Anna Vinnitskaya CHOPIN 4 Ballades / 4 Impromptus

 

4 BALLADES / 4 IMPROMPTUS

Evgeni Koroliov / Anna Vinnitskaya / Ljupka Hadzi Georgieva / Kammerakademie Potsdam BACH Concertos for Pianos

Over the past five years, pianist Anna Vinnitskaya has made three Alpha recordings dedicated to Shostakovitch, Brahms et Rachmaninov.

Evgeni Koroliov is a great master of the piano, a great Bach specialist, whose recordings of Bach are an acclaimed benchmark. His piano duo with his wife, Ljupka Hadzi-Georgieva, has made its mark over the past few years in all the major international concert venues. Also a highly reputed teacher, Koroliov was Anna Vinnitskaya’s professor at Hamburg.

‘Though I no longer study with him, I still meet and talk with him several times a week,’ she confides. ‘That helps me further in my development, not just as a pianist but as a human being…Now that I am myself a professor at the same university, I try to carry it on, to pass his experience on to others.’

These three Slavonic pianists, who for some time have been aiming to record the Bach concertos as a team, decided to invite a German ensemble that is itself highly expert in Bach interpretation, the Potsdam Chamber Orchestra; they recorded this double album in a legendary venue where some of the greatest artists have recorded: the Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Berlin.

Anna Vinnitskaya / NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Krzysztof Urbański RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 2 - Paganini Rhapsody

Serge Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto might never have seen the light of day had it not been for hypnosis: before the twenty-seven-year-old composer began work on it, he was on his last legs – financially, artistically and psychologically. Dr Nikolay Dahl hypnotised his patient every day, whispering to him: ‘You will write your concerto. You will work with great fluency. The concerto will be of excellent quality.’ The creative block disappeared, and the concerto’s premiere in Moscow in 1901 was a triumph for Rachmaninov, who played the solo part himself.

Anna Vinnitskaya says she feels ‘a spring-like atmosphere’ in this work: throughout there is a sense of movement, of awakening. The music passes through the most contrasting psychological landscapes, but moves towards clarity and light. Rachmaninov composed the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in 1934, ten years before his death. Brahms, Liszt, Lutosławski and Andrew Lloyd Webber are among the remarkable roll call of composers inspired by Paganini’s theme.

The Russian pianist and the Polish conductor Krzysztof Urbański have often played Rachmaninoff together, on every continent. The two artists, both of whom present here their third disc for Alpha, were reunited in the NDR studios in Hamburg to record this repertory that fits them like a glove. (Outhere Music)

Anna Vinnitskaya RAVEL

Russian pianist Anna Vinnitskaya came to public attention with a couple of major prizes late in the 2000s decade and has since made several recordings of technically fearsome repertory from the early 20th century. If you're the type who likes to skip straight to the action scenes, sample the fireworks of "Scarbo," from the suite Gaspard de la nuit, where it becomes clear that Vinnitskaya has all the technical equipment that could be desired. But she has also developed interpretive charisma to go along with the technical mastery. Hear how artfully the pedal is used in the opening phrases of "Scarbo" to deepen the response of the low piano utterances to the difficult repeated-note figures. In Miroirs, composed several years earlier, Vinnitskaya never bogs down in technical detail and achieves a real sense of the mystery contemporary listeners must have heard in these pieces: the insistent tonal stasis of "Oiseaux tristes," the transfigured Spanish style of Alborada del gracioso, the slightly surreal La Vallée des cloches. Naïve's engineers, working at the Jesus Christus Kirche in Berlin, capture the full range of a recording with a remarkable dynamic spectrum, as compelling in its quiet moments as it is in the fireworks. Highly recommended. (James Manheim)

