All recordingsPrices shown exclude VAT. (UK tax is not payable for deliveries to United States.) See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  |
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Szymanowski: Piano Cycles
DDD | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Karol Szymanowski - Works For Solo Piano
“Anderszewski out-classes his rivals in his Szymanowski recital” BBC Music Magazine, Proms Issue 2005 “Here Anderszewski turns his attention away from well-tried classics of the repertoire to Szymanowski and to 'an aura of extreme fin de siècle opulence' (John Ogdon). Szymanowski's neurotically questing imagination was fired by his travels in Africa and the Mediterranean; and leaving earlier influences of Chopin (the Op 1 Preludes) and a lengthy dalliance with Reger and Richard Strauss (the Second Piano Sonata) far behind, he turned to impressionism, to Debussy and the glittering, mosaic-like structures he inherited from Scriabin. Yet despite such influences his music achieves a unique fragrance and character and both Masques and Métopes shed a new and scintillating light on the myths of ancient Greece. Such music calls for a pianist of unlimited, superfine virtuosity and a complete temperamental affinity for such exoticism, and in Anderszewski it has surely found its ideal champion. Under his astonishing mind and fingers the chains of trills at the climax of 'Schéhérazade' take on an incandescence that transcends their Scriabinesque origins and Anderszewski's razor-sharp clarity and stylistic assurance make you hang on every one of the composer's teeming notes. Here and in Métopes every hyper-nervous fluctuation of mood is judged to an uncanny perfection and in the Third Sonata, where Szymanowski returns from his richly programmatic sources to a more objective if no less intricate utterance, every aspect of the music's refined and energetic life is held in a blazing light from which it is impossible to escape. Visceral and superhuman, all these performances have been superbly recorded.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 BBC Music Magazine
Instrumental Choice |
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Szymanowski: Piano Works Volume 2
This new Alba CD sees the second volume of Karol Szymanowski’s piano works being released. He was brought up in the Ukrainian village of Tymoszówka on the eastern border of what was then still the kingdom of Poland. The Ukraine’s culturally rich and tolerant atmosphere was the perfect mix for the composer. Top performing Finnish pianist, Anu Vehviläinen brings these delightful works to life. | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Masques: Polish Piano Works
Lutoslawski: | Bukoliki (Bucolics) for Solo Piano | Szymanowski: | Mazurka, Op. 50 No. 1 Mazurka, Op. 50 No. 2 Mazurka, Op. 50 No. 3 Mazurka, Op. 50 No. 4 Prelude, Op. 1 No. 1 in B minor Prelude, Op. 1 No. 2 in F major Prelude, Op. 1 No. 5 in D minor Masques (3), Op. 34 | Zarebski: | Berceuse (Lullaby), Op. 22 Tarantelle, Op. 25 Grande Polonaise in F sharp minor, Op. 6 |
Elzbieta Wiedner-Zajac (piano) | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  | Sviatoslav RichterRecorded: Royal Festival Hall, London, 7 December 1970
A much sought-after and rare recital of the great Sviatoslav Richter featuring unusual repertoire - Szymanowski and Bartok. Richter gave the premiere of the Prokofiev Sonata No.7 'Stalingrad' in 1943. It is a tour de force and shows off Richter's incomparable technique and power. Richter also gave premieres of Prokofiev's Sonata No.6 and No.9 and remained a close friend of the composer during his lifetime. Richter was perhaps the first great pianist to promote the Schubert sonatas and recorded all of them including the incomplete ones (with the curious omission of the A major D959). He was also credited with raising their profile to that accorded to Beethoven and Mozart. Recorded at a packed Royal Festival Hall In 1970 when Richter was at the height of his powers and fame. BBC Legends has the largest catalogue of Richter broadcasts which have all sold exceptionally well. “Here is one of those legendary concerts that will have pianophiles slavering at the mouth: a great artist at the height of his powers in a programme that has, as far as I know, not been available before… In the Prokofiev, premiered by Richter himself in 1943, all the anger and despair of the composer is realised with playing of an uninhibited, raw emotion that has rarely been so vividly caught on disc.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2010 | |
