Angela Hewitt LOVE SONGS

 

LOVE SONGS

 

Christian-Pierre La Marca CELLO 360

 

CELLO 360

 

The Kanneh-Masons CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS

 

CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS

Bertrand Chamayou GOOD NIGHT!

GOOD NIGHT!

 

Denis Kozhukhin GRIEG Piano Works

PIANO WORKS

Jonas Kaufmann / Helmut Deutsch SELIGE STUNDE

SELIGE STUNDE

Anton Batagov SUNNY NIGHT

SUNNY NIGHT

Uta Weyand 1892 REFLECTIONS

1892 REFLECTIONS

Ragnhild Hemsing / Tor Espen Aspaas NORTHERN TIMBRE

NORTHERN TIMBRE

Seiji Ozawa / Martha Argerich / Mito Chamber Orchestra BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto 2 GRIEG Holberg Suite

                                            PIANO CONCERTO 2 - HOLBERG SUITE

Eldbjørg Hemsing / Simon Trpčeski GRIEG The Violin Sonatas

                                                           THE VIOLIN SONATAS

Louise Alder / Joseph Middleton LINES WRITTEN DURING A SLEEPLESS NIGHT

                                                           The Russian Connection

Nelson Freire ENCORES

Legendary Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire celebrates his 75th birthday with a new album, a delightful collection of personal piano favourites.

The new record, ‘Encores’, contains 30 tracks ranging from Purcell to Rachmaninov; Scarlatti to Shostakovich and 12 of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces. It also includes such treasures as the Sgambati Mélodie de Gluck, Paderewski’s Nocturne and Albéniz’s Navarra.

An exclusive Decca artist since 2002, Nelson Freire won the 2006 Gramophone Recording of the Year and the Latin Grammy for Best Classical Album in 2013.

Khatia Buniatishvili MOTHERLAND

Khatia Buniatishvili has been described by The Independent as “the young Georgian firebrand”. At the age of only 26 years, this Tblisi-born pianist has already achieved an exceptional maturity of interpretation and a distinctive artistic approach that make her playing unmistakable. Khatia’s warm, sometimes sorrowful playing may reflect a close proximity to Georgian folk-music, which, she attests, has greatly influenced her musicality. Critics emphasize that her playing has an aura of elegant solitude and even melancholy, which she does not feel to be a negative attribute. “The piano is the blackest instrument,” she says, a “symbol of musical solitude… I have to be psychologically strong and forget the hall if I want to share it with the audience.” Khatia Buniatishvili speaks five languages and lives in Paris.

The CD is an intimate quest encompassing solo piano works from Bach to Pärt and from Brahms to Kancheli, in which the themes of longing for home, the merriment of a folk dance and the eternal cycle of growth and decay are apparent. Spanning a broad stylistic and historical range, the album celebrates the works that have accompanied Khatia Buniatschvili’s personal path in life, including pieces from her Georgian homeland. Motherland juxtaposes the happy lightness of a ‘Slavonic Dance’ by Dvorak and the melancholy of Grieg’s lyrical ‘Homesickness’, and contrasts the elegant gaiety of Mendelssohn’s ‘Song without Words’ (op. 67/2) with the graceful introspection of Liszt’s ‘Lullaby’. Classics of the Romantic piano repertoire such as Chopin’s Étude in C-sharp minor (op. 25/7) and Brahms ‘Intermezzo’ (op. 117/2) are embedded between Bach’s cantata ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ and Arvo Pärt’s musical dedication ‘For Alina’. 

Denis Kozhukhin GRIEG Lyric Pieces MENDELSSOHN Lieder ohne Worte

On his new solo album, Russian star pianist Denis Kozhukhin presents a personal and colourful collection of character pieces taken from Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte and Edvard Grieg’s Lyric Pieces. Combing these miniature gems by two outstanding poets of music, Kozhukhin provides a shining example of how disarmingly touching and penetrating a simple song or a vision of nature captured in sound can be. The programme features classics such as Mendelssohn’s Venetian Gondola Song and Grieg’s Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, as well as less famous but equally enchanting pieces. Kozhukhin lifts out the noble simplicity of these works with his delicate playing.

