New Piano Albums

A Bu:2022-11-05

New Memories – Nikolai Kapustin, A Bu

Nikolai Kapustin never identified himself as a jazz musician. Still, his thorough knowledge of jazz genres, styles and aesthetics, combined with the nourishment he received from the Russian Piano School caused his pianistic skills to expand in a unique fashion. A Bu (born Liang Dai) fell in love with Kapustin's music at 14 years of age and has studied and played his music ever since. On this album, he plays works by Kapustin along with two of his own compositions.
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Leif Ove Andsnes:2022-11-03

Dvorák – Poetic Tone Pictures

Leif Ove Andsnes first listened to Dvorák’s Poetic Tone Pictures in his youth on a recording by the Czech pianist Radoslav Kvapil. His interest grew from playing the first of them in a youth competition realizing that “I love this music and no one seems to play it”. The Covid-19 period of lockdown gave him the opportunity to study them in depth. He was also thrilled to find that Dvorák “hoped somebody would have the courage to play all of them together. Clearly he was thinking of them as a cycle.”
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Célimène Daudet:2022-11-02

Alter Ego – Mompou, Chopin

Célimène Daudet plays Chopin's Sonata No. 3, bookended by pieces in which Federico Mompou pays homage to Chopin. "Very few composers reveal the soul of the piano with such truth," says Daudet of the two, who share so many character traits that Mompou was sometimes called Frédéric II. The Variations on a Theme of Chopin has as its theme Chopin's Prelude No. 7, and from Chopiniana there emerges from a desolate landscape the specter of Prelude No. 4.
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Paul Wee:2022-10-31

Beethoven-Liszt – Symphony No. 3, Mozart-Alkan – Piano Concerto No. 20

This recording brings together two of the greatest works of the Classical era in transcriptions for solo piano by two of the greatest pianist-composers of the Romantic era. Paul Wee attempts to maneuver his pianist career alongside the demands of a busy practice as a barrister. His previous albums with music by Alkan and Thalberg have been met with great critical acclaim.
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Alex Szilasi:2022-10-29

Chopin – Piano Sonatas 2 & 3

Alex Szilasi's work has become almost synonymous with the music of Chopin in Hungary, and his great interest in 19th-century French and English pianos marks many of his performances and recordings. Among the instruments in his private collection are two Pleyel pianos from Chopin's time (1843 & 1847). This album was recorded using a Pleyel Concert Grand from circa 1886–1890.
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Haochen Zhang:2022-10-27

Beethoven – The Five Piano Concertos

Beethoven not only achieved a brilliant conclusion to the Classical piano concerto genre, but also established a new model: the Romantic concerto, a sort of symphony with obbligato piano. Haochen Zhang, winner of the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009, and recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2017, releases his third album on BIS Records.
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Sarah Cahill:2022-10-24

The Future Is Female, Vol. 2 – The Dance

The Future is Female is a project started by Sarah Cahill in 2018, to celebrate and highlight women composers from the 17th century to today. It now includes more than 70 compositions – including new commissioned works – to be released on three albums, the second of which is loosely based on the theme of Dance.
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Luis González Lladó:2022-10-22

Preludios for a Young Pianist

Preludios for a Young Pianist consist of 19 premiere recordings. In 2017, Luis González Lladó commissioned Preludes from a large and heterogeneous group of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American composers. The collection documented on this album forms a melting pot of the different aesthetics and attitudes of our time.
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Peter Jablonski:2022-10-20

Chopin – Complete Mazurkas

Although Polish composers before him wrote mazurkas too, it is Chopin’s musical genius that elevated this country dance into an art form. For him it became a deeply personal, intimate statement of his feelings as an émigré Polish composer living in Paris. Peter Jablonski’s extensive and diverse discography includes recordings on Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, Altara and Octavia labels, and now Ondine, for whom he recently recorded Scriabin's Mazurkas.
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Mark Viner:2022-10-19

Chaminade – Piano Music, Vol. 2

After he won the 2012 Alkan-Zimmerman International Piano Competition in Athens, Mark Viner’s recordings of rarely heard repertoire has confirmed his reputation as one of today’s indisputable torchbearers of the Romantic Revival. This is his second recital with music by Cécile Chaminade, a composer whose popularity at the beginning of the 20th century was such that only in the USA there were around 200 "Chaminade Clubs".
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Víkingur Ólafsson:2022-10-16

From Afar

Vikingur Ólafsson’s new album was inspired by a meeting with the 96-year-old composer György Kurtág. Originally scheduled as a 10–15-minute meeting after a concert in Budapest, the session ended up lasting over two hours. The program heard here is a tribute to Kurtág, but also a reflection of Ólafsson's own musical life story. Another unique aspect is that the recital was recorded twice: once on a Steinway concert grand and again on a felted upright.
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Mao Fujita:2022-10-14

Mozart – Complete Piano Sonatas

As a kindergartener, Mao Fujita recalls being transfixed by Horowitz playing Mozart in a recording from the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Roughly 15 years later, Fujita played the same sonata in the same hall, winning the silver medal of the Tchaikovsky Competition in one of those rare moments of coming full-circle. Fujita has also performed the complete sonatas live to great acclaim as part of the Verbier Festival.
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Krystian Zimerman:2022-10-11

