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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Bach - Piano Transcriptions Volume 8arr. Eugen d' Albert (1864-1932)
Hyperion’s Bach Piano Transcriptions series reaches volume 8, and continues to surprise and delight with a disc containing many first recordings. The controversial figure of Eugen d’Albert was one of the greatest pianists of his day and, although largely forgotten now, a composer of genuinely international renown. A sometime student at the Royal College of Music, d’Albert rejected his British upbringing and nailed his colours to the mast of German music. Bach was an important part of his performing career—and like other great nineteeth-century pianists, d’Albert saw in the monumental scale of the organ works an opportunity to synthesize the works of the Master with the expanded capabilities of the modern piano. “...what makes Lane's performance so special is the sheer panache, even chutzpah, that he brings to every twist and turn while managing to keep the contrapuntal threads transparent within the fabric. And his tone is one of exceptional beauty and fullness...Intelligent musicianship replete with élan, excellently recorded” BBC Music Magazine, June 2010 ***** “Lane takes [no] prisoners in these sonorous and exhilarating performances, conjuring up from the Steinway's richly resonant bass a cathedral's 32 foot pedal division to thrilling effect...I guarantee you will come away awed anew by the genius of Bach and amazed by the ingenuity of d'Albert.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2010 “They are quite remarkable, in that most of them don't sound like transcriptions at all but suggest original Bach keyboard music played on a modern piano...But d'Albert's versions...are extraordinary and exquisite, and Lane plays them with a ravishing finesse that belies their often monumental difficulty.” The Guardian, 8th April 2010 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Bridge - Piano Quintet, String Quartet & Idylls
Frank Bridge is one of those composers who has been generally dismissed for his ‘Englishness’ and is probably remembered best today as the teacher of Benjamin Britten. But this disc of chamber music will radically change this appraisal. It particularly reveals Bridge’s strong French influence, the dance-like quality of his writing darkened with a brooding inspiration, and the music’s dramatic and emotional heart. Three important and very different works are collected here: the elegant early Idylls, the ambitious Piano Quintet and the extraordinary String Quartet No 4, Bridge’s last chamber work, written during a period of near-fatal illness, yet displaying a progressive, forward-looking musical language that shows the great range of this undervalued composer. We are delighted to welcome the Goldner Quartet back to Hyperion for their second disc. Their first—also featuring pianist Piers Lane—was universally acclaimed as a truly great chamber recording, and has been nominated for a BBC Music Magazine award. “This is an absolutely splendid disc, with powerful, committed performances that illuminate Frank Bridge's mastery of chamber music in two major scores, early and late, as well as the famous Idylls of 1906: programming that offers a fine introduction to Frank Bridge's astonishing stylistic range.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2009 ***** “These unfailingly sympathetic, flexible and exhilarating assured performances (that of the Quartet, on balance, the finest to date) have been most truthfully captured by the microphones…” Gramophone Magazine, July 2009 “The Goldner Quartet really understand this music and with masterly pianist Piers Lane throw welcome light on a neglected page of British music.” The Observer, 3rd May 2009 “Frank Bridge's comprehensive 1912 revision of his D minor Piano Quintet from seven years before remains the sole comparative dud in his early chamber output – and not even this splendidly articulate rendering from Piers Lane and the Goldners can persuade otherwise. The original work's four movements are condensed to three, its centrepiece a gratefully lyrical amalgam of slow movement and scherzo enclosed within one of Bridge's arch-like 'phantasy'structures. Alas, the opening movement (after a promising start) soon drifts into a worryingly humdrum, sequential lassitude, and the finale fails to provide sufficient ballast to counterbalance what has preceded it.
The Three Idylls of 1906 are an infinitely more enticing proposition – exquisitely crafted, keenly proportioned and supremely touching miniatures for string quartet, the second of which later provided the 23-year-old Britten with the theme for his Op 10 Variations for string orchestra. The Fourth Quartet is utterly different again. Completed in 1937 after a near-fatal bout of bronchitis, this is arguably Bridge's most rivetingly cogent and harmonically bracing statement, evincing a deftness, compassion and unerring intellectual scope that beg comparison with the greatest 20th-century examples in the medium.