Denis Kozhukhin has established himself as one of the greatest pianists of his generation. He now presents the fifth chapter to his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, after albums with the piano concertos of Grieg and Tchaikovsky (2016), Brahms Ballades and Fantasies (2017), Ravel and Gershwin piano concertos, as well as Richard Strauss’ Burleske (both 2018).

Trio Wanderer RACHMANINOV Piano Trios

Rachmaninoff's output of chamber music is small but all the more precious for that. Two absolute gems bear witness to the fact: these ‘elegiac trios’, which were produced by a young composer still indisputably under the influence of Tchaikovsky. However, Rachmaninoff’s personality is already fully present, reaching heights of emotion and expressiveness.

The pieces by Suk and Grieg add a further touch of character to the picture, which is painted with an exceptionally rich palette: the artistry of the phenomenal Trio Wanderer.

Lang Lang PIANO BOOK

Recorded at London’s Abbey Road studios and in Beijing, ‘Piano Book’ is Lang Lang’s very personal playlist for everyone who loves the piano. It’s also the fruits of an astonishing career that has taken him from child prodigy to virtuoso at the very top of his profession. Equally happy playing for billions of viewers at the Olympics or just for a few hundred children in the public schools, Lang Lang is a master of communicating through music and his new album is a testament to that.

Raoul Steffani / Gerald Huber DEEP IN A DREAM

Baritone Raoul Steffani undertakes his CD debut, accompanied by Gerald Huber, with a collection of early songs by some major Lieder composers: Schumann, Grieg, Sibelius and Berg.

Many songs on this album have one thing in common: they are mainly early compositions, in some cases even the first songs these composers wrote. They all have a certain spontaneity and freshness which shows that the young men who composed them were still at the beginning of their careers, full of dreams and hopes for the future. Thus, not surprisingly, many of the songs are also about dreams, totally in the spirit of the true romantic soul. 

Dutch baritone Raoul Steffani, born in 1992, has quickly established himself as one of the leading singers of his generation. He was already awarded several prizes and undertaken masterclasses with Lieder masters such as Thomas Hampson, Christa Ludwig and Elly Ameling. Steffani won the Dutch Grachtenfestival award 2018 and will be Artist in Residence during the Grachtenfestival in 2019.

BERNSTEIN Romance

Bernstein to relax and dream: the double album "Romance" portrays the conductor, composer and pianist from his most romantic side in celebration of his centenary on August 25^th.

Leonard Bernstein is still unforgotten today, still on his centenary in 2018, for his outstanding interpretations of great symphonic works by Mahler, Brahms or Beethoven, and his unique sense for emotional melodies in his own arrangements and compositions. Nobody can resist the charm of the love ballad “Maria” or the optimistically inspired song “Somewhere” from the “West Side Story”. On this album some excerpts of Bernstein’s great recordings are carefully selected, which include legendary musical companions: from Edvard Grieg's "Morgenstimmung" (Peer Gynt Suite) with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber to the nostalgic second movement "Largo ma non tanto" from the Violin Double Concerto BWV 1043 by Johann Sebastian Bach with star violinists Isaac Stern and Yehudi Menuhin. And of course with Bernstein’s own music, “Maria” from the “West Side Story” or Offenbach’s famous “Barcarolle”. "Romance" is the ideal album to get to know one of the most famous classical artists of all time with romantic, relaxing classical music in high-quality recordings. 

The recordings are taken from the great Columbia Records catalogue. Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, working with outstanding soloists such as pianist Rudolf Serkin and violinists Isaac Stern and Yehudi Menuhin. In the piano concertos by Mozart and Beethoven, he plays the dual role of the pianist and the conductor.

Mischa Maisky / Lily Maisky ADAGIETTO

This very personal album, dedicated to Mischa Maisky’s young daughter Mila, features all-new recordings with his daughter Lily Maisky (piano). It features relaxing and inspiring popular melodies from the Bach/Marcello Adagio to Grieg’s “Solveig’s Song”, from Massenet’s “Méditation” to Tchaikovsky’s “Valse sentimentale”.

It also includes a multi-track arrangement of Mahler’s Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony with Mischa playing all parts (except the part for harp) – a truly captivating all-cello version of this classic.

Three bonus live recordings with Martha Argerich, Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, and Sascha Maisky.