New Piano Albums

Elisabeth Leonskaja:2022-03-08

Mozart - Complete Piano Sonatas

Leonskaja has signed an exclusive contract with Warner, renewing a relationship that dates back to the 1980s. "It is a joy and an honour to welcome back the legendary Elisabeth Leonskaja, who has made so many revered recordings for the label in the past. With her recording of Mozart’s complete piano sonatas, she has reached a new discographic landmark." - Bertrand Castellani, VP A&R Warner Classics & Erato
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Beatrice Berrut:2022-03-05

Jugendstil - transcriptions and paraphrases

"How can one come to terms with being a pianist madly in love with Austro-German post-Romantic music, which forsook one’s instrument in favour of the orchestra? Love shrinks from no sacrifice, least of all from countless hours of work… To transcribe is to pay homage to the genius of a music whose essence does not change along with its form, and to reconnect with the universality of nineteenth-century thought."
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Jan Lisiecki:2022-03-02

Night Music

In a kind of follow-up to his album with Chopin's Nocturnes earlier this year, Deutsche Grammophon now releases selected tracks of Jan Lisiecki’s Würzburg recital in 2018, where he explored other parts of the universe of "night music": Ravels Gaspard de la Nuit, Schumann's Nachtstücke, and Mozart's Variations on Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
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Ivo Pogorelich:2022-02-26

Chopin - Nocturnes 13 & 18, Fantasy Op. 49, Sonata No. 3

Eccentric or visionary? Ivo Pogorelich has always polarized opinion. And Chopin has always played a central role in his career, from the oft-mentioned moment when Martha Argerich angrily left the hall after Pogorelich did not make it to the finals in the Warsaw Chopin Competition. This is his fifth Chopin album, devoted to the composer's late works.
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Rebeca Omordia:2022-02-22

African Pianism

Rebeca Omordia has been hailed as an “classical music pioneer” (BBC) and a “game changer” (Classical Music). Based in London, she has launched the city's first ever African Classical Concert Series; this is her second album featuring only African composers.
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Klára Würtz:2022-02-20

Bach - Goldberg Variations

Klara Würtz is a prolific recording artist with her main focus on the Classical and Romantic repertoire - her complete Mozart Piano Sonatas were met with especially great critical acclaim. For her first recording of a Baroque work she has chosen the iconic Goldberg Variations.
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Lowell Liebermann:2022-02-18

The Devil's Lyre - Piano Music of David Hackbridge Johnson

Only since the release on record of some of his symphonic works has David Hackbridge Johnson's music become better known. These recordings were also what led Lowell Liebermann to discover Hackbridge Johnson's immense pianistic output, which among other things includes 19 sonatas, and an epic 65-minute work entitled Tributes.
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Edna Stern:2022-02-17

Schubert on Tape

Edna Sterns recordings have recieved such awards as Diapason d’Or, Arte Best CD, and Gramophone Critic’s Choice of the Year. Yet her recording experiences has led her to conclude that today’s massive use of digital editing "has done more to hinder music than to serve it." She therefore decided to follow in the footsteps of her favorite pianists from the golden age, press the reset button, and record on analogue tape.
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Jakub Kuszlik:2022-02-14

Brahms & Chopin

Jakub Kuszlik was the somewhat reluctant participant in the recent 18th International Chopin Competition, who ended up with a shared 4th Prize and a Special prize for best performance of Mazurkas. On this album, produced by the Polish Radio, he couples Chopin (a selection of Mazurkas, the B minor Sonata and F minor Fantasy) with late Brahms: the Fantasies op 116 and the Piano Pieces op 119.
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Hortense Cartier-Bresson:2022-02-12

Bach, Berg, Schoenberg, Webern

The idea of this programme came to Hortense Cartier-Bresson when working on the Toccatas of Bach. The counterpoint and numerous chromaticisms in Bach’s music sounded like a call for the post-romantic music of the Second Viennese School, and she hopes that the works of Berg, Schoenberg and Webern will be enriched by this alignment with the Toccatas.
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Peter Jablonski:2022-02-11

Bacewicz - Piano Works

Peter Jablonski's extensive and diverse discography includes core repertoire such as Beethoven, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev, but also rarely heard composers such as Valborg Aulin, Elfrida Andrée, Johanna Müller-Hermann, and Alexey Stanchinsky. Grazyna Bacewicz (1909–1969) was a major Polish composer whose works for violin are relatively well known, but whose piano output has only just begun to receive its due attention.
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Vladimir Skomorokhov:2022-02-07

Bach - Transciptions from Organ Works

Vladimir Skomorokhov has been a prizewinner in several international organ and piano competitions and continues his studies in both instruments at the Moscow State Conservatory. His debut album on the OnClassical label was a live Liszt-recital; now he has recorded a selection of transcriptions of Bach's organ works by Busoni, Liszt, and Eugen d'Albert.
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Julien Libeer:2022-02-03