These unfailingly sympathetic, flexible and exhilaratingly assured performances have been most truthfully captured. So, despite reservations surrounding the Quintet, this is clearly a release to investigate.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 “the performance here has irresistable impetus and responds to the music's rich, lyrical feeling.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Delius - Songs
“Delius composed some 62 songs, of which Yvonne Kenny and her sensitive partner Piers Lane have chosen 25; they seem completely attuned to their world, all atmospheric yet achieved with the utmost economy of means.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2007 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Bach - Piano Transcriptions Volume 3Arrangements by Ignaz Friedman, Percy Grainger and William Murdoch
‘A memorable as well as enticing disc’ (Gramophone) “Lane commands the golden tone and effortless, spirited virtuosity needed to make these transcriptions come alive, and makes them sound easy to boot. A honey of a release” BBC Music Magazine “A truly fascinating disc … Lane clearly relishes in the amusing challenges, but he also makes you wonder at the immensity of Bach’s genius” Classic FM Magazine “Wonderful music, consummately transcribed and movingly played” International Piano “This is wonderfully crafted piano music, marvellously executed by Lane … the playing is always supremely fluid and musically enquiring … this is another fascinating release from Hyperion” International Record Review | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Scriabin: Complete Etudes
“Although Scriabin's études do not fall into two neatly packaged sets in the same way as Chopin's celebrated contributions, nevertheless there's a strong feeling of continuity and development running throughout the 26 examples produced between the years 1887 and 1912. This is admirably demonstrated in this excellent issue from Hyperion, which, far from being an indigestible anthology proves to be an intriguing and pleasurable hour's worth of listening charting Scriabin's progression from late-romantic adolescence to harmonically advanced mystical poet. Indeed, although these studies can be counted as amongst the most digitally taxing and hazardous of their kind, Scriabin also saw them as important sketches and studies for his larger works, and as experiments in his gradually evolving harmonic language and mystical vision.
Piers Lane attains the perfect balance of virtuoso display and poetic interpretation. Expressive detail and subtle nuance are finely brought out, and he's more than receptive to Scriabin's sometimes highly idiosyncratic sound world; rarely, for instance, has the famous 'Mosquito' Etude (Op 42 No 3) been captured with such delicate fragility as here, and in No 1 of the three fiendishly difficult Etudes, Op 65 the tremulous, ghostly flutterings are tellingly delivered with a gossamer-light touch and a sense of eerie mystery.
The clear, spacious recording is exemplary.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Dvorak - Piano Quintets Nos. 1 & 2
The performing team of Piers Lane and the Goldner String Quartet has won many plaudits for their enlightening interpretations of the obscurer piano quintet repertoire. Now they turn to a composer who triumphed in the genre. Dvorák’s two piano quintets were written at different stages of the composer’s career: the first during a period of poverty and uncertainty, the second when the composer was approaching the zenith of his international fame. The two quintets make a fascinating pairing here. Dvorák originally tore up his manuscript of the first; luckily the pianist at the premiere kept a copy. It is clearly a youthful work, showing something of the discursiveness of the early string quartets, a point noted by a critic at the premiere, but there is no doubting the confidence with which Dvorák handles the combination of piano and strings (doubly impressive since he did not possess a piano at this time), which in many places anticipates the instrumentation in the famous second piano quintet. Dvorák’s second Piano Quintet was an immediate popular success at its first performance and has remained one of the best-loved examples of the genre. The premiere was given by four of the finest Czech string players of the day and the promising conductor and composer Karel Kovarovic at the piano. The celebrated ‘Dumka’ movement, the lyrical heart of the work, demonstrates the extraordinary command of melody that characterizes the composer’s symphonies. Performances of technical polish and expressive power, sensitively recorded, combine to make this a chamber disc to treasure. “This is music to cheer the heart and put a spring in your step...The Goldner Quartet from Australia has teamed up with British pianist Piers Lane in fine, characterful performances” The Telegraph, 5th March 2010 “The blend of voices - within the string quartet and between the strings and piano - is ideal, the Suffolk Potton Hall acoustic free enough to allow the instruments breathing space...Sound-wise, the Goldner Quartet achieve a warm and radiant pooled tone” Gramophone Magazine, May 2010 “The performers offer an immensely satistfying and unmannered performance.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2010 **** “The early quintet...[is] performed here with splendid conviction by Piers Lane and his fellow Australians the Goldner Quartet...In the later quintet, with all its craft, there seems no effort, so spontaneously, so seamlessly does it move. The composer has found his voice, and the result is enchantment.” Sunday Times, 16th May 2010 *** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Bloch - Piano Quintets
