Gubaidulina: Chaconne

The distinguished Russian pianist Vladimir Yurigin-Klevke offers a striking “highlights” view of some outstanding Russian piano music of the 20th Century. Drawing from his brilliant association with the composers on this CD, he offers a revelatory and highly satisfying journey through this colorful piano repertoire. His generous, in-depth booklet notes add to the experience, as he shares with the listener his views on the music’s artistic context.

Vladimir has been closely associated with Russian piano music of the 20th Century since he first came to public attention in 1969. Then just 20 years old, he won first prize at the National Piano Competition of Contemporary Soviet Music, playing the music of the composers on this album. In the 25 years between his “win” and this recording (originally for the Russian Disc Label and re-released here), Vladimir’s insights into this repertoire continued to ripen in many important performances throughout Russia and abroad.

Beginning the program is Gubaidulina‘s stunning Ciaconna — broad, sweeping, large-scale in character. Pärt’s intriguing neoclassical Partita is an early work, reminding us that it was his piano music that first earned him public renown. The idiomatic Shostakovich Preludes offer delicacy, charm, dance and song. The Shchedrin Preludes and Fugues begin with long, elegant melodic lines, and include a “fantastic tarantella.“ Karayev‘s Preludes draw on the composer’s Azerbaijani folk roots and national colorings, mixing in some lively dances and some free improvisational textures.

Following the critical success of her Haydn/Mozart series Claire-Marie le Guay concentrates her new recording on the Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. This portrait features the beautiful piano works Invention (1974), Chaconne (1963), Musical Toys (1969) and Introitus (1978), a chamber concerto with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jean-Jacques Kantorow.

New signing and exclusive Naïve Classique artist, Anna Vinnitskaya makes her much anticipated debut album on the Ambroisie label featuring an all-Russian programme of piano sonatas by Rachmaninov, Medtner and Prokofiev and a piece by Gubaidulina.

This is Anna Vinnitskaya’s first ever recording and, unsurprisingly, it has already been met with high critical acclaim. Since its release in France, it was awarded the “Diapason d´Or” (within the “Discoveries” category) and most recently, the “Choc du mois” by Classica Magazine. After going through a period of pronounced disfavour in the second half of the 19th century, the piano sonata enjoyed a veritable renaissance from the start of the twentieth which was due in large measure to Russian composers. Vinnitskaya here explores the way in which the great Russian virtuoso pianist-composers (Medtner, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov) paid homage in their different ways to a genre that was already more than two centuries old. Also included is Chaconne, written by well-known Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. At only 26, Anna Vinnitskaya has already established a flourishing international career, both in recital and orchestral performances. In 2007, she won first prize in the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels becoming only the second woman in the history of the competition for piano to do so, after Ekaterina Novitskaya in 1968.

“Dmitri Shostakovich and Anton Webern have had the greatest influence on my work. Although my music bears no apparent traces of it, these two composers taught me the most important lesson of all: to be myself.” So says Sofia Gubaidulina when asked about her own music. Marcela Roggeri plays these works with the spirit and spontaneity that she and the composer have in common and which characterise her very strong temperament.