Krystian Zimerman / London Symphony Orchestra / Simon Rattle LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Complete Piano Concertos

 

 COMPLETE PIANO CONCERTOS

Renaud Capuçon / Stephen Hough / London Symphony Orchestra / Simon Rattle ELGAR Violin Concerto | Violin Sonata

 

VIOLIN CONCERTO | VIOLIN SONATA

Krystian Zimerman / London Symphony Orchestra / Simon Rattle LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major op. 15

 

PIANO CONCERTO No. 1 IN C MAJOR OP. 15

 

London Symphony Orchestra / Simon Rattle BEETHOVEN Christ on the Mount of Olives

 

CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES

 

Sheku Kanneh-Mason / Simon Rattle / London Symphony Orchestra ELGAR

                                                                              ELGAR

Berliner Philharmoniker / Simon Rattle / Krystian Zimerman LEONARD BERNSTEIN Symphony No, 2 "The Age of Anxiety"

W. H. Auden was a charming moralist, wistful yet pitiless, affectionate yet weighed down by emotional pain. With The Age of Anxiety, he created a historical and psychological diagnosis of the soul and of the time in the guise of a Baroque pastoral poem: “Lies and lethargy police the world / in its periods of peace. What pain taught / is soon forgotten; we celebrate / what ought to happen as if it were done, / Are blinded by our boasts. Then back they come, / The fears that we fear.” The outer frame of the action is provided by the four protagonists who fall into conversation in a New York bar and – as the alcohol breaks down the barriers of internal censorship – discuss the war, their own world view and their faith: a fictional conversation between average people, the chorus of a drama (that fails to materialise) and a hymn and elegy.

The poem, which won Auden the Pulitzer Prize, inspired Leonard Bernstein to compose his eponymous symphony: “The essential line of Auden’s poem,” said the composer, “is the record of our difficult and problematic search for faith. In the end, two of the characters enunciate the recognition of this faith – at the same time revealing an inability to relate to it personally in their daily lives.” In the score, which mixes a kaleidoscopic variety of different musical styles, the concertante solo piano takes on a symbolic function: “The pianist,” as Bernstein wrote, “provides an almost autobiographical protagonist, set against an orchestral mirror in which he sees himself, analytically, in the modern ambience.” In the Berlin Philharmonie, no less than Krystian Zimerman will take on the solo part, interspersed with jazz-style syncopation, to which Bernstein subsequently added an extensive cadenza before the final coda.

Gidon Kremer EDITION LOCKENHAUS

Five-CD limited-edition box set, issued in time for the 30th anniversary of the Austrian chamber-music festival. “Edition Lockenhaus” returns long out-of-print titles to the catalogue, with some of the finest musicians of the New Series, including Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, Heinz Holliger, Thomas Zehetmair, Thomas Demenga, Robert Levin, Eduard Brunner and many more. Gidon Kremer: “The artistic atmosphere in Lockenhaus soon has everybody speaking on the same wavelength.” The set opens with previously unreleased recordings – from 2001 and 2008 – with Sir Simon Rattle and Roman Kofman conducting Kremerata Baltica in revelatory performances of Richard Strauss’s “Metamorphosen” and Olivier Messiaen’s “Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine”: the committed interpretations convey the spirit of Lockenhaus. Discs two through five focus on music of César Franck, André Caplet, Francis Poulenc, Leos Janácek, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich and Erwin Schulhoff. Original liner notes, an interview with Kremer, and new texts complete a very special edition. (ECM Records)

Krystian Zimerman / Simon Rattle / Berliner Philharmoniker LUTOSLAWSKI Piano Concerto - Symphony No. 2

. . . [Piano Concerto]: the hall's acoustics respond beautifully to the mellow, floating textures. Lutoslawski often writes quiet music, but with such detail that every nuance needs to be heard. Every nuance is heard here, and the effect is spectacular. The piano is always apparent across the orchestra, even when their respective textures call its dominance into question. Of course, Lutoslawski knows what he is doing, and no doubt he is relying on Zimerman's always clear articulation and touch to project the piano's lines . . . The Berlin Philharmonic sound is ideal here, not only for the sheer elegance the orchestra displays, but also for the details that it is able to project, again aided by the excellent audio . . . this Zimerman/Rattle collaboration comes highly recommended. Whatever this mercurial pianist's motivations for returning to the concerto, we should all be glad he did.

(Record Review / Gavin Dixon, Classical CD Reviews) 

. . . [Zimerman's performances of the Piano Concerto] mix complete authority with fresh, questing spirit, as if he were laying out the notes for the first time . . . Zimerman injects both delicacy and virtuosity into the dialogue with Simon Rattle's orchestra, and also holds the key, as probably only a Pole could do, to the serious yet wistful undercurrents of this work . . . Rattle's own input is distinguished . . . he conducts this with a similar ecstatic beauty . . . [the Symphony no. 2 is] a work of warmth, and who better to summon up that than the luxurious-sounding Berliners?

(Record Review / John Allison, BBC Music Magazine)