Serenity and meditation contrast with melancholy and savagery; primitive passions yield to poignancy, nobility and tenderness in Bloch’s accomplished chamber music. Five substantial pieces are recorded here, dating from different stages of the composer’s career and demonstrating both the programmatic elements of his writing and his Impressionistic side. Bloch’s deep affinity for string instruments and the piano is also given ample expression in these works, all of which deserve a permanent place in the chamber music repertoire. “In the First Quintet Lane and the Goldners manage to communicate the urgency and immediacy of Bloch's musical argument… the opening passage projected with a frenzy that generates considerable momentum and purpose throughout the rhapsodic first movement. ...the performers are equally persuasive in capturing the langour and hypnotic sensuousness of the Andante mistico.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2008 ***** “A fabulous CD this, easily the best recording of Bloch's chamber music I've heard in years… the music is truly wonderful, the playing entirely sympathetic and the sound perfectly balanced.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2007 “[Piano Quintet No 1] ranks among the finest in the genre … a work of astonishing immediacy, at once lyrical and aggressive, that takes you on a lurching emotional journey before achieving stability in the most serene C major imaginable … the performances, by the Goldner String Quartet and pianist Piers Lane, are
tremendously authoritative in their combination of technical daring and expressive power” The Guardian “A fabulous CD this, easily the best recording of Bloch's chamber music in years. The First Quintet, a product of the early 1920s, seems to combine the acerbic drive of middle-period Bartók with the kind of veiled sensuality one associates more with Chausson or Fauré. Bloch's use of quarter-tones, aimed at intensifying the work's already heightened emotional atmosphere, requires careful handling, and the Goldner Quartet make them sound both musically striking and entirely natural. If you need a sampling- point, try the finale's opening, where the sense of urgency will hold you riveted.
The real revelation here is the Second Piano Trio (1957). The language recalls the First Quintet's stronger elements, with tone-rows this time rather than quarter-tones, though again their employment is musical rather than 'political'. Amazing to think that this was Bloch's last chamber work (he was already suffering from cancer when he wrote it), the combination of raw energy and mysticism suggesting the mind of a much younger man, much as Janácek's late chamber music does. The Quintet's quiet coda is rapturously beautiful and the blending of voices between Piers Lane and the Goldners simply could not be bettered. The short quartet bonuses suggest that a Goldner Bloch quartet cycle would be a good idea. But that's one for the future; as for this current release, the music is truly wonderful, the playing entirely sympathetic and the sound perfectly balanced.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010  BBC Music Magazine
Disc of the month - February 2008 |
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| |  | The Romantic Piano Concerto 39 - Delius & Ireland
“…Delius's Piano Concerto emerged in 1902 as a full-blown three-movement design… Piers Lane, an eloquent advocate for this restored score, has several rivals in the Ireland Concerto. …I find Lane much more jazzily incisive than Eric Parkin…” BBC Music Magazine, January 2006 ***** “…Delius's 1907 Piano Concerto… actually began life in 1897 as a single-movement fantasy for piano and orchestra, which Delius subsequently recast as a concerto in three separate movements. First heard in Berlin in October 1904, that's the version performed here. The piano writing throughout is less flamboyant than in the revision yet still offers ample opportunity for winning display. It's all dashingly dispatched here, and devotees of this composer should certainly investigate. ...recordings of John Ireland's delectable Piano Concerto never seem to survive long in the catalogue. This Hyperion newcomer possesses many virtues. Piers Lane responds with nimble sensitivity. David Lloyd-Jones secures a tidy response from the Ulster Orchestra and the performance as a whole has a sparkle, eagerness and snap that are most refreshing.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2006 BBC Music Magazine Orchestral Choice - January 2006 |
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| |  | Henselt Études
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| |  | Saint-Saëns -The Complete Études
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Gramophone Magazine
BBC Music Magazine Awards 2009