J.S. Bach and Beyond - A Well-Tempered Conversation

In Julien Libeer's words, the Well-Tempered Clavier is a gateway: "Its roots plunge deeply into the three hundred previous years. Its branches reach out well into the 20th and 21st century." On this album he plays the preludes and fugues in major keys from Book I, juxtaposing Bach to composers that drew on his concepts and innovations.
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Paul Lewis:2022-01-30

Brahms - Late Piano Works

At 59, Brahms wrote his will and intended to destroy his unfinished pieces and sketches. But a chance encounter with the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld made him realise that he had not yet said all he had to say. Four large-scale works involving the clarinet were to follow, as well as a large number of short, lyrical piano pieces, marked by extreme density and abstraction, but also by intense emotion.
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Duo Spina-Benignetti:2022-01-28

Visions

The previous two albums by Eleonora Spina and Michele Benignetti, Brahms complete works for 2 pianos, 2015 and Lifetime (music by Mozart, Barber & Rachmaninov) have met with a lot of critical acclaim. This new album includes more Rachmaninov as well as rarely performed works by Mussorgsky, Poulenc, and Franck.
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Geister Duo:2022-01-27

Schumann, Brahms, Dvoràk

David Salmon and Manuel Vieillard have been performing as the Geister Duo for almost 10 years, and have been awarded several prizes, including first prize at the ARD Munich International Competition in 2021. The three works on this album are all from the Romantic period, a particularly fertile time for four-handed piano.
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Jean-Philippe Collard:2022-01-25

Faure - 13 Barcarolles, Ballade Op. 19

After winning the Cziffra Competition in 1970, Jean-Philippe Collard was offered the opportunity to record his first disc, and decided on Fauré’s Barcarolles. 50 years later, he suddenly heard Barcarolle No. 1 on the radio, in a version he didn't think very highly of. After a few minutes, the announcer named the pianist. "It was me... I was so dismayed, I knew immediately that I had to do something about it..."
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François Chaplin:2022-01-23

Chopin - 19 Waltzes

Half a century ago, a disc of Chopin's 14 Waltzes (the official number has now risen to 19) held pride of place in every record library. Since then they have lost some of their exceptional status. But with this and several other recent recordings, perhaps we are seeing a renaissance for these works of incredible charm and harmonic richness.
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Yu Kosuge:2022-01-21

Earth

Yu Kosuge's three previous albums have all been named after one of the four elements - 'Water' (2018), 'Fire' (2019) and 'Wind' (2021). The project now comes to an end with the theme of 'Earth'. Human tragedy, struggle and hope is illustrated with Sonatas by Chopin and Janacek, Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy and Dai Fujikura's "Akiko's Diary", written in remembrance of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
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Vladimir Feltsman:2022-01-19

Beethoven - Variations and Rondos

At the end of the 18th century, countless sets of piano variations were produced, published, and eagerly consumed by the public. Beethoven was not exempt from this trend. Vladimir Feltsman offers a broad selection, including early works written in a conventional manner as well as sets from Beethoven's middle period, when he departed from the 'ready-made' contemporary models.
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Nicolas Namoradze:2022-01-17

Arabesque

Nicolas Namoradze came to international attention in 2018 upon winning the Honens International Piano Competition, and has since been named a Gramophone "One to Watch" and BBC Music Magazine "Rising Star". Here he presents some reflections on Robert Schumann, from both pianistic and compositional viewpoints, interleaving Schumann's work with his own.
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Ana-Marija Markovina:2022-01-15

Mendelssohn - Complete Works For Piano Solo

"I have always been more interested in the process than the highlights of an artist’s creative life. When I engage with a composer, I need to know everything about him. Mendelssohn was a cosmos that opened before me." We are now able to listen to the results of Ana-Marija Markovina's thorough explorations of everything Mendelsohn wrote for the piano, including many sketches and fragments.
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Steven Beck:2022-01-11

Walker - Piano Sonatas

George Walker is one of the few leading American composers to produce as many as five piano sonatas. Walker managed many other feats, a number of them connected to being the first black person to break through various glass ceilings: the first to be accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music, the first to study with Nadia Boulanger and the first to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music.
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Andrea Molteni:2022-01-07

Scarlatti - Sonatas

Andrea Molteni made a unique recording debut last year with a 2-CD set of the complete works by his countrymen Dallapiccola and Petrassi. For a sequel, he turns to the endlessly inventive store of sonatas by Scarlatti. He has selected 18 lesser-known sonatas in a sequence which moves through the keys in the manner of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.
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