Prokofiev: Visions fugitives, Op. 22

Steven Osborne has become one of the most valuable pianists recording today. His recent complete Rachmaninov Preludes release was critically acclaimed as the greatest modern version since Ashkenazy. Now he turns to further cornerstones of the Russian repertoire in this recording of Musorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition (a work which has been in Osborne’s concert repertoire for many years), and two sets of Prokofiev’s miniatures.

Musorgsky’s masterpiece is one of the most popular programmatic works of the 19th century. Yet it is also a great pianistic challenge, with the spectacular textures of the climactic movement ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’ requiring the highest technical accomplishments.

David Fanning writes of Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives: ‘Prokofiev supplies snapshots of his most characteristic moods—sometimes grotesque, sometimes incantatory and mystical, sometimes simply poetic, sometimes aggressively assertive, sometimes so delicately poised as to allow the performer and the listener to make up their own minds.’ Osborne’s subtle, yet brilliant use of colour and characterization makes him the ideal performer of this set. Sarcasms—as befits the title—is an experimental, provocative work, performed by Osborne with biting humour.

An exclusive artist for EMI Classics Japan since 2003, whose career is now growing with extraordinary momentum, this release sees Ayako Uehara continue her exploration of Russian music from the nineteenth century: 10 Pieces from Romeo and Juliet Op.75; the Piano Sonata No.7 in B flat major Op. 83 and Vision Fugitives Op. 22 - a rare combination on disc.

This repertoire is close to Ayako's heart - her passion for Russian music dating back to early studies in Japan with a visiting teacher from the Moscow Conservatory. Her understanding of this repertoire was clear when she became the youngest ever semi-finalist at the 1998 Tchaikovsky Competition, performing Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.Ayako soon became the focus of international attention, winning the first prize in the 12th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, 2002, aged just 22. Significantly, she was the first woman and the first Japanese pianist to do so. Her debut album followed - a live recording from the competition - which was released in Japan and sold over 30,000 copies.

Born in 1980 in Takamatsu, Japan, Ayako Uehara studied music at the Yamaha Music School from the age of three, taking lessons in piano, composition and general musicianship. In 1990, she graduated to the Yamaha Master Class studying piano under Fumiko Eguchi, Shinji Urakabe and Vera Gornostaeva. She is now sponsored exclusively by Yamaha. Based in Paris since 2002, Ayako now performs regularly with such renowned conductors as Valery Gergiev and Lorin Maazel.

In order to produce the necessary depth and volume of sound, Uehara has to place her body-weight effectively on the keyboard, at times almost lifting herself off the piano stool. This adds to the special intensity that characterises her performances.

The Energie Nove String Quartet is composed of four principal instrumentalists of the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana.

This CD showcases one of Prokofiev’s most famous miniatures, Visions Fugitives.

Sono Luminus is excited to present Snapshots, a stunning collection of short yet brilliant piano works by composers Peter Knell and Sergei Prokofiev, all expertly executed by celebrated pianist Markus Pawlik.

While composers had written short keyboard pieces for centuries, Ludwig van Beethoven was the first great composer to publish collections of shorter pieces as an organized entity, collections that he called “bagatelles.” Following Beethoven’s precedent, Romantics such as Schubert, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and, especially, Schumann, cultivated the fashionable and lucrative genre of the “character piece.”

This tradition continued into the twentieth century with such works as Sergei Prokofiev’s Mimolyotnosti, Op. 22, and the genre is alive and well in our time, as is evinced by Peter Knell’s Snapshots. Peter Knell’s series of twenty-two short pieces for piano that comprise Snapshots could only have been composed by an American in the first decades of the twenty-first century. The title of these concise vignettes, which, when played altogether last about twenty-four minutes, is quintessentially American. A “snapshot,” after all, is a photograph that is “shot” quickly and spontaneously—a record of a fugitive vision frozen and preserved on film for the family album. For Americans of a certain age, the word “snapshot” conjures up the inexpensive Brownie box camera, introduced by the Eastman Kodak Company in order to put photography within the reach of unpretentious amateurs.

Peter Knell (b. 1970) has received numerous awards in national and international competitions, including First Prizes in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s 10th New Music Festival International Composers Competition, the Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival/Louisville Orchestra Prize, and the Omaha Symphony Guild International New Music Competition, as well as Second Prizes in the Fourth International Witold Lutoslawski Composers Competition, the First International Composers’ Competition “In Memoriam Zoltán Kodály”, and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Young Composers Competition.

Markus Pawlik has been characterized as one of those rare pianists who combine sensitivity and expressiveness together with a technique that evinces phenomenal virtuosity. Born in Bremen in 1966, he began to concertize at the age of seven and he won both the German National Young Musician’s Competition and the Hamburg Steinway Competition three times each. In 2003, Pawlik performed the world première of a concerto written especially for him by Japanese composer Ichiro Nodaira: this performance occurred in Berkeley conducted by Kent Nagano. In 2006, Pawlik played the Japanese première of this concerto at Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Other performances include works of both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries such as Berg’s Kammerkonzert, as well as scores by Britten, Takemitsu, Dimov, Knell, and numerous others.

This CD features the piano virtuoso Orion Weiss performing three well-known cycles of short pieces.

Orion Weiss holds a leading position among American musicians of his generation and has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras. He also has many awards under his belt including the Gilmore Young Artist Award; the Mieczyslaw Munz Award at the Juilliard School; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and Juilliard's William Petschek Award.

This CD is a sponsored recording of the Classical Recording Foundation.

An eminent Chopin specialist and also a feisty proponent of the Prokofiev concertos, Abdel Rahman El Bacha is the ideal interpreter for these piano works, which range from the futurist strains of the Toccata Op.11 (1912) to the 'fleeting visions' of Op.22 (1917), by way of the 'Gavotte' and 'Rigaudon' of the 'Ten Pieces' Op.12 and the 'Sarcasmes' Op.17. Amid this diversity, the Sonata No.2 Op.14 reverts to Classical models. Here on a single disc are all the solo piano works of the young Prokoviev's last years in Russia.