Haydn: Piano Sonata No. 53 in E minor, Hob.XVI:34

Anne Queffélec is among the most popular pianists of her generation, appreciated for the diversity of her repertoire, as her impressive discography testifies. In addition to the French repertoire, she has became particularly known for her performance of works by Mozart and Scarlatti. Her recordings include works of J.S. Bach, Scarlatti, Liszt, Chopin, Schubert, Mozart, Fauré and Debussy.

Haydn composed 62 piano sonatas, although it is suspected that many works were lost. Here we see three works from the period 1766-1780 and the sonata in E flat, as a later work of 1794. Alexander Kobrin is an internationally acclaimed Russian pianist and is a winner of numerous piano competitions. Live performances have included the Wigmore Hall and the Royal Albert Hall.

Brilliant Classics presents the debut recording of the young Italian virtuoso Vanessa Benelli Mosell. Vanessa Benelli Mosell rapidly develops her career, playing all over the world, playing with orchestras (Berliner Philharmonie) and solo (London Wigmore Hall recital)

For her debut CD Vanessa Benelli Mosell has chosen a demanding programme that displays her remarkable talents and exploit the expressive potential of the piano to the maximum. The repertoire spans just over 150 years – from Haydn’s dramatic minor key work of 1784, to Prokofiev’s 7th Sonata, the second of his three ‘War Sonatas’ completed in 1942.

Scriabin’s 1st Sonata was composed at a time of great personal turmoil rather than international carnage of war. He had damaged his hand (possibly due to an extreme practising regime) and had abandoned his career as a soloist – a bitter blow to the young composer.

In contrast to all the Sturm und Drang of the three sonatas in her recital,Vanessa Benelli Mosell turns to Liszt for some southern European sunshine. The highly virtuosic Rhapsodie espagnole of 1863 demands fearsome technique from the performer as the work traverses folk tunes from Iberia (Liszt noted these down during a tour in the 1840s) which are worked into a virtuoso set of variations.

Pascal Rogé said of Vanessa "...she is the most natural musical talent I have encountered in my entire life as a musician and teacher"

Karlheinz Stockhausen invited her to study with him in Germany. Her performances of Stockhausen Piano Pieces have received much critical acclaims and prizes during the Stockhausen Courses in Kuerten working closely with the composer until his death.

Vanessa received numerous distinctions throughout her career, including the "Elba Festival Antares Prize" given by Y. Bashmet, the Honour Diploma of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Prize "Maria de Lourdes Avellar"in Portugal. She is Laureate of the International Piano Competition "Principat di Andorra", "Delia Steinberg" International Piano Competition in Madrid and the "Alexander Scriabin" International Piano Competition in Paris. Vanessa Benelli-Mosell was appointed a Young Steinway artist recently.

2009 was the bicentenary of the death of Joseph Haydn, and to commemorate this anniversary Tall Poppies and fortepianist Geoffrey Lancaster are journeying through Haydn’s complete keyboard sonatas. Lancaster has performed the complete sonatas in concert series in Melbourne and Canberra, and has been recording the works using period instruments from the unique collection of early keyboards at the Australian National University School of Music, where Dr Lancaster is Head of Keyboards. As a master of the fortepiano, his historically informed performances bring clarity, originality and insightful musical understanding to these works, the fortepiano responding with gusto to the drama and emotion in the music. Tall Poppies is proud that the covers for this series feature paintings by Australia’s great painter, Fred Williams (with kind permission of Lyn Williams), giving this series a uniquely Australian flavour. The initial CDs have been generously supported by the Friends of the ANU School of Music.

After the great success of his recordings of Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Medtner Piano Concertos, Yevgeny Sudbin now presents a disc of solo works by Haydn. As Sudbin writes in his liner notes, one of the qualities in this composer which he finds particularly endearing is Haydn’s ‘delight in silliness, outrageous wit and the breaking of all conventions’. The works chosen for this recital are by no means mere light-weight ‘musical jokes’, however; for instance they include the profoundly beautiful Andante con variazioni in F minor, which some have suggested was written in response to the death of Mozart In an affectionate tribute to the composer, Sudbin ends his recital with Larking with Haydn, his own tongue-in-cheek arrangement of the Finale of the Lark Quartet.

The release in 2005 of Yevgeny Sudbin’s first disc, a selection of Scarlatti sonatas, caused a sensation. A number of reviewers compared it favourably to the legendary recordings by Horowitz in the same repertoire, and on the BBC Radio 3 CD Review, the result was described as follows: ‘It's as if he's dragged Scarlatti off a dusty museum shelf and brought him out into the sunshine where both he and the music are happily basking.’

“The pliant and expressive tone which Haydn loved so much about the clavichord is also found in the unmistakable qualities of the accordion…The variable and flexible sound production also makes it possible to bring forth a tremendous variety of tonal colours…..” Viviane Chassot

2 discs for the price of 1.

Marc-André Hamelin’s first set of Haydn Piano Sonatas was Hyperion’s best-selling release of 2007, and had the critics jostling to acclaim his performances in the highest terms, in particular his expression of the ‘physical exhilaration of Haydn’s playful inspiration in a way unmatched by any pianist past or present’. His second volume, released in a year where new Haydn recordings are prominent, should surely match the critical and commercial success of the first.

Some of Haydn’s most alluring and appealing keyboard works are recorded here. The surprising (to some) emotional range of the composer is fully evident in the extraordinarily sensitive and intimate Sonata in E flat major No 49, written for Maria Anna von Genzinger, and the profoundly felt Andante con variazioni in F minor, the composition of which coincided with her death.

The Hommage to Joseph Haydn consists of six piano pieces composed in 1909, commissioned to celebrate the anniversary of the 100th year of the composer’s death. The six composers are Hahn, Widor, d’Indy, Dukas, Ravel and Debussy. Coupled with five of the Haydn’s most wonderful sonatas, pianist Manfred Wagner-Artzt plays with a full command of the scores and an obvious affection and deep understanding of the music.