Debussy: Préludes - Book 2: No. 12, Feux d’artifice

Sviatoslav Richter (1915–1997) is acknowledged today as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century along with his great Russian contemporaries, David Oistrakh, Emil Gilels and Mstislav Rostropovich.

This rare broadcast recording makes its first appearance on CD.

The June 1967 recital at the Royal Festival Hall very much reflects the pianist’s personal taste, containing the rarely played Haydn and Weber Sonatas together with the Schumann Novelettes with the more popular additions of Chopin and Debussy.

He declared, ‘my principle is to play only works that I really love and not just those that are currently accepted’.

Of all the Haydn Sonatas that Richter played, No.62 featured more frequently in his programmes as did the Weber Sonata No.3, which he regarded in a notebook entry in 1990 as a ‘highly original work and I like it a lot’.

The two Schumann Novelettes were often played in the 1960s though Richter did not perform No.8 for the following two decades. With the Chopin and Debussy, Richter is on familiar territory, which he invests with his characteristic imagination and spontaneity.

Superb Ambient Mastering recreates the atmosphere in the Royal Festival Hall perfectly.

Debussy's twenty-four Preludes, like Chopin's, are surprisingly self-sufficient. Divided into two books, published in 1910 and 1913, the Preludes are an intimate record of Debussy's inner and imaginative life. Their titles were after-thoughts rather than direct inspirations, largely because Debussy's delicate and complex response to natural phenomena or human idiosyncrasy could hardly be contained or expressed by a simple caption or heading.

The Cuban-American pianist Jorge Bolet isn't readily associated with the music of Debussy, but his selection of sixteen of the composer's Preludes yield performances of refinement and fluidity. Lines are clearly delineated and the myriad of impressions within a single piece are nothing short of kaleidoscopic.

London‐based pianist Reinis Zarins makes his debut recording for Champs Hill Records with ‘Circus and Magic’. Born in Riga in 1985, he is a prize‐winner in eleven international piano competitions and performs regularly with leading orchestras in Latvia for broadcast on national radio and TV, and has been recognized with national awards. He has performed at the Lucerne Festival, Bath Musicfest and the Norfolk & Norwich Festival.

Ernest Bloch, essentially a romantic composer torn between his natural instincts and modernist trends, produced his character sketches The Four Circus Pieces for private performance but was eventually persuaded to publish them. One is dedicated to “the sad and ever‐comprehending Charlie Chaplin” whom Bloch admired. He sent the music to Chaplin, himself a skillful composer, but received no reply.

Included on this album are three pieces by Debussy, including his firework display in Feux d’Artifice, a fantastic display of inventive piano‐writing, and Masques , inspired by the Commedia dell'arte as painted by Watteau - a blend of joy and pathos. Marguerite Long, who studied with Debussy, wrote: “I hear Masques - a tragedy for piano one might call it - as a sort of transparency of Debussy's character … He was torn with poignant feelings which he preferred to mask with irony”.

Three Pieces from Prokofiev’s ballet music for Cinderella follow: Intermezzo creates wonderful imagery of the Waltz guests danced to at the ball; Gavotte - played during a scene in which Cinderella takes a broom as her dancing partner; and Slow Waltz, the penultimate number in the full ballet, which is played as the Prince and Cinderella dance together in an enchanted garden. Even when divorced from their orchestral colour, these pieces still possess a strong tactile feeling and a sense of wonderment.

Ligeti's eighteen Études have become modern classics. Étude No.10 (Der Zauberlehrling) dates from 1994 and is named after the celebrated Goethe poem which inspired Dukas to write his symphonic poem/scherzo The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

This recital disc concludes with Three Pieces from Petrushka by Stravinsky arranged in 1921 from the 1911 original, and dedicated to Arthur Rubinstein. Danse Russe is taken from the music in Tableau One to which Petrushka and the other puppets dance after being brought to life, and is followed by In Petrushka’s Room. The Shrovetide Fair, with its evocation of a teeming crowd, completes the set. With these pieces, Stravinsky stated his intention of writing something essentially pianistic ‐ in no way an imitation of the sound of the orchestral score.

Jorge Bolet made this superbly languid and delicate recording of 16 Préludes by Debussy less than two years before his untimely death in 1990 at the age of 75. The Cuban-born pianist's reputation was largely founded on his mercurial, blockbusting performances and recordings of Rachmaninov and Liszt, but this disc shows a true pianist’s lightness of touch, as well as some superbly sensitive engineering and technical preparation of his beloved Baldwin SD-10 instrument, chosen by Bolet in preference to the far more popular Steinways.

Bolet's own personal fastidiousness – he always recorded in a jacket and tie – is reflected, and in perhaps unexpected and certainly fascinating ways, in this personal selection from the two books of twelve Préludes, and the ordering of them. He may have been a reluctant, and and indeed until the last couple of decades of his life, infrequent visitor to the studio – he once remarked that he would rather give hundreds of concerts than make one recording – but this wariness does not translate itself into metronomical stiffness but rather reflect a refined version of the spontaneity that manifested itself more naturally in his concert playing.

‘Bolet’s performances, with their inimitable beauty of line and shimmering sonority (very much the product of an unobtrusive but subtle virtuoso pedal technique), their poetic freedom within a basic pulse, were like some serene and final distillation of all he had learnt and known, the massive and legendary virtuosity of earlier days directed into an everincreasing concern with more durable musical truths.’ Gramophone, 1991

"Matthews has been heralded for the success with which he has taken the inspiration of the piano masterpieces and skillfully created orchestral works of great variety, beauty and drama. “…these pieces are more than orchestrations, they are recreations achieved by entering into the mind and thought of the original composer. Beautiful performances.” Sunday Telegraph 2007

A national hero when he was only 23 years old, pianist Van Cliburn has been one of classical music’s few true household names ever since his triumph at the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow – the first American ever to win there, a Cold War – thawing phenomenon that led to a frenzied ticker-tape parade for Cliburn in New York. He was one of the first million-selling classical artists in the LP era, and his catalogue of critically hailed, best selling recordings for RCA Red Seal includes many of the most popular concertos and solo piano works of the Romantic era.