All recordingsPrices shown exclude VAT. (UK tax is not payable for deliveries to United States.)
See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Scarlatti Illuminated
plus: SCARLATTI/TAUSIG Sonata in G minor, Sonata in C, Pastorale in E, Sonata in F minor SCARLATTI/FRIEDMAN Gigue in G, Pastorale in D
A Scarlatti recital with a twist. Joseph Moog has assembled a fascinating survey of Scarlatti sonatas, and included a selection of the 18th-century master’s works as re-composed by some of the giants of the piano keyboard from the 19th and 20th centuries. The drama contained in Scarlatti’s short one-movement sonatas has always exerted a hold over both musicians and listeners since their composition. The development of the piano in the 19th century provided too great a temptation for composer pianist Carl Tausig, a rival of Chopin and star pupil of Liszt (and admired by Brahms and Wagner) to ignore these works. He, along with Ignaz Friedman (1882–1948) exploited drama and poetry in Scarlatti’s music, using the new grand piano to its full extent. Friedman was a pianist of extraordinary gifts, and a musical freedom that some thought bordered on the eccentric. Walter Gieseking’s fantastical composition on a theme by Scarlatti forms the centrepiece of Moog’s recital. Gieseking (1895–1956) was a child prodigy, playing all 32 Beethoven sonatas from memory at the age of 15: "The most difficult part was memorising them," he said, adding "and that wasn’t very difficult." Gieseking’s 'Chaconne on a theme by Scarlatti' is a stupendous work of dazzling virtuosity. “Great pianists have often been fascinated by baroque music, and have sought to bring it up to date through transcriptions. Until now I had not heard such versions of Scarlatti sonatas, however, and their full-blown orchestral textures are quite a shock...Moog's bright, sharp pianism sounds better in the originals: the arrangements need more gentle, rounded warmth.” The Observer, 3rd February 2013 “his [Moog's] well-balanced singing tone is always enchanting. It’s hard to find any faults with this Scarlatti cornucopia.” Pianist Magazine, April/May 2013 “Inn essence Moog's 'illumination' interleaves straight performances, often delivered with chaste clarity and dexterous fingerwork, with respectful augmentations by Tausig and more exuberant makeovers by Friedman...Ultimately, a disc more diverting than illuminating - despite Moog's incontestable flashes of pianistic brilliance.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2013 *** “The Gieseking is the most interesting thing here...Moog’s essay suggests he deserves some credit for tracking down the various unconventional arrangements we hear. This may not be Horowitz but it’s very well worth any Scarlatti lover’s time.” MusicWeb International, 26th April 2013 “whether you consider Scarlatti 'illuminated' or obscured, you will surely delight at such enterprise and performance as finely shaded and imaginative as they are dexterous.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2013 | 
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | 18th-century Portuguese Love Songs
L'Avventura London, Zak Ozmo (director) L’Avventura London and their director Zak Ozmo make their debut on Hyperion with a lusciously saucy album of Portuguese love songs from the eighteenth century. Described by a contemporary visitor as ‘voluptuous and bewitching’, these modinhas have an uncertain genesis, but it is likely they reached Portugal from its overseas dominion of Brazil. Two highly contrasting styles predominate: one melancholic and lyrical, and the other bright and rhythmic, often with syncopated rhythms in the voice. Also interspersed are instrumental works from the period. The spirited players of L’Avventura London are joined by two Portuguese sopranos, Sandra Medeiros and Joana Seara, who are also early music specialists in their own right. “Stylistically, the songs are a curious fusion of polite salon music of a somewhat saccharine sentimentality - epitome of the fashionable and graceful Galant style - and the sensual melodies and vigorous dance rhythms of Latino folk, imported from Brazil...L'Avventura's performances tend towards the genteel, suggesting decorous courtly soirees rather than raunchy street theatre...These are, in short, charming accounts” BBC Music Magazine, February 2013 *** “[Seara] blends well with Medeiros and you get accustomed to the strong hint of citrus in their voices...The percussion...consists of a shaker in one number and the cellist tapping her instrument like a drum! Yet that's a major part of the appeal of this 'fusion' disc, melding 'classical' and popular idioms in a manner that recalls Chrstina Pluhar's L'Arpeggiata discs.” International Record Review, February 2013 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Yuja Wang - Transformation
