Gershwin: Embraceable You

Jenny Lin’s latest release on the Steinway & Sons label is a spectacular collection of showtunes arranged by Greg Anderson, Marc-André Hamelin, Stephen Hough, Dick Hyman, Stefan Malzew, Christopher O’Riley, André Previn, Stephen Prutsman, David Saperton, Cy Walter, Alexis Weissenberg and Earl Wild.

Including new commissions and world premiere recordings, this is Steinway’s top priority release for 2012!

Jenny Lin's previous release on the Steinway & Sons label, Silent Music, was chosen as one of the best albums of the year by the New York Times in 2011.

Get Happy includes brand-new arrangements by Marc-André Hamelin (David Raskin’s “Laura”), Stefan Malzew (“Eliza in Ascot” from My Fair Lady) and Greg Anderson (Cole Porter’s “So In Love”).

World premiere recordings include Christopher O’Riley’s gorgeous arrangement of “Johanna” from Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and Alexis Weissenberg’s exquisite version of “Lover” from the Rodgers & Hart musical film, Love Me Tonight.

First release to include all four of Stephen Hough’s arrangements of the music of Rodgers & Hammerstein.

Bonus track for iTunes of Uri Caine’s arrangement of “Honeysuckle Rose by” Fats Waller.

Jazzy swing and classical virtuosity – interpreted by an unusual ensemble: the sisters Katja and Marielle Labeque are one of today's best-known piano duos, and their Gershwin is almost as legendary as the music itself.

This release of five new titles in the American Classics series is devoted to the music of George Gershwin.

Arguably the best-known of all 20th-century composers, George Gershwin's music encompasses with equal skill both the classical and popular genres. He was born Jacob Gershowitz in Brooklyn, New York City, in September 1898 to immigrant Jewish parents. He died at the early age of 38 from a tumour in the brain.

Gershwin started to show an interest in music from about the age of ten and, although receiving some piano tutelage, was largely self-taught in composition. It was only later in his career that he received some formal instruction in composition.

Gershwin's first employment was as a song plugger for a New York music publishing company. His first song was published in 1916 and a year later he had his first commercial successes with the rag Rialto Ripples. This was followed, in 1919, by his first big international hit, Swanee. Now established as a successful composer of popular songs, between 1919 and 1933, Gershwin produced, in collaboration with his elder brother Ira, some of the most successful Broadway musicals.

In 1924 he was commissioned by the band leader, Paul Whiteman, to produce what was to be his first 'serious' composition, the Rhapsody in Blue. This was followed a year later by the Piano Concerto in F and, in 1928, by An American in Paris. His opera Porgy and Bess was first performed on Broadway in 1935.

These five releases present a comprehensive view of Gershwin's music from the Three Preludes for solo piano to the Piano Concerto, taking in a good selection of the show songs and improvisations.

This release of five new titles in the American Classics series is devoted to the music of George Gershwin.

Arguably the best-known of all 20th-century composers, George Gershwin's music encompasses with equal skill both the classical and popular genres. He was born Jacob Gershowitz in Brooklyn, New York City, in September 1898 to immigrant Jewish parents. He died at the early age of 38 from a tumour in the brain.

Gershwin started to show an interest in music from about the age of ten and, although receiving some piano tutelage, was largely self-taught in composition. It was only later in his career that he received some formal instruction in composition.

Gershwin's first employment was as a song plugger for a New York music publishing company. His first song was published in 1916 and a year later he had his first commercial successes with the rag Rialto Ripples. This was followed, in 1919, by his first big international hit, Swanee. Now established as a successful composer of popular songs, between 1919 and 1933, Gershwin produced, in collaboration with his elder brother Ira, some of the most successful Broadway musicals.

In 1924 he was commissioned by the band leader, Paul Whiteman, to produce what was to be his first 'serious' composition, the Rhapsody in Blue. This was followed a year later by the Piano Concerto in F and, in 1928, by An American in Paris. His opera Porgy and Bess was first performed on Broadway in 1935.

These five releases present a comprehensive view of Gershwin's music from the Three Preludes for solo piano to the Piano Concerto, taking in a good selection of the show songs and improvisations.

Considered one of the finest choirs in NZ, here is a terrific second CD with repertoire based on their recent Spring tour.

In 1922 F. Scott Fitzgerald, the American author whose most celebrated novel is The Great Gatsby, published a collection of short stories under the title Tales of the Jazz Age. The Great War was over and, despite political turmoil, brutal racial repression and Prohibition – the “Noble Experiment” that theoretically banned alcohol throughout the United States from 1920 until 1933, Americans managed to throw caution to the winds and enjoy themselves until the Great Depression struck in 1929. “The jazz age” is now taken to refer to this “anything goes” period, during which jazz flourished and many new popular dance crazes popped up and were frequently displaced equally suddenly. The Charleston and the Fox Trot have endured, but others included such animal inspirations as the Kangaroo Hop, Grizzly Bear, Bunny Hug and Horse Trot.

This disc contains a number of “first recordings” which will no doubt fascinate and entertain the listener and are sure to attract critical interest.

With CDs approaching forty in number and a busy concert schedule stretching back more than a quarter of a century, the British piano duo Goldstone and Clemmow is firmly established as a leading force. Described by Gramophone as ‘a dazzling husband and wife team’, by International Record Review as ‘a British institution in the best sense of the word’, and by The Herald, Glasgow, as ‘the UK’s pre-eminent two-piano team’, internationally known artists Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow formed their duo in 1984 and married in 1989. Their extremely diverse activities in two-piano and piano-duet recitals and double concertos, taking in major festivals, have sent them all over the British Isles as well as to Europe, the Middle East and several times to the U.S.A., where they have received standing ovations and such press accolades as ‘revelations such as this are rare in the concert hall these days’ (Charleston Post and Courier). In their refreshingly presented concerts they mix famous masterpieces and fascinating rarities, which they frequently unearth themselves, into absorbing and hugely entertaining programmes; their numerous B.B.C. broadcasts have often included first hearings of unjustly neglected works,and their equally enterprising and acclaimed commercial recordings include many world premières.