Dora Deliyska creates her own structure, adopting the scheme of 24 pieces and placing twelve etudes and twelve preludes by Chopin, Debussy, Ligeti and Kapustin within this framework, thereby allowing the musical significance of each piece to be reinterpreted.
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Vincenzo Maltempo:2023-02-08

Dukas – Complete Piano Music

Paul Dukas’s talent suffered throughout his career at the hands of his perfectionism: His rigorous self-criticism allowed only 13 compositions to be published in his lifetime, and many of his scores ended up in the fire. His complete output for the piano includes just five works, dominated by the Sonata and the Variations, each of them a homage to a past master, to Beethoven and to Rameau.
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Nicolas Costantinou:2023-02-05

Metavasis – Stylianou, 12 Préludes

In an album of world-premiere recordings, Nicolas Costantinou performs 12 Preludes for solo piano by Constantinos Y. Stylianou, each connected to a different work of art. The inspirations cover a wide range of painting and sculpture from Classical antiquity to the 20th century, and the choice of form was influenced by Debussy's two Books of Preludes.
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Jacob Greenberg:2023-02-02

Living Language

Jacob Greenberg, a longtime member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, explores how composers build on their cultural heritage with a creative vocabulary, giving thoughtful tribute while also seeking renewal. The album features music by Bartók, Chopin, Janácek, Wang Lu, and George Lewis,
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Tamara Stefanovich:2023-01-31

Vassos Nicolaou – Etudes & Frames

Tamara Stefanovich first met Vassos Nicolaou when they were both students. Years later, when she was invited to commission a new work from any composer, Vassos was first on her list. "Today his 15 Etudes has become a testament to an immeasurably innovative freedom…even while playing them, I am struck by the quality of illusions, which gives me the feeling of owning not just countless pairs of hands, but several pairs of ears as well."
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Peter Donohoe:2023-01-29

Mozart – Piano Sonatas Vol. 6

After four years, Peter Donohoe reaches the end of his survey of Mozart's 18 piano sonatas, recordings that have been very well received: "It was high time someone blew the interpretive cobwebs off this still under-appreciated repertoire" (BBC Music Magazine) "...he plays these pieces with a personal involvement that is as touching as it is fascinating and finely considered." (Gramophone)
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Clélia Iruzun:2023-01-27

Borenstein – Piano Concerto, Shirim, Light & Darkness

With this album, the composer Nimrod Borenstein wants to celebrate the piano and his long-running musical friendship with the pianist Clélia Iruzun. "It shows the instrument in all its glory through three of the essential setting possibilities: as a solo instrument with orchestra (in the concerto), as an important partner in chamber music (in the piano quintet Light and Darkness), and alone in the 18 pieces that compose Shirim."
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Sophie Pacini:2023-01-25

Puzzle – Chopin & Scriabin

Sophie Pacini released her first Chopin album in 2014. "I remember that all of my musician colleagues, friends and family had to encourage me to trust my own interpretations, my own truth..." Such external motivation was no longer needed when putting together Puzzle: "I decided, as honestly as possible… to be myself and to allow my emotions to attach the pieces of the puzzle that form my life till now to a string of notes."
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Giancarlo Crespeau:2023-01-24

Melancholia

The title suggests a focus on the melancholy character, but plenty of other moods are also expressed in this all-Russian programme. Giancarlo Crespeau graduated from the Paris Conservatoire with a First Prize in piano aged only 16. After a few years dedicated to composition, he returned to the concert halls. He now collaborates with composer Kirill Zaborov, whose Vermeer Sonata and Vienna Variations are recorded for the first time on this album.
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Fabrizio Chiovetta:2023-01-22

Schumann – Fantasie, Arabeske, Kinderszenen

Fabrizio Chiovetta's talent as an improviser has led him to work with artists of varied backgrounds. Still, his solo discography focuses on the classics – Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. This is his second Schumann album – the first (2009), featured Kreisleriana, Waldszenen and the Ghost Variations, and was greeted with rave reviews in Europe and the US.
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Daniel Grimwood:2023-01-20

Henselt – Complete Etudes

Adolph von Henselt was one of the most admired Romantic composers and piano virtuosi, whom Schumann called the ‘hero of the pianoforte’, but whose works have been largely forgotten, until Daniel Grimwood shone a light on them with his previous Henselt album (2016): "...it is the atmospheres he creates that set this disc apart, bringing a touch of real class to music that deserves, yet rarely receives, such loving attention.” (BBC Music Magazine)
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Tetiana Shafran:2023-01-18

