Chopin: Variations in A - Souvenír de paganini (Paganini Variations)

This collection includes live recordings from concert halls in Japan and Germany. Katsaris performs Preludes Op.28 Nos 15, 20, 6, 7 & 4; Souvenir de Paganini, Polonaise Op.26 No.1; Nocturnes Op.15 Nos. 3, 9, 2, 20 and others.

It takes courage to start a Chopin Edition, in an overcrowded market, well after the Chopin festivities of 2010 and with a virtually unknown pianist. So, why?

Roberto Poli, born in Venice, is a true Renaissance man, much involved in music, painting and poetry. He is considered an eloquent and authoritative communicator and exponent of Chopin’s music, which he comprehensively studies through manuscripts and first editions, and which he is in the process of recording in its entirety. He studied with Philippe Cassard, Vladimir Tropp and Boris Petrushansky at the famous Imola Piano Academy. He currently lives and works in Boston, USA, where he plays, teaches at the University and paints. And his playing? Listen for yourself, and discover…

Tatiana Shebanova graduated from the Pyotr Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow with a Gold Medal and is a Grand Prix winner of international music competitions in Prague, Geneva and Brussels. She has led an intensely musical life and, as well as being a soloist, has performed piano duets with her husband and son. She is performing on an Erard 1849 fortepiano.

The young Chopin, a child prodigy if ever there was one, soon found his surroundings in his native Warsaw too narrow, and visited the cultural capital Vienna during the years 1829-1831. Here he met the local piano manufacturer Conrad Graf and was seduced by his instruments, with their light action and delicate, pliant sound. His triumphal concerts in Vienna were played on Graf’s pianos, and the young Fryderick was presented one as a gift by Graf himself.

This disc presents works of Chopin written in his Vienna period, and here they are played on exactly such an instrument, as is still preserved in the Italian Palazzo Contucci in Montepulciano.

The extensive booklet supplies historical background, pictures, illustrations and photos.

Costantino Mastroprimiano already recorded extensively for Brilliant Classics: the complete keyboard music of Clementi, highly praised by international critics.

Warren Mailley-Smith was featured as Classic FM’s Video of the week and Hot property of the week when his playing was described as ‘Sensational’, ‘Stunning’ and ‘Fantastic’. He is one of the UK’s outstanding pianists of his generation and was recently proposed as a new Steinway artist. This new recording is a timely release in Chopin’s 200th Anniversary year and will surely enhance the growing reputation of this fine young pianist.

Carnival, celebrated predominantly though by no means exclusively in Catholic countries, is the period of revelry – and excess – preceding the forty days of abstention during Lent, commemorating the privations of Jesus in the wilderness. The origin of the word is not clear, but it may come from the Latin carne vale, farewell to meat (theoretically forbidden in Lent), and the tradition goes back at least as far as the middle ages in Italy. Masked balls have figured importantly in the festivities, during which often “anything goes” and which reach a climax on the day before Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, famously known as Mardi Gras (fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday in Britain). Many works of art – visual, literary and musical – have been inspired by the possibilities of the carnival; for the pianist the pinnacle is Schumann’s Carnaval, Op. 9, which is the focus of this CD. Also included on this disc are works on the same theme – and feature two première recordings This is the second is a trio of discs by Goldstone featuring piano transcriptions themed on forms of public spectacle, following “A Night at the Opera “ (DDA25067); the third “The Piano at the Ballet” is scheduled for release early in 2010.

Described by The New York Times as “a man whose nature was designed with pianos in mind”, Anthony Goldstone is one of Britain’s most respected pianists. He has enjoyed a career encompassing six continents, very many broadcasts and nearly seventy CDs. He has an adventurous approach to repertoire and has been praised by Vienna's Die Presse for “his astonishingly profound spiritual penetration”. In the last few years Goldstone has become known for his acclaimed completions and realisations of works for solo piano and piano duet by Schubert, and for two pianos and solo piano by Mozart, all of which he has recorded on Divine Art CDs. He is also one half of the acclaimed and brilliant piano duo Goldstone and Clemmow with his wife Caroline. The duo has made many CDs for Divine Art and other labels.