Frédéric François Chopin

Revered pianist, Rebecca Penneys, celebrates 30 years at the Chautauqua Institution with this stunning Bicentennial Tribute to Chopin and Schumann.

“Penneys offers an extraordinary collection of performances displaying an astonishing control over piano sound. It is absolutely gorgeous and full of unimaginable colors. She sings through the instrument, seemingly without effort. Her playing is simply revelatory.” – American Record Guide

Melodiya offers its listeners a set of recordings by the great pianist of the 20th century Sviatoslav Richter, which reflects his diverse performing style. A 5 CD set, this will be a must for all fans of Richter.

Christina Bjørkøe (b.1970) began learning the piano at the age of five from her mother. In 1978 she became a pupil of Therese Koppel, who taught her until 1990, then she studied with Seymour Lipkin at the Juilliard School in New York and with Anne Øland at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, where she made her debut as a soloist in 1997. She has been awarded several prestigious prizes and grants, among them Victor Borges Musikpris in 1994, Victor Schiølers Legat in 1999, and Merete og Helge Finsens Hæderpris for 1999.

Christina Bjørkøe is associate professor at the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music Odense. She has made various acclaimed recordings of piano music from her homeland for CPO and Dacapo, including the works of Knudåge Riisager, Carl Nielsen, Herman D Koppel and Niels Viggo Bentzon.

Now she turns to music as well-loved and familiar as it is elusive, the Preludes of Chopin. They were conceived and composed amid the rain and emotional turmoil (far different from its modern reputation as a sun-seeker’s paradise) of Majorca, whence he had decamped with his mistress George Sand and her two children in search of a climate that would ameliorate his health, debilitated as he was by the onset of tuberculosis.

It was not to be. However, the Preludes form a deeply disciplined exercise in poetic sensibility, covering all the major and minor keys like Bach before him in The Well-Tempered Clavier. Each prelude is a poem, a complete, self-contained musical statement.

Meditation is a collection great works of a contemplative nature from the violin repertoire.

Paweł Gusnar is one of the few saxophonists who move freely between classical music and Jazz. He performs throughout Europe both as a soloist and chamber musician. This CD features a remarkable fusion of musical form, from a ‘homage to Chopin’ to Gusnar’s own arrangements of Piazzolla and Gershwin.