Works by Ravel, Chopin, Tchaikovsky

The pianist-conductor Mikhail Pletnev's transcriptions of Tchaikovsky's ballets are unrivaled in their inventiveness and attention to detail. Ukranian-born Tetiana Shafran, a prize-winner in more than 20 international piano competitions, plays the concert suite from Sleeping Beauty in Pletnev's arrangement, along with Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit and an early Rondo by Chopin.
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Andrei Korobeinikov:2023-01-16

Prokofiev – Piano Concerto No. 2

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 secured the composer's entry to the highest rank of Russian modernism and won him recognition from Diaghilev and Stravinsky in particular, although the 1913 premiere of the work caused a scandal. Among Andrei Korobeinikov's previous albums are celebrated recordings of the complete works for solo piano of Scriabin, and Shostakovich’s two piano concerti.
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Kenny Broberg:2023-01-14

Sonatas by Medtner, Rachmaninov & Scriabin

Kenny Broberg, a prize-winner at the Van Cliburn and Tchaikovsky Competitions as well as in Hastings, Sydney, Seattle, and New Orleans, focuses on the Russian sonata tradition on his debut album. The recording was made with the support of the Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship, consisting of career assistance, publicity, performance engagements, an Artist-in-Residence post, and a recording contract with Steinway.
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Katherine Nikitine:2023-01-12

Balakirev – Islamey, etc.

Balakirev's Oriental Fantasy Islamey was a resounding success from the moment it was composed, and was long considered the most difficult piece ever written for piano. But his other piano pieces (with the possible exception of The Lark) have been largely overlooked. Nevertheless, Katherine Nikitine calls Balakirev "a beacon in the History of Slavic music" whom she was eager to honor with her first solo album.
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Alexey Lebedev:2023-01-10

The Young Chopin

On his second album for the Genuin label, Alexey Lebedev focuses on the young Chopin, performing the composer's first six opuses (except op 3, which is for cello and piano). Starting in 1998, Lebedev won fifteen first prizes in international piano competitions. He is now a Professor of Piano at Kyungsung University in South Korea.
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Emanuele Delucchi:2023-01-07

Godowsky – Complete Studies on Chopin, etc.

Emanuele Delucchi has gained renown for his mastery of the ‘hyper-virtuoso’ composers after Liszt who pushed the boundaries of keyboard technique. Starting in 2015, he recorded three albums for Piano Classics with original works and transcriptions by Leopold Godowsky which have now been released together. The major part of the triple CD is made up of Godowsky's 'enhanced' versions of Chopin's Etudes.
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Carolin Danner:2023-01-04

En Suspens – Chopin, Brahms, Bartók and others

The feeling of being "in limbo" has been a silent and steady companion of the Corona pandemic, and continues to spread in a world threatened by war and economic crisis. But it can also be a liberating experience to relinquish control and be completely present in the moment. Carolin Danner has selected pieces that musically explore both the pleasant and unpleasant aspects of this state of "in-between".
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Jonas Olsson:2023-01-02

Skafte – 24 Preludes

Each of Martin Skafte's 24 Preludes was inspired by one of Debussy's Preludes, and composed in order to learn more about the peculiarities of Debussy’s music. In Skafte's own words: "The overarching idea through the first book of the suite is that of a music gradually taking shape under the influence of Debussy…The second book is then all about trying to refine and personalise the musical voice that emerged through the process."
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Rudolf Buchbinder:2022-12-31

Soirée de Vienne

Rudolf Buchbinder's new album opens and closes with a 'Soirée de Vienne', after Johann Strauss and Franz Schubert respectively. Pieces that embody the spirit of a good evening get-together: inspiring, good-humored, effervescent, but always probing the depths. "I’d so much like to attend a Viennese soirée where all the composers on this recording are assembled: Strauss, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Beethoven."
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Véronique Bonnecaze:2022-12-28

War and Peace – Sergei Prokofiev

This portrait of Prokofiev shows his capacity to write music of brutal violence as well as pieces of exquisite tenderness and beauty. While unveiling a passionate taste for aggressive harmonic and rhythmical frictions in the Sixth Sonata – the first of the so-called War Sonatas – Prokofiev reveals himself equally a genius of melody as the author of the Tales of an Old Grandmother, Visions Fugitives, and as the transcriber of excerpts from his own ballets.
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