On the heels of her impressive Deutsche Grammophon debut recital album, pianist Yuja Wang’s return recording for the label – Transformation – categorically demonstrates that she is a young master of the Steinway. Her new album excites with a demanding recital that includes some of the most electrifying pieces of piano literature – Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka, Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Scarlatti’s Sonatas in E and B minor, and Ravel’s La Valse. Yuja Wang’s ability to take her music by storm is tempered by a sophisticated musicality that never distorts the line. Transformation highlights Yuja Wang’s penchant for piecing together high concept programs the public adores. As The New York Times observes, “She seems to have everything: speed, flexibility, pianistic thunder, and interpretive nuance.” “Wang makes light of even the fiercest complexity...she has a dazzling way of lightening even the heaviest textures so that her entire performance gleams with an astonishing brilliance and verve....you will find her as musically beguiling as she is breathtakingly fleet.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2010 “The brilliant Chinese pianist dazzles with more than technical panache. She understands what she plays; she’s sensitive and has poise. She’s also a clever programme builder, successfully mixing shape-shifting works by Stravinsky, Brahms and Ravel with two Scarlatti sonatas.” The Times, 29th May 2010 **** “The Petrushka movements...have a unique fizz and excitement and quite the most orchestral range of colour I've heard...Her poise in the two Scarlatti sonatas is admirable, the textures beautifully transparent, the interplay of voices superbly balanced...Altogether one of the most stimulating recitals I've heard this year.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2010 ***** “[Wang] approaches repertory staples with original, illuminating ideas. Her sharp articulation and the deftness with which she moves between thunder and sparkle yield vivid performances of Stravinsky and Ravel, a searching account of Brahms’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini and uncommonly graceful readings of two Scarlatti sonatas.” New York Times, 26th November 2010 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Horowitz plays Scarlatti
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Scarlatti - Piano Sonatas
“performances of a superlative vitality and super-fine sensitivity” Gramophone “This generously packed CD is sheer delight from start to finish. Even with recorded selections available from the likes of Horowitz, Pletnev, Schiff and Pogorelich, the 25-year-old Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin makes his solo debut on disc with performances of a superlative vitality and super-fine sensitivity.
His choice of sonatas is richly enterprising, pinpointing their infinite variety, their abrupt changes of mood and direction, so that whether familiar or unfamiliar (and there are many unfamiliar numbers), each offering is a delectable surprise. Free from the nervous tension that can sometimes plague him in the concert hall, Sudbin relishes the way Scarlatti turns convention topsy-turvy, presenting him in both performance and his affectionate accompanying essay as one of music's most ardent and life-affirming adventurers. He's brilliant and incisive in Kk545, and makes every bar of the reflective Kk57 glisten with poetry. What thrumming guitars he evokes in Kk435 and 487, reminding us that Scarlatti forsook his native Italy and later Portugal for a heady addiction to all things Spanish.
There are spicy and witty imitations of changing registrations and some notably rumbustious closes to make every facet of these diamond-like sonatas spark and scintillate as if new-minted.
