Krystian Zimerman & Sir Simon Rattle: Lutoslawski

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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... — BBC Music Magazine, September 2015 More…

Release Date: 14th Aug 2015
Catalogue No: 4794518
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Length: 52 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

21st August 2015
Gramophone Magazine

September 2015

Editor's Choice
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2015
Diapason d’Or de l’Année

2015

Winner - Musique Symphonique

Lutosławski: Piano Concerto

Work length26:09

$4.40

$6.00

$8.20

Krystian Zimerman (piano)
Berliner Philharmoniker
Sir Simon Rattle
Recorded: 2013-09-04
Recording Venue: Philharmonie, Berlin

1. Dotted Quarter Note = 110 - Quarter Note = 70

Track length5:53

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

2. Presto - Poco meno mosso - Lento

Track length4:39

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

3. Eighth Note ca. 85 - Largo

Track length7:56

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

4. Quarter Note = 84 - Presto

Track length7:41

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Lutosławski: Symphony No. 2

Work length26:08

$2.20

$3.00

$4.10

Berliner Philharmoniker
Sir Simon Rattle
Recorded: 2013-09-08
Recording Venue: Philharmonie, Berlin

1. Hésitant

Track length12:27

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

2. Direct

Track length13:41

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

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Recording of the Week, Krystian Zimerman and Simon Rattle perform music by Lutosławski

21st August 2015

James listens to Krystian Zimerman's new recording of Lutosławski's Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic.

This album follows up Krystian Zimerman and Sir Simon Rattle’s award winning DG recording of Brahm’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Lutosławski’s Piano Concerto, written in 1988, is dedicated to Krystian Zimerman and was presented by him the first time to audiences in Salzburg in the same year.

The piece features extremely virtuosic demands, its dense pianistic gestures at times recall the piano concertos of Bartók and Prokofiev. The Symphony No. 2, created with techniques of “limited aleatoricism” (Lutosławski), fascinates with its orchestral surfaces that offer an insight into their creator’s ability to organize sounds in a very precise way and their iridescent and colorful vitality.

Reviews

September 2015

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. Yet Rattle's own input is distinguished…and who better to summon up [the warmth of the work] than the luxurious-sounding Berliners?

14th August 2015

Elusive and restless, Lutoslawski’s Piano Concerto is like a siren luring the inquisitive listener. Nothing is obvious in this airborne music, as its ideas gather and disperse at speed, like swarming insects, only touching the ground in the last few minutes.Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic are inspiring interpreters and the music takes wing.

September 2015

Partnered with exemplary polish and unstinting dedication by Rattle and the Berliners, Zimerman is at his patrician, dazzingly articulate best, locating even greater reserves of concentration and rapt hush than previously in the slow movement…[the Second Symphony is] delivered with riveting technical mastery here…a very fine issue

2nd August 2015

Rattle has always been a passionate Lutoslawskian, and his Berliners enjoyed a close relationship with the composer, who recorded his most important orchestral scores with them. The symphony, a dark, brooding work from 1967, has flashes of brilliance in the orchestral writing, which could hardly be better played and conducted today.

5th August 2015

Zimerman has continued to perform the concerto regularly, living with it, refining his interpretation. The piano part was always perfectly tailored to his supreme technique...the Berlin Philharmonic’s realisation of the flickering, glinting orchestral writing is just as meticulously detailed as the jewel-like precision of the piano playing.

14th August 2015

you only have to listen to the Second Symphony’s accelerating terror and cataclysmic climax — particularly as Rattle and the Berliners do it — to realise that Lutoslawski poured much more into his composition than excellent craftsmanship...Zimerman virtually owns [the Piano Concerto]: he premiered it, and recorded it with the composer conducting. Here he finds an even greater profundity.

Krystian Zimerman & Sir Simon Rattle: Lutoslawski

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Recording of the Week, Krystian Zimerman and Simon Rattle perform music by Lutosławski

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