Browsing: Piano

+ A CD review of English composer Granville Bantock’s epic late-Romantic oratorio Omar Khayyam, re-released from the 1979 Lyrita version with the BBC orchestra and chorus under Norman Del Mar. + The results of the Seventh Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition, held in Fort Worth TX, are in. + David Lang talks with The Guardian’s Kate Molleson about writing music for memorials. A classic daunting Lang commission: construct exactly the right music for collective remembrance. “Right,” he nods, but he doesn’t look daunted. “How to write something that seems ancient, like a kind of music whose origins we don’t question.…

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This is a great time for piano lovers, a terrible one for young pianists. The past four years have flung up the most phenomenal range of new talent, more than listeners can take in. Daniil Trifonov, the 2011 Tchaikovsky winner, set a new benchmark. Since then, the 2015 Chopin competition has yielded Seong-jin Cho and Charles-Richard Hamelin, the Van Cliburn has brought forth the prodigious Beatrice Rana, the BBC Young Musician winner Benjamin Grosvenor has quickly made a name for himself and there are more coming through all the time. And then there’s Lucas Debargue. Placed fourth in the 2015…

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In perhaps the coldest concert ever recorded, Italian composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi plays an ode to the Arctic while floating on a platform in the middle of the ocean. Associated with Greenpeace, this act of environmental activism is to raise awareness for the environmental degradation of one of the most fragile ecosystems on our planet. As Einaudi plays, parts of glaciers crack and fall into the Arctic Ocean, a chilling reminder of climate change due to the greenhouse gas effect.

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20 June 2016 — This morning, pianist Louise Bessette received the degree of Doctor of Music, honoris causa, from Western University in London, Ontario. The Montreal pianist is recognized for her accomplishments as “an internationally recognized performer and leading light in the interpretation of 20th and 21st century music, and for her significant impact in the contemporary world of classical piano.” Louise Bessette is one of today’s pre-eminent interpreters of the music of our time. Possessing a unique combination of eclectic repertory and impeccable delivery, Bessette has been hailed as “a 20th-century specialist of penetrating insight and unerring technique” (The Gazette) and is praised for…

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Every few months I take my ears out for a cleaning. This is not as easy as it sounds. Finding music that is original, unfamiliar, astringent, elevating and altogether uncomplacent restricts the seeker to the dustiest corners of recorded repertoire. And no sooner do you find a box that fits the bill than what you thought was household detergent comes stuffed with sticky minimalisms. Anyway, this week, I’ve struck lucky with some top-grade industrial ear cleanser from a British pianist I’d normally associate with Beethoven, Rachmaninov and Messiaen. Steven Osborne, though, has a quirky turn of mind and a wonderful…

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Scriabin: Piano Music Sonata Fantaisie, Impromptus, Nocturnes Soyeon Kate Lee Naxos 2016. 8.573527. 51 min 27 s. Soyeon Kate Lee returns with an atypical choice in her new CD. They are pieces by the young Alexander Scriabin, all equally varied and lovely. Scriabin left an impressive and eclectic body of piano works, some of which are baffling in their classicism. Take for example the Sonata-Fantasy in G-sharp minor, whose exotic chords announce the grand sonorousness which he loved, but which is still written in classical form. And how can one compare the Mazurka no. 2 op. 3 with the Sonata…

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Two 2015 Tchaikovsky Competition laureates for the price of one: This was the upscale bargain offered by the Show One concert organization, whose many Toronto followers obligingly filled Koerner Hall. Few could have left disappointed. Lucas Debargue and Lukas Geniušas were the visiting pianists, the former born in Paris, the latter in Moscow. Debargue is already a minor celebrity owing to an improbable life story that includes a late start at 11 and a three-year hiatus from his chosen instrument in his late teens. The slim 25-year-old says he has learned some complex 20th-century scores by ear, a claim that…

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The question is, what took them so long? Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim, born a year apart in Buenos Aires to Jewish mothers of Russian extraction, have left it until their mid-seventies to discover common ground. Both prodigious pianists, they sailed for Europe where their paths diverged. Argerich won the Busoni and Chopin competitions and worked intensively with Italian conductors, notably Abbado, Muti, Sinopoli and Chailly. Barenboim determined from an early age to be an orchestral conductor. He had no need for other pianists. When he put on a concerto he could play it himself (or call in his mentor,…

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You knew that the author of Doctor Zhivago was a composer, right? You didn’t. Well sit back; this might take a while. One of the most iconic portraits of the mystical Russian musician Alexander Scriabin was painted by the distinguished arstist, Leonid Pasternak. The sitter so impressed the artist’s 14 year-old son that Boris Pasternak promptly decided to become a composer and went to study for a while at the Moscow Conservatoire. Six years later he gave up writing music, but Scriabin’s influence proved formative and enduring, especially on his poetry. Boris Pasternak later married the wife of the important…

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Grantham: J’ai été au bal Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 5 in F major Op. 103 “Egyptian”* Serpa: An Invocation Copland: Rodeo (complete ballet score) Anton Nel, piano* Austin Symphony Orchestra/Peter Bay, conductor Long Center for the Performing Arts Austin, Texas Saturday, February 27, 2016 Some years ago I came across a 1993 live recording of Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 5, featuring Sviatoslav Richter. I didn’t know the piece, but I figured that if a great artist like Richter thought it was worth his time to learn it, it was probably worth my time to listen to it. And what a…

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