New Piano Albums

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."
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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."
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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)
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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".
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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."
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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."
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

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.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

Junyan Chen:2022-12-26

It's Time – Say, Gubaidulina, Chin, Alberga

As the Royal Academy of Music celebrates 200 years since its foundation in 1822, Junyan Chen is one of the recipients of its Bicentenary Scholarships scheme. "I have strong sympathy with living composers who explore their cultural identity. These four 'classical' composers brilliantly absorb other genres and art forms, reflecting their lives: the Turkish folk ballad, jazz, Russian poetry and African dance."
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

Eric Lu:2022-12-22

Schubert – Piano Sonatas D.784 & 959

Eric Lu received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2021.This album is his first presentation of Franz Schubert on disc. " I felt I had to delve into one of his last sonatas at this point in my life, and I wanted to pair it with an under-appreciated work, the A minor, a work that was the real turning point in his life."
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

Shai Wosner:2022-12-20

Variations on a Theme by FDR

Shai Wosner's latest project is a suite of five variations by five composers—Derek Bermel, Anthony Cheung, John Harbison, Vijay Iyer, and Wang Lu—who were given as their ‘theme’ a quote from a 1938 speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “Remember, remember always, that all of us… are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

Arturo Nieto-Dorantes:2022-12-18

Ponce – Complete Piano Works, Vol. 1 & 2

Arturo Nieto-Dorantes has recorded and performed a lot of Mexican and Latin American music; solo piano, chamber music and concerto repertoire. He is the first pianist to perform the integral piano works by Mexican composer Manuel M. Ponce outside of Mexico which he is currently recording in four double albums – here are the first two.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

Alim Beisembayev:2022-12-16

Liszt – Transcendental Études

Alim Beisembayev took the gold medal at The Leeds International Piano Competition in 2021, and for his proper debut album (a shorter portrait was released in connection with the victory) he has chosen the most challenging repertoire possible. "Since early childhood, I have been inspired by performances of these works by legendary pianists such as Cziffra, Richter and Kissin, never dreaming that I would one day be performing them myself."
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

Maurizio Pollini:2022-12-13

Beethoven – The Late Sonatas, Opp. 101 & 106

Maurizio Pollini has spent a lifetime with Beethoven. Back in the 1970s he made his now classic recording of the composer’s five late piano sonatas. Over the next four decades, he recorded all 32 sonatas, with the final volume released in 2014 – only to return in 2019, recording Beethoven's final three sonatas once more. This new album completes this second set of late sonatas.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

Fazil Say:2022-12-11

Bach – Goldberg Variations

When Fazil Say's first Bach album was released in 1988, many expressed a desire for him to perform and record the Goldberg Variations as well. Since then, he has given almost 3000 concerts and released 58 albums – even so, the Goldberg Variations have remained a significant omission. Until 2020, when the pandemic gave him the space to devote a considerable amount of time to analyzing and learning this masterpiece of music and mathematics.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

Nare Karoyan:2022-12-10

Gazarossian – 24 Etudes

Koharik Gazarossian (1907–1967), an Armenian born in Constantinople (now Istanbul) who went to Paris to study in her late teens, crossed cultures of East and West in her music as well. Her harmonically intriguing musical language clearly reflects Armenian folk music, but also contains echos of Chopin, Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev. Khachaturian, the most prominent composer with Armenian roots, admired her Preludes and her Etudes especially and called them first-class works.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>

Giovanni Doria Miglietta:2022-12-08

Earl Wild – Complete Piano Music

The "super virtuoso" Earl Wild's discography is endless and his activity lasted for almost a century. He was the only pianist to be invited at the White House to play for six consecutive presidents (the first one being Herbert Hoover in 1931), and in 1997, at the age of 82, he was the first pianist to stream a performance over the Internet. Giovanni Doria Miglietta has recorded Wild's complete compositions and arrangements for piano on a series of three albums which are now released together.
Audio & Booklet in NML >>