Frank Martin: Complete Music for Piano & Orchestra

What Martin's music needs is performances of understanding but also affection, and ASV deserves congratulation for the shrewd casting of this disc. Sebastian Benda was a composition pupil of... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Release Date: 2nd Apr 2001
Catalogue No: CDDCA1082
Label: ASV
Length: 73 minutes

Penguin Guide

Rosette

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Martin, F: Ballade for piano & orchestra

Work length16:53

Sebastian Benda (piano)
Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana
Christian Benda
Recorded: 1999-06-26
Recording Venue: RSI Auditorium, Lugano

Martin, F: Piano Concerto No. 1

Work length20:39

Sebastian Benda (piano)
Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana
Christian Benda
Recorded: 1999-06-26
Recording Venue: RSI Auditorium, Lugano

I: Lento

Track length9:44

II: Largo

Track length6:05

III: Allegro molto

Track length4:50

Martin, F: Piano Concerto No. 2

Work length22:22

Paul Badura-Skoda (piano)
Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana
Christian Benda
Recorded: 1999-06-26
Recording Venue: RSI Auditorium, Lugano

I: Con moto

Track length8:22

II: Lento

Track length7:53

III: Presto

Track length6:07

Martin, F: Danse de la Peur for 2 pianos and small orchestra

Work length13:17

Paul Badura-Skoda (piano)
Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana
Christian Benda
Recorded: 1999-06-26
Recording Venue: RSI Auditorium, Lugano

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Reviews

2010

What Martin's music needs is performances of understanding but also affection, and ASV deserves congratulation for the shrewd casting of this disc. Sebastian Benda was a composition pupil of Martin's, and once recorded the Ballade with him conducting. The Second Piano Concerto was written for Paul Badura-Skoda, and he too recorded it with the composer. The conductor here is too young to share the two pianists' warm memories of Martin, but he's Sebastian Benda's son, and the sense of all three collaborating in a tribute is strong.
Martin is often described as a serialist, but this isn't true. He used 12-note rows, but only to discipline his melodic language, which is tonal, strong and lyrical. The First Concerto might just as well have been subtitled 'The Dramatic' and Benda plays it with flair and great enjoyment, as he does the gentler but no less varied Ballade. The Second Concerto, a late work, is one of Martin's finest, with a profusion of bold, striking ideas and opportunities for grand rhetoric.
Badura-Skoda plays it as though he were delighted to make its acquaintance again.
Perhaps the orchestra could have done with two or three extra desks of strings, but the recording is excellent and the performances all that could be desired.

Frank Martin: Complete Music for Piano & Orchestra

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