|
| |  | Szymanowski - Piano Music
The impressionistic Métopes was composed in 1915, following a visit to Sicily. The title refers to the spaces on a classical frieze in which a sculptor would add decorative scenes, and each section depicts a character and location from Homer‘s Odyssey. One year later came the trilogy Masques, which portrays the story-telling Shéhérazade, an episode from the legend of Tristan and Isolde and a Sérénade de Don Juan. Soon after these examples of programme music, the composer returned to pure sonata form in the Third Sonata, his last major work for solo piano. This remains based in Impressionism, but also achieves a synthesis between that and the style of earlier works “Roland Pöntinen's generously filled and beautifully engineered recital features three of Szymanowski's most exotic and harmonically daring middle-period works together with a handful of Mazurkas that were composed near the end of his life. The Swedish pianist gives very persuasive accounts of these later more emotionally restrained pieces projecting their melodic lines with great sensitivity without disrupting their natural dance-like flow.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2009 **** | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  | Ewa Podles & Garrick Ohlsson
Chopin: | Gdzie lubi (What She Likes), Op. 74 No. 5 Pierscien (The Ring), Op. 74 No. 14 Wojak (The Warrior), Op. 74 No. 10 Piosnka litewska (Lithuanian Song), Op. 74 No. 16 Sliczny chlopiec (Handsome Lad), Op. 74 No. 8 | Mussorgsky: | Songs and Dances of Death | Rachmaninov: | Christ is risen, Op.26 No. 6 How fleeting is delight in love, Op.14 No. 3 She is as beautiful as midday, Op.14 No. 9 Prokhodit vse, Op.26 No.15 encore | Szymanowski: | Masques (3), Op. 34 | Tchaikovsky: | Was I not a blade of grass?, Op. 47 No. 7 None but the lonely heart, Op. 6 No. 6 Pesn' Zemfiri (Zemfira's song) |
plus songs by Chopin, Rachmaninov & Tchaikovsky
“I want my singing to have drama, to send a message, sometimes people cry when they hear me-this is what's important. I want people to love me or hate me because of the emotion of my singing” Ewa Podles Wigmore Hall Live proudly presents an all-Russian and Polish recital by the enigmatic Ewa Podles, widely regarded as the world’s leading contralto and one of the true great singers of our time. Recorded live at Wigmore Hall on 23 January 2008, this release marked Ewa Podles´ return to the Wigmore Hall stage after an absence of sixteen years. With her unique, dramatic voice of staggering range, agility and amplitude, Ewa Podles gives the kind of towering performance that has come to be expected of an artist who has acquired cult status and a near-fanatical following within the operatic world. In addition to her rigorous operatic calendar, which notably includes her highly-publicised return this year to the Metropolitan Opera Stage after twenty-four years, Podles´ is one of the most acclaimed recital and concert performers in the world. Accompanying Podles´ is the distinguished Garrick Ohlsson, whose solo performance of Szymanowski’s Masques “was a mastery display of sustained and imaginative virtuosity, matching the singer’s” Opera Now “The Polish-born American singer Ewa Podles is something of a cult figure, a true contralto of a quality rare nowadays. …she makes 'None but the lonely heart' remarkably touching and unhackneyed, and is a fearsomely defiant gypsy in 'Zemfira's song' - no wonder the audience erupts. Altogether, a healthy reminder that power and passion still have their part in memorable Lieder performances.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2009 **** “What comes over loud and clear is Podles's astonishing, bronze-toned lower registers and her remarkable, if slightly grand manner, and powers of declamation. The centrepiece is an unnerving performance of Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death, though the tracks you will want to return to are songs by Rachmaninov in orientalist mode, which she delivers in ways that are simply overpowering.” The Guardian, 13th March 2009 **** | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Ralph Votapek: 20th Century Masterpieces
| | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Szymanowski: Piano Works
Joanna Domanska, Andrzej Tatarski (pianos) | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
|
|
| |
|