Schoenberg: Suite for Piano, Op. 25

Italian pianist Pina Napolitano performs Schoenberg’s complete piano works, in a rendition that, fully realizing the scores in all their complexity, animates the music and makes it dance, and “conveys its real quality as music - rather than as an object of academic study” (Guy Rickards).

“A romanticism so exasperated that the usual musical indications of expressivity cannot convey it; each note is signed, tormentingly and assiduously, with indications that do nothing but speak to the insufficiency of language and of writing - of every language and every writing, even of the most absolute, the musical language - to express the idea and the thought, the sensation and the still indistinct feeling. Such a concentrated and dolorous romanticism, so essential, that it takes your breath away, a romanticism of the mind and of the heart, in which to feel and to think are not distinct.”

The debut recording from Shai Wosner.

Wosner continues to attract international recognition for his exceptional artistry, musical integrity and creative insight.

With imaginative programming that communicates his intellectual curiosity, Wosner performs a wide-ranging repertoire from Mozart and Beethoven to Ligeti and composers of his own generation. Wosner’s virtuosity and perceptiveness have increasingly made him a favourite among audiences and critics alike.

In 2005, Wosner won an Avery Fisher Career Grant. In the same year, he received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. He also continues his extensive performing and recording activity as a BBC New Generation Artist, which he was named in September 2007. He is in demand with orchestras and conductors worldwide.

Both Brahms and Schoenberg were indebted to the musical styles of earlier generations – and not just the mighty shadow of Beethoven. The baroque period intrigued both composers, and it is interesting to note that two of their most important works for solo piano – works in which they expressed their mature style and authority – are inspired by the baroque.

Shai Wosner calls the Suite by Schoenberg and the Handel Variations by Brahms ‘declarations of independence’. The Schoenberg was his first purely 12-tone work, and the Brahms was his first wholly successful solo piano work after the three early sonatas, yet both take their inspiration from the baroque period.

Brahms the revolutionary is highlighted by Wosner on this CD by interweaving the late op.116 Fantasies with Schoenberg’s early op.19 piano pieces – only 12 years separate the two – the surprises are many.

‘An artist to follow keenly ’ Financial Times

The world class pianist Hardy Rittner performs on a Johann Baptist Streicher & Sohn Piano 1870 and a Steinway D Grand piano 1901.

1 CD + BONUS DVD

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) wrote five volumes of piano pieces that match the key phases of his musical evolution: tonal, atonal, the tone-row, while maintaining a remarkable stylistic unity that influenced most 20th century composers.

Comes with a bonus DVD, 'Schoenberg, the misunderstood'. Florent Boffard studied with Yvonne Loriod, Geneviève Joy and Germaine Mounier and from 1988 to 1999, was soloist of the Ensemble InterContemporain, where he worked with several of today’s most prominent composers, including Boulez, Donatoni, Ligeti…

His commitment to contemporary music is mirrored in his discography, which includes Boulez’s 'Structures' for two pianos with Pierre-Laurent Aimard (DGG), Berio’s 'Sequenza' for piano (DGG), Bartok’s 2nd Sonata for violin and piano with Isabelle Faust (hm) as well as a CD dedicated to Debussy and Bartok’s 'Etudes pour piano' (also hm).

Hungarian pianist Martin Tchiba is well known for his eclectic approach to the music that he performs and this new CD certainly reflects this. The selection of pieces featured on ‘Linkages’ has been chosen to represent a musical and emotional journey from the romantic period, represented by Liszt and Brahms, via the exotic sounds of Scriabin and the atonal and serial developments of Schoenberg, through to the modernism of German composer Helmut Lachenmann.

Martin Tchiba was born in Budapest in 1982 and grew up in Germany. Although his repertoire contains works from all epochs, with the music from the Romantic to the present occupying a special position, he is particularly known for tracking down forgotten masterpieces, and giving first performances of new works, several of which have been dedicated to him. Martin Tchiba has made a number of highly regarded recordings over the last few years including CDs for Naxos and Hungaroton.

Although the works on this new disc are very different, and the programme contains pieces written over a period of 102 years (1861 to 1963), the music itself is unified by a wealth of unexpected relationships and subtle interconnections. The sequence of the works and the transitions between them are chosen intentionally, representing a journey from Romanticism to Modernism paved with moments of restlessness and of tranquillity.

It may seem daring to compare Schönberg's piano works in their significance with Beethoven's. Compared with the latter's 32 piano sonatas the former wrote only six piano pieces which, moreover, are often hardly longer than a few minutes. And still the compositional evolution of this great innovator of the music of our century is mirrored within the little piano pieces which, within the oeuvre of Schönberg, play a similary important role as Beethoven's great sonatas: Within them new compositonal and technical achievements are beeing concentrated, which later on also found their way into the great compositions. – Reinhard Kager

This 2 CD set includes Steuermann’s historic recordings of Schoenberg’s complete works for piano solo, as well as works and arrangements by Steuermann himself. “How wonderful that Steuermann’s recording of piano pieces by Schoenberg is at last available again; it is the classic model for the interpretation of these works.” Alfred Brendel

This highly anticipated release of Rangell's interpretation of the “French Suites” is accompanied by his singular reading of Schoenberg's striking Suite, Op. 25