Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S178

Georgian pianist Nino Gvetadze won the Press Prize and Audience Award of the 2008 International Franz Liszt Piano Competition. This recording is the logical result of her recital work focussing on the music of Liszt during this period.

Includes two Liszt transcriptions of Schumann and Schubert pieces plus the Sonata which was dedicated to Robert Schumann.

Released alongside the CD is a film produced by Borletti-Buitoni Trust/Ladderman SDA and made by Graham Johnston, an animated realisation of Nino’s performance of Gretchen am Spinnrade, available at www.gretchenamspinnrade.com.

Nino is supported by the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, who will be working with her and Orchid Classics to support the release of this CD.

Zig-Zag Territoires begins its collaboration with the pianist François-Frédéric Guy, ‘an exceptional artist’ (Le Figaro, 2008), with two prestigious projects: the complete Beethoven piano sonatas recorded live at the Arsenal in Metz between December 2010 and December 2012, and a Liszt double album featuring two of that composer’s key works: the Sonata in B minor and the complete cycle of Harmonies poétiques et religieuses.

Zig-Zag Territoires wishes to accompany the development of this artist who first attracted attention with a ‘titanic “Hammerklavier” . . . [in which] we are in heaven’ (Le Monde, 1998), and has since marked his territory by ‘tackling the Everests of the repertoire’ (Libération, 2004): Brahms’s Second Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Paavo Berglund (Naïve, 2004), followed by the complete Beethoven piano concertos with Philippe Jordan and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Naïve, 2008-10).

François-Frédéric Guy regularly performs the cycle of Harmonies poétiques et religieuses in concert, either as a solo recital or alongside the actress Marie-Christine Barrault who recites the Lamartine poems that inspired the composer.

We decided to record these masterpieces in the studio of La Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland), renowned for its exceptional acoustics. With the aim of reproducing the spontaneity of concert conditions, François-Frédéric Guy recorded the entire double album in just four days.

‘Recording the Harmonies Poétiques et religieuses represents a important moment in my artistic and discographic career, since Liszt is one of my favourite composers. It is certainly one of the finest cycles in the piano literature, made up of musical settings of the poems of Lamartine that combine grandiose inspiration and intimate meditation. As for the Sonata in B minor, in my view it constitutes the peak of the composer’s output and is still the only piano work that can follow on from Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier”.’ François-Frédéric Guy

On October 22, 2011, the musical world will celebrate the 200th birthday of Franz Liszt.

Garrick Ohlsson, one of the great piano virtuosi of the current era, contributes to the celebration with recordings of two of Liszt's towering achievements: the infrequently recorded Busoni transcription of Liszt's organ piece, “Fantasie und Fuge über den choral Ad nos, ad Salutarem Undam”, (To us, to the healing waters, come again) S. 259 and, the most beloved of all of Liszt's piano compositions, the Sonata in B Minor, S. 178.

Those who revel in great pianism need look no further than this spectacular program. Garrick Ohlsson also recently completed the recording 32 Beethoven sonatas for Bridge, a series which has been critically acclaimed.

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Liszt’s birth, this new format title (2 CDs + 50,000 word biography) explores the fascinating world of LIZST: HIS LIFE AND MUSIC.

Perhaps the greatest pianist who has ever lived, Liszt was one of the titanic musical figures of the Romantic age. Abandoning his spectacular career as a travelling virtuoso in his mid-thirties, this passionate lover and fond father dedicated himself instead to a life of composing, conducting, teaching and, increasingly, religious devotion, eventually taking minor orders in the Roman Catholic Church. This biography explores an enthralling life lived for long periods in France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the composer’s native Hungary – a kaleidoscope of cultural worlds whose folk music, literature and landscapes richly coloured Liszt’s own music.

The 2 CDs feature music spanning Liszt’s career, and the free website www.naxosaudiobooks/lisztlifeandmusic offers hours of extra music and other bonus material.

This Chinese pianist studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. He continued his studies in Hannover. He has won many prizes and scholarships, including a silver medal in the International Vladimir Horowitz Piano Competition in Kiev. His Liszt recital includes Sonata in B minor and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.

“She played Liszt’s monumental B minor Sonata with enormous assurance… Relatively few pianists have the sense of architecture to organize this pianistic symphonic poem. She marshalled the sustaining power to see the music through to the end, at which point her audience not surprisingly rose to its feet.” Toronto Star (Canada)

Kirill Gerstein won the 2010 Gilmore Artist award and Knussen’s Ophelia’s Last Dance is the world premiere recording of this work. Russian born Kirill Gerstein is one of today’s most intriguing young musicians; “with an illuminating clarity and an unassailable technique.” The New York Times. This artist will be featured in the Gramophone.

Here are two visionary ventures that are almost unrivalled in the piano literature, by two very different composers, who nevertheless dedicated these two pieces to each other in sincere respect. With his emphatic and transparent playing style, Vogt reveals the composers’ multi-faceted emotional lives and the structure of their music, leading the listener through unique heights and depths of Romantic style.