Aki Kuroda: Firebird

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In Kuroda's brilliant hands Stravinsky's Firebird and Debussy's L'apres-midi sound natural on piano, and even Mahler's string Adagietto works. Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1 feels new. — BBC Music Magazine, January 2015, 5 out of 5 stars

Release Date: 9th Jun 2014
Catalogue No: ODRCD312
Label: Odradek Records
Length: 59 minutes

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Mahler: Super-Adagietto: Intermezzo XIII

Work length10:50

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

Aki Kuroda

Stravinsky: The Firebird

Work length13:24

$3.00

$4.20

$5.25

Aki Kuroda

I. Danse infernal du roi Kastcheï

Track length5:28

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

II. Berceuse

Track length3:52

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

III. Finale

Track length4:04

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune

Work length9:42

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

Aki Kuroda

Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E major, Op. 9

Work length25:07

$5.00

$7.00

$8.70

Aki Kuroda

I. Langsam - Sehr rasch

Track length5:36

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

II. Feurig - Hauptzeitmaß - ruhiger - sehr rasch

Track length7:48

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

III. Viel langsamer - fließender - schwungvoll - Hauptzeitmaß

Track length8:02

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

IV. Etwas ruhiger - steigernd - Hauptzeitmaß

Track length3:41

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

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Japanese pianist Aki Kuroda presents four orchestral works from a pair of major centres of European culture, Paris and Vienna, at the dawn of the 20th century, written by four composers who perhaps more than any others were shaping the course of new music at the time. Here heard transcribed for piano solo, she reveals new perspectives on them, allowing us to encounter the music afresh, in its boldest and perhaps most essential form.

The disc opens with a work specially commissioned for the CD, Yoichi Sugiyama’s richly enhanced transcription of Mahler’s Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony. Stravinsky’s Firebird follows, in Guido Agosti’s virtuosic arrangement, and then Leonard Borwick’s atmospheric resetting of Debussy’s masterpiece, Prélude à l’après-midi d'un faune. Finally comes Steuermann’s incredibly difficult transcription of Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie, Op. 9, a work that extends tonality and human dexterity to its furthest limits. An artist famous for tango and jazz, a frequent collaborator with Japanese traditional singers, and the performer of the ‘Final Fantasy X. XIII’ videogame soundtracks, Aki Kuroda continues to expand her pianistic horizons to now include the novel tone pallets and expansive sound-space of modern orchestral writing, in the process, bringing us intriguingly into closer proximity to the composer, and to the act of composing itself.

Reviews

January 2015

In Kuroda's brilliant hands Stravinsky's Firebird and Debussy's L'apres-midi sound natural on piano, and even Mahler's string Adagietto works. Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1 feels new.

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