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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Pierre-Laurent Aimard - Not Just One Truth
Bonus - Pierre-Laurent Aimard in conversation with Jan Schmidt-Garre. Pierre-Laurent Aimard was born in Lyon in 1957 and studied in Paris with Yvonne Loriod, wife of Olivier Messiaen, to whose music he is particularly close. Pierre Boulez appointed him as solo pianist to the Ensemble InterContemporain when he was 19 and he worked closely with Györgi Ligeti, who chose him to record his entire piano works. This extensive portrait-cum-concert DVD features Pierre-Laurent Aimard in conversation with renowned music filmmaker Jan Schmidt-Garre under the telling title Not Just One Truth. Recorded live at the Akademie der Schönen Künste in Munich in spring 2008, the concert includes important and influential piano music from the Art of the Fugue and Beethoven's second last Piano Sonata No.31, written in 1822, along with works by the grand seigneur of American composers, Elliott Carter (*1908) and of George Benjamin (*1960), who studied under Olivier Messiaen. In the introductory portrait, scholar Christoph Wolff and composer Elliott Carter speak about music and Aimard's readings of it.Thus, the viewer is truly immersed in Pierre-Laurent Aimard's art of piano playing and comes to know one of the greatest contemporary pianists in concert, interview and documentary portrait. "His technical facility is astonishing…Mr.Aimard's performance was lucid, subtle and delicate." New York Times “…there is nothing 'showy' about this showcase; Aimard and the music are allowed to speak directly. The initial 30 minutes of this portrait focuses on preparations for his concert - the centrepiece of the disc. Aimard eloquently explains the thinking behind his programme... Aimard's love for the music, and humility before it, shine through.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2009 ***** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Oppens Plays CarterElliott Carter at 100: The Complete Piano Music
Cedille Records celebrates composer Elliott Carter's 100th birthday (December 11) with Oppens Plays Carter, the only complete CD survey of Carter's solo piano works, including two world premieres, performed by one of his leading interpreters - American pianist Ursula Oppens. The disc brings together the composer whom Aaron Copland called "one of America's most distinguished creative artists in any field" with a pianist "known particularly for the intelligence, technical skill and warmth she brings to...contemporary music." (Grove Music) The disc features Carter's pivotal Piano Sonata (1945-46), the breakthrough work in which Carter found his voice and projected the scope of his talent, and his transcendental Night Fantasies (1980), written for a group of four pianists including Ms. Oppens, who gave the premiere. Seven shorter pieces written between 1994 and 2007 complete the disc, which concludes with the world premiere recording of Carter's virtuosic Catenaires (2006), a harmonically compelling, fiendishly difficult, toccata-like succession of rapid-fire 16th notes. Oppens Plays Carter is the perfect tribute to the "Dean" of American composers by the pianist most closely associated with his music. “…Ursula Oppens'… account of the Sonata, in which Carter said his farewells to the optimism of American neo-classicism, is spellbindingly authoritative, and she is also assured in Night Fantasies, whose dark, glinting parade of images makes it Carter's equivalent of Kreisleriana. ...technically she is immaculate and her complete understanding of Carter's impacted language and its very particular demands is second to none...” BBC Music Magazine, February 2009 **** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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