Szymanowski – Piano Works

Krystian Zimerman’s most direct link with Szymanowski is through his early friendship with Arthur Rubinstein, the great pianist who knew the composer well and championed his works. For this album Zimerman has selected repertoire that shows the essence of Szymanowski, aiming to shed new light on his music and place him firmly in the canon of great composers of piano music. Each work or group of pieces represents a distinctive stage in Szymanowski's development.
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Giorgio Trione Bartoli:2022-10-09

MacDowell – Sonatas 1 & 2, Woodland Sketches

Edward MacDowell (1860-1908) was an interesting and original American pianist-composer trained for a long time in Europe; he met both Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt, and was introduced by the latter – who appreciated his Modern Suite Op.10 – to the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel. The sources of his inspiration are found in German romanticism, both poetic and musical, combined with a predilection for Nordic sagas.
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Jean-Baptiste Fonlupt:2022-10-07

Stravinsky, Ravel, Prokofiev – Ballets

Jean-Baptiste Fonlupt has selected music that was originally written to be choreographed and performed with orchestra. Stravinsky, Ravel and Prokofiev all made piano versions of ballet works, not in the spirit of mere reductions, but conceiving them as genuine – often fiercely virtuosic – concert pieces for piano. Fonlupt says: "when you listen to Tchaikovsky, you want to see the dancers . . . In these works, you can very well do without them."
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Esther Birringer:2022-10-06

Debussy – Piano Works

Esther Birringer has always been fascinated by Debussy's magical sounds and his extraordinary power to evoke dreamy atmospheres that allow you to escape time and space. Wanting to create a fully rounded portrait of him, her selection on this album ranges from early piano compositions up to some of the later oeuvres, and contrasts seldom played works such as the Ballade, the Nocturne, and the brilliant Masques with the two well-known sets of Images.
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Stefanovich & Aimard:2022-10-05

Visions

Pierre-Laurent Aimard has played Messiaen's monumental Visions de l'Amen from the age of fifteen, turned the pages when Yvonne Loriod and Messiaen performed it, worked on it with Messiaen, and played it countless times since. "If having a home really means anything, then this piece is my home." Tamara Stefanovich has made several acclaimed duo recordings with Aimard, but also award-winning solo albums such as “Influences” (2019), with works by Ives, Bartók, Messiaen and Bach.
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Alessandro Deljavan:2022-10-03

Haydn – Variations & Sonatas

Alessandro Deljavan is a prolific recording artist with a discography of over 60 albums. Recent releases include the complete Chopin Waltzes, Études and Mazurkas, Bach Complete Little Preludes and Toccatas, Grieg Complete Lyric Pieces, piano works by Schumann, Hahn, Mompou, and several recordings of chamber music. Over the next few years, his affinity for the Classics will be highlighted by the Artalinna label, beginning with this Haydn album.
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Kun-Woo Paik:2022-10-01

Granados – Goyescas

Kun-woo Paik is known for focusing on one composer at a time. In recent years the 76-year-old pianist has recorded Chopin's complete Nocturnes (2019) and explored Schumann on an album also released by Deutsche Grammophon (2020). Now he has turned to Spanish music, and more specifically Granados. Goyescas, Op. 11, the composer's masterpiece for piano, was inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya.
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Vincent Larderet:2022-09-29

The Scriabin Mystery

For the 150th anniversary of Scriabin's birth, Vincent Larderet wanted to offer a broad overview of the composer's evolution. The chronological sequence takes us from the first post-Romantic pieces (Scriabin was only 14 when he wrote his remarkable Etude in C-sharp minor Op. 2 No. 1) to Scriabin's late, visionary style that set in motion a revolution in the musical language of the 20th century.
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Myriam Barbaux-Cohen:2022-09-27

Mel Bonis – Piano Works

Mélanie Bonis studied accompaniment, harmony, and composition at the Paris Conservatoire, where she shared the benches with Claude Debussy and received tuition from César Franck. She wrote more than 300 works, including many piano pieces, but was too modest for self-promotion, and even her admirers at the time could not overlook her gender. Saint-Saëns famously exclaimed: "I never imagined a woman could write such music!"
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Natalia Sokolovskaya:2022-09-26

Chopin – Nocturnes, Vol. 1

This is Natalia Sokolovskaya's third album for the OnClassical label, and the first volume in a complete survey of Chopin's Nocturnes. It contains the first ten Nocturnes and the famous posthumous C-sharp minor Nocturne. As a bonus for audiophiles, there is a second CD with the same pieces and the same takes, but recorded with a different microphone setup.
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Maria Gabrys-Henke:2022-09-25

Mikuli, Michalowski – Piano Works

Karol Mikuli and Alexander Michalowski are best known for being two of the greatest early experts on Chopin's music – Mikuli even studied with Chopin and was often the first one to hear his works. Among Mikuli’s own students, Aleksander Michalowski was the most influential in creating the Polish school of Chopin playing. Their original compositions were heavily influenced by Chopin, which can be heard on this album, recorded at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.
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Louis Lortie & Hélène Mercier:2022-09-22

Debussy – Piano Duets

Regular duo partners Hélène Mercier and Louis Lortie have recorded an all-Debussy program, featuring original piano duets as well as a number of arrangements of Debussy's solo piano pieces, and a two-piano version of his best-known orchestral work, La Mer. The album was recorded on Bösendorfer's newest model, the 280 "Vienna Concert" grand piano.
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