Rachmaninov: Étude-Tableau, Op. 39 No. 5 in E flat minor

Many European countries have vied with one another in claiming the largest number of piano virtuosos. No one would dispute, though, that Russia has generated more than its share. The so-called ‘Russian piano school’, which originated in the 1800s with brilliant performers such as Alexander Siloti and brothers Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein, continues to produce first-class pianists, and to influence performance styles and keyboard virtuosity all around the world.

Given Russia’s richness in superstar pianists, it is not surprising that Russian composers have composed extensively for the piano. Some of the composers represented in this collection were impressive pianists in their own right, and they composed music designed to display their own technique and artistry. Others were more modestly gifted as performers, but still composed idiomatically for the piano.

This collection brings together recordings by Vladimir Ashkenazy spanning some 40 years, from November 1963 (the three Rachmaninov Études-Tableaux) to March 2004 (the Kocsis transcription of Vocalise). Some of them appeared as fillers for bigger works – for instance, the Études-Tableaux were coupled with the 1964 recording of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Kyril Kondrashin, one of Ashkenazy’s earliest recording for Decca, and his first solo recording for the label. Tchaikovsky’s Dumka and the pieces by Taneyev, Liadov and Borodin were recorded in January 1983 and issued on LP as a coupling for his digital recording of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The two pieces from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet were taped in 1968 as couplings for the composer’s Eighth Piano Sonata.

The Yuja Wang album that everyone has been waiting for wows with musical miniatures that are short, sweet, and huge in impact. These encore pieces by Scriabin, Gluck, Rachmaninov, Chopin and others will enthrall Yuja Wang’s fans with challenging technical demands and the bravura precision of her execution. The variety of styles – which includes neo-Classical, Impressionist, Romantic, jazz - in addition to the quality of the arrangements of pieces that are adaptations, provides a welcome and yet unique listening experience.

This CD is the third release from Challenge Classics to showcase the talents of the Russian pianist Alexei Volodin. It features a wide ranging selection of pieces by his compatriot Sergei Rachmaninov, including the “Variations on a theme of Corelli”, 5 of his Preludes, the 2nd Sonata (second version), and four of his Etudes-Tableaux.

Alexei Volodin was born in St. Petersburg in 1977, and began taking piano lessons there at the age of nine. A year later he moved to Moscow, and in 1994 he enrolled at the Moscow Conservatoire. During 2001 and 2002 he studied at the Theo Lieven International Piano Foundation in Como. He has won several prizes at different international competitions, including First Prize at the Concours Géza Anda in Zurich in 2003. Alexei Volodin’s debut recording for Challenge Classics (CC72354), released in March 2010, was devoted to the music Chopin, and his second CD which was issued in May 2011 (CC72508) brought together works by Schumann, Ravel, and Scriabin.

From nostalgic memories, the sound of bells, the winds of the steppes, to visions of a flickering future; Russian piano music, from Mussorgsky to Scriabin, finds its perilous equilibrium in a romantic past, beyond the immense, icy landscapes, with intimate confessions from heartbroken souls, with a virtuosity vying with the opera and the orchestra yet which retains the gentleness of a lullaby, of a child's laughter, of a disenchanted poem scribbled down one evening of drunken melancholy. From Tchaikovsky to Rachmaninov, by way of Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky, it is a journey that takes us from St Petersburg to Moscow, across that vast country with its universal emotions. The piano is the instrument of kings, in the nineteenth century above all. Rachmaninoff, as we know from his recordings, was probably the greatest of them all: virtuosic and inspired, a visionary and a poet. Scriabin, before he injured his right hand (whence the Prelude for left hand op.9), also planned a solo career. Mussorgsky, too, was an excellent pianist. Only Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Tchaikovsky were no more than competent amateurs on the piano, but that did not prompt them to give up composing for the instrument - far from it, in fact.

Rachmaninov’s piano music is a world in itself but is also an open window onto the rest of his music. One of the greatest pianists of his time, who had to rely on that talent for a living after several failures as a composer, he poured all his soul into his keyboard music with passion and dignity.

Sa Chen’s previous CD of the Chopin Piano Concertos on PentaTone got excellent reviews: “Sa Chen has that rare unteachable ability to tug at the heart-strings.” Classic FM Magazine. Here she plays Pictures in their original piano version and Night in Rimsky-Korsakov’s version but transcribed for piano by Konstantin N. Chernov.

The debut CD from the winner of the 2007 Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition.

A national hero when he was only 23 years old, pianist Van Cliburn has been one of classical music’s few true household names ever since his triumph at the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow – the first American ever to win there, a Cold War – thawing phenomenon that led to a frenzied ticker-tape parade for Cliburn in New York. He was one of the first million-selling classical artists in the LP era, and his catalogue of critically hailed, best selling recordings for RCA Red Seal includes many of the most popular concertos and solo piano works of the Romantic era.