Mendelssohn: Piano Music Vol. 2

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Frith is a powerful player...This is music of substance and Frith gives it its due. — BBC Music Magazine More…

Catalogue No: 8550940
Label: Naxos
Length: 65 minutes

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Mendelssohn: 3 Preludes, Op. 104a

Work length7:35

$3.00

$3.90

Benjamin Frith (piano)
Recorded: 20 February, 19 September 1994 / 21 February 1995
Recording Venue: St. Martin’s Church, East Woodhay

Prelude in B flat major

Track length3:26

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude in B minor

Track length1:42

$1.00

$1.30

Prelude in D major

Track length2:27

$1.00

$1.30

Mendelssohn: 3 Etudes, Op. 104b

Work length7:32

$3.00

$3.90

Benjamin Frith (piano)
Recorded: 20 February, 19 September 1994 / 21 February 1995
Recording Venue: St. Martin’s Church, East Woodhay

Etude in B flat minor

Track length2:14

$1.00

$1.30

Etude in F major

Track length3:41

$1.00

$1.30

Etude in A minor

Track length1:37

$1.00

$1.30

Mendelssohn: Variations sérieuses in D minor Op. 54

Work length12:31

$3.00

$3.85

Benjamin Frith (piano)
Recorded: 20 February, 19 September 1994 / 21 February 1995
Recording Venue: St. Martin’s Church, East Woodhay

Mendelssohn: Kinderstücke (6), Op. 72 'Christmas Pieces'

Work length8:27

$6.00

$7.80

Benjamin Frith (piano)
Recorded: 20 February, 19 September 1994 / 21 February 1995
Recording Venue: St. Martin’s Church, East Woodhay

Allegro non troppo

Track length1:03

$1.00

$1.30

Andante sostenuto

Track length1:47

$1.00

$1.30

Allegretto

Track length1:00

$1.00

$1.30

Andante con moto

Track length1:23

$1.00

$1.30

Allegro assai

Track length1:40

$1.00

$1.30

Vivace

Track length1:34

$1.00

$1.30

Mendelssohn: Gondellied (Barcarolle) in A

Work length2:07

$1.00

$1.30

Benjamin Frith (piano)
Recorded: 20 February, 19 September 1994 / 21 February 1995
Recording Venue: St. Martin’s Church, East Woodhay

Gondellied in A major

Track length2:07

$1.00

$1.30

Mendelssohn: Scherzo in B minor

Work length1:09

$1.00

$1.30

Benjamin Frith (piano)
Recorded: 20 February, 19 September 1994 / 21 February 1995
Recording Venue: St. Martin’s Church, East Woodhay

Mendelssohn: Piano Sonata in E major, Op. 6

Work length26:01

$5.00

$6.50

Benjamin Frith (piano)
Recorded: 20 February, 19 September 1994 / 21 February 1995
Recording Venue: St. Martin’s Church, East Woodhay

Allegretto con espressione

Track length6:15

$1.00

$1.30

Tempo di Menuetto

Track length6:01

$1.00

$1.30

Recitativo: Adagio e senza tempo

Track length7:06

$2.00

$2.60

Molto allegro e vivace

Track length6:39

$1.00

$1.30

Reviews
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Reviews

Frith is a powerful player...This is music of substance and Frith gives it its due.

2010

The multiplicity of notes in Mendelssohn's piano music sometimes lays him open to the charge of 'note-spinning'. So what higher praise for Benjamin Frith than to say that thanks to his fluency, not a single work outstays its welcome here. The unchallengeable masterpiece is the Variations sérieuses, so enthusiastically taken up by Clara Schumann, and still a repertory work today. Frith characterises each variation with telling contrasts of tempo and touch without sacrificing the continuity and unity of the whole.
Equally importantly, he never lets us forget the sérieuses of the title.
No less impressive is his sensitively varied palette in the early E-major Sonata (unmistakable homage to Beethoven's Op-101) so often helped by subtle pedalling. But surely the recitative of the Adagio at times needs just a little more intensity and underlying urgency. Of the miniatures the six Kinderstücke ('Christmas Pieces' – written for the children of a friend) emerge with an unforced charm. As music they lack the romance of Schumann's ventures into a child's world, just as the Three Studies do of Chopin's magical revelations in this sphere. However, Frith's fingers never let him down. In the first B-flat Study he even seems to acquire a third hand to sustain its middle melody.
For sheer seductive grace, the independent Gondellied haunts the memory most of all.
With pleasantly natural sound, too, this disc is quite a bargain.

Mendelssohn: Piano Music Vol. 2

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