Anna Vinnitskaya BRAHMS Bach-Brahms

Anna Vinnitskaya’s discography to date has been Franco-Russian. Here she tackles Brahms, whom she has frequently played in concert, notably this summer at the Festival of La Roque d’Anthéron. Here is what ResMusica had to say about that recital: ‘True to her reputation, the Russian pianist genuinely illuminated the scene, impressing us with the control and depth of her artistry . . . Each piece obeyed a flawless architectural rigour, focusing on melodic line and diversity of tone. Right from the first bars of Bach’s Chaconne transcribed by Brahms for the left hand, she produced a sound so full and nuanced as to make us forget that we were listening to just one hand. . . . There is always a great temptation to slide into Romantic emphasis, but the Russian artist achieved emotion with sobriety, using very little pedal. In the Klavierstücke of Brahms, this ability to penetrate the score down to its slightest inflections resulted in a version at the opposite pole from what one so often hears. Only the great Brahms interpreters possess the gift of not overloading a text already sufficiently dense in sentiments.’ This recording was made some weeks later, at the famous, indeed legendary concert hall of Neumarkt near Nuremberg. (Presto Classical)

Anna Vinnitskaya / Kremerata Baltica SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Concertos

This is a remarkable debut disc from Russian-German pianist Anna Vinnitskaya. The two Shostakovich piano concertos are brilliant and entertaining, parodic and pensive in turn. In the Concerto in C Minor for Piano, Trumpet and Strings, Op.35 (1933) soloist-director Vinnitskaya maintains tight ensemble and clear articulation with the Kremerata Baltica string orchestra and trumpeter Tobias Willner. The first movement illustrates Shostakovich’s method of assembling triads, scales and popular songs or classical themes into an ironic crazy-quilt whole, featuring harmonic sidesteps into new keys. In the second movement strings play a wide-ranging lyrical melody with poise, as a muted trumpet in dialogue with the piano does later. The virtuosic finale features Vinnitskaya’s still more rapid-fire piano and Willner’s matching double-tonguing. 

In the Piano Concerto No.2 in F Major, Op.102 (1957), Omer Meir Wellber conducts the Winds of Staatskapelle Dresden together with Kremerata Baltica. The first and third major-key movements are tuneful in accordance with Soviet expectations, with military band-style flourishes and plenty of piano scales. The third however has sufficient contrast: it is largely in 7/4 metre, woodwinds are brilliant and French horns a standout, and there is even a quoted Hanon piano finger exercise! Best of all for me is Anna Vinnitskaya’s sensitive high-register playing in the the middle movement, which seems like a reminiscence of childhood. In the disc’s last two works pianist Ivan Rudin joins Vinnitskaya in idiomatic playing of Shostakovich’s Concertino (1954) and Tarantella (1955) for two pianos. Recommended for Shostakovich lovers. (Roger Knox)

Anna Vinnitskaya PROKOFIEV - RAVEL

Naturally when one thinks of the words piano concerto and Russian, Rachmaninov comes to mind, but this album proves that Prokofiev is equally adept at composing a masterwork for the piano, the Piano Concerto No. 2, which is made up of four movements. Though the recording quality is a bit too soft at the beginning when the piano enters, the tone is very crisp and bright and perhaps a little too polished-sounding. Prokofiev is less tonal here than in some of his other works, and this certainly makes the concerto a challenge to play. However, Vinnitskaya is more than up to the task, as her elegant, delicate touch moves through runs in the first movement with great precision and handles lively, playful passages in the third movement with great agility. Vinnitskaya's style might be likened to a ballet dancer: supple, strong, but never ungraceful. Sometimes the phrasing in the first movement sounds mostly horizontal; that is, we get the sense of the flow of the melody, with less emphasis of the vertical chords. However, it is clear that, though she has performed since childhood, she is young and there is still exciting promise to see her growth as an artist. Gilbert Varga sets a rapid tempo with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in the fourth movement, but the pianist's blooming, majestic arpeggi never lag behind. Prokofiev himself held Maurice Ravel in great admiration, so it is indeed fitting that Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major is the second work on the album. From its shimmering beginning with the piano and orchestra in a dialogue together, to the ethereal orchestral passages of beautiful tone color that are unmistakably Ravellian, Vinnitskaya captures well the spirit of the composer. Overall, the concerto is less of a showcase of the pianist than it is a tightly knit work between the piano and the orchestra, and once again Varga leads the orchestra with great skill while respecting Vinnitskaya's artistry. (V.Vasan)