This is, arguably, among the finest, certainly most enjoyable of all Scarlatti recitals. As a crowning touch Sudbin is heard in a beautifully warm and natural acoustic.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 “…there is plenty to enjoy in Sudbin's expressive, rhythmic and thoughtful playing, virtues which come together rewardingly in the Sonata in B minor (K87).” BBC Music Magazine, May 2005 *** “Sudbin finds, besides much to charm the ear, an infinite expressive depth in many of the minor key works, which are played here with appealing expressive freedom...There is sparkle and brilliance here too, and Sudbin can be both strong and delectably light-fingered. He is recorded splendidly, and this can be placed among the finest and most generous of recent single-disc Scarlatti collections.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | D. Scarlatti: Sonatas
Scarlatti wrote no less than 555 keyboard sonatas, all of them true gems thanks to their melodic and rhythmic inventiveness. They use many of the harpsichord’s subtleties and appeal to the whole of the agility and imagination of those who endeavour to play it. Racha Arodaky simultaneously displays her great virtuosity, her artful eloquence and her intimate knowledge of baroque music throughout this disc. |
| | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Scarlatti Sonatas
| | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  | Domenico Scarlatti: Sonatas For Two Guitars
Julian Gray & Roland Pearl (guitars) | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  | Emil Gilels
Beethoven: | Piano Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90 | Debussy: | Reflets dans l'eau (No. 1 from Images pour piano - Book 1) Pour le piano | Prokofiev: | Piano Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28 Visions fugitives, Op. 22, No. 1 Visions fugitives, Op. 22, No. 3 Visions fugitives, Op. 22, No. 5 Visions fugitives, Op. 22, No. 10 Visions fugitives, Op. 22, No. 11 Visions fugitives, Op. 22, No. 17 | Scarlatti, D: | Keyboard Sonata K141 in D minor Keyboard Sonata K518 in F major Keyboard Sonata K32 in D minor Keyboard Sonata K533 in A major Keyboard Sonata K27 in B minor Keyboard Sonata K125 in G major Keyboard Sonata K466 in F minor | Scriabin: | Piano Sonata No. 4 in F sharp major, Op. 30 |
Recorded: St. John’s, Smith Square, London, 15 October 1984 (Scarlatti, Debussy) Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, London, 22 April 1957 (Beethoven, Scriabin, Prokofiev) This CD contains some of the first and last recordings the great Russian pianist Emil Gilels (1916-1985) made for the BBC. The lunchtime concert at the church of St. John's, in Smith Square, London on 15 October 1984 was to be his last performance in London. Gilels liked to play a selection of Scarlatti's sonatas - what he referred to as 'a bouquet'. He included five of them on his first BBC Legends CD (BBCL40152) from his April 1957 BBC studio recording. Here we have another 7 Scarlatti sonatas recorded in excellent stereo. Gilels first performed Debussy's 'Pour le Piano' in December 1953 only playing it a few times. After the mid 1950s, he did not play it again until the end of May 1984, five months prior to this stereo live concert. When referring to this concert Nicholas Kenyon wrote of Gilels performance of 'Pour le Piano'; 'But this is… more than the sheer creation of sound. For every wonderfully contrived sound reflects a conviction about the music: it is a total fusion of composer and interpreter that tells us for a few exalting moments, that the music can only sound this way.' Although he toured the UK for the first time at the end of 1952, Gilels did not record for the BBC until April 1957. Apart from the five sonatas by Scarlatti which were issued on BBCL 4015-2, we have here works by Beethoven, Scriabin and Prokofiev. As persuasive and pliant as his performance is here, it would appear that Gilels did not play this sonata again until he came to record it commercially in the studio in 1974. From Scriabin's ten Piano Sonatas, Gilels only played No.1 in the early 1950s, No.3 only in 1983-84, and No.4 in 1955-57. In this performance of No. 4, Gilels ability to combine great delicacy and enormous controlled power are ideal for this work. From Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas Gilels only played Nos. 2, 3, 7 and 8. “The Scarlatti, Debussy and Beethoven were recorded live in London in 1984, towards the end of Gilels's life; he's dazzling in the Russian repertoire captured in 1957. The later recital is magisterial, but he's struggling.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2009 **** “…Emil Gilels… in all his imperious and aristocratic glory. Seven Scarlatti sonatas show him in an inimitable if unfashionable mood, slow and romantically free in the repeated notes of the D minor Sonata, Kk141. His Debussy…sings and expands in a style far remote from a more classic French performing tradition...” Gramophone Magazine, January 2010 “The Scarlatti sonatas have a crystalline purity and breathtaking range of articulation, while the Beethoven conveys all the wholeness missing from the Waldstein, and the Scriabin musters exactly the obsessive intensity such highly wrought music demands.” The Guardian, 18th September 2009 ***** | |
|
| |  | D. Scarlatti - 30 Keyboard Sonatas
Approximately 40 years have passed since Ralph Kirkpatrick published his epic study of the life and works of Domenico Scarlatti. This wonderful book, the product of the author's unique combination of artistic and scholarly talents, helped to dispel once and for all the superficial impression of Domenico Scarlatti as a sort of rococo lightweight, a composer of "original and happy freaks" as one of his 18th century contemporaries described him. Today, several decades into our international love affair with 18th century performance practice, Domenico Scarlatti is a towering figure universally accepted as one of the greatest and most original artists of the Baroque. | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
|
|
| |
|
Gramophone Magazine