Chopin: Waltz No. 2 in A flat major 'Grande Valse Brillante', Op. 34 No. 1

These recordings were originally recorded for Denon and are now available on CD for the first time in nearly 20 years.

These are the only recordings of the Chopin Preludes by Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

An intriguing release featuring Chopin in his mature period, Brahms in a romantic one, plus piano and accordion miniatures from contemporary Polish composer Niziurski. The disc is cleanly and sensitively drawn together by Marek Mizera and the The Świętokrzyski Accordion Duo.

Rudolf Ganz (1876-1972) was one of the most remarkable Swiss musicians of the 20th-century, as pianist, teacher and conductor. From his earliest days he knew, performed and recorded music by the latest composers before World War I, and when he went to America he was conductor of the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony Orchestras for many years. He continued to give concerts in his 80s as a pianist, and the range of his achievements is considerable. This new CD is a magnificent tribute to a great musician, friend of Bartok, Korngold and Busoni - Ravel dedicated one of his most famous piano works to Ganz - and conductor who gave the world premieres of music by Copland and Elliott Carter, among many others. On this CD, we have recordings from piano rolls of 1913, and a very rare performance of Grieg's 'Holberg Suite' recorded in the USA in the late 1940s. There are rare photographs and the booklet notes are fascinatingly detailed. A most important record.

Includes footage from Ganz's 80th birthday interview on Lausanne Radio.

Frédéric Chopin Year 2010 coincides with the 60th anniversary of Daniel Barenboim’s stage début, and as a pianist he has decided to devote this year to the great Romantic master of the keyboard.

Chopin was born on 1 March 1810 in a small village near Warsaw, and on the eve of the 200th anniversary of this date Barenboim gave this wildly acclaimed Warsaw recital as part of an extensive European tour.

The program comprised some of the composer’s best-known works, including the great B flat minor Sonata with its famous Funeral March, which sounded to many “as the composer may well have imagined it”.

While Chopin used to advise his piano scholars to take singing lessons, Barenboim, as an experienced conductor of operas is most familiar with the human voice as well. With his brilliant virtuosity, he lead the audience through a most colorful program, once again proving his talent for this composer.

Picture Format Blu-Ray: HDCAM 1080/59,94

Sound Formats Blu-Ray: DTS HD Master Audio PCM Stereo

Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

Running Time: 90:45

Disc Format: BD 25

FSK: 0

Reissue Producer and Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

This volume continues the Naxos series of Rubinstein’s ‘middle period’ Chopin recordings, begun with the Piano Concertos (8111296) and followed by the Polonaises (8111346). Because the HMV/Victor catalogue already included Cortot’s complete traversal of the Waltzes (8111035), Rubinstein set down only two of them on shellac before making this complete recording in 1954. He had made previous recordings for RCA of two of the Impromptus (Opp. 51 and 66) before taping the four new versions heard on this disc.

Frédéric Meinders is “ A pianists’ pianists” and his brilliant transcriptions have long fascinated musicians all over the world. Some of the pieces are for left hand alone and Jeremy Nicholas, who wrote the fine informative booklet, says of Meinders – “Frédéric Meinders is a prolific composer of piano music for the left hand alone, a self-contained area of literature with a dedicated following of aficionados”

Lang Lang’s first recording for Sony, the start of a new exclusive long-term partnership - recorded live at Vienna’s prestigious Musikverein earlier in 2010.

Lang Lang:

Heralded as the “hottest artist on the classical music planet” by the New York Times, 28- year-old Lang Lang began playing the piano at the age of 3, gave his first public recital aged 5, and won first prize at the Tchaikovsky International Young Musicians Competition at the age of 13. Since then he has become a global phenomenon, playing sold out recitals and concerts in every major city in the world.

Testimony to his success, Lang Lang recently appeared in the 2009 Time 100 – Time Magazine's annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2008, over 5 billion people viewed Lang Lang’s performance in Beijing’s opening ceremony for the Olympic Games, and he has inspired over 40 million Chinese children to take up the piano – a phenomenon coined by The Today Show as "the Lang Lang effect." More recently, Lang Lang was chosen as an official worldwide ambassador to the 2010 Shanghai Expo. He has performed at prestigious events including at The White House and The Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony.

Continuing his presence on the world stage, Lang Lang was featured at the 2008 Grammy Awards and the 2009 Classical Brit Awards, pairing up with jazz great, Herbie Hancock, for an astounding performance that was broadcast live to 45 million viewers worldwide.

Lang Lang has made it his mission to share classical music around the world, with an emphasis on training children and young musicians through education, outreach programs, master classes and financial support. He launched the Lang Lang International Music Foundation in New York with the support of UNICEF. In May 2009, Lang Lang and his three chosen young scholars from the foundation performed together on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In addition to his numerous commitments, Lang Lang holds the title of the first Ambassador of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. His role in this groundbreaking project created by YouTube and Google reflects his devotion to building new audiences and bringing classical music to young people worldwide. A brand in himself, Lang Lang has become the face of numerous global campaigns. Steinway has created five versions of the “Lang Lang Steinway” designed for early music education - the first time in Steinway’s 150-year history that an artist’s name has been used to produce pianos. He is a global brand ambassador for the entire Sony Corporation, including its Electronics arm, with whom he anticipates achieving innovative and creative possibilities for the future. Lang Lang also holds brand partnerships with Audi Automobiles and Aegon's worldwide financial services, amongst others.Lang Lang’s performance clothes are provided by Versace.

In February 2010, Lang Lang joined Sony Music Entertainment as an exclusive recording artist.

Drewnowski started playing the piano as a young child. In 1975 he recorded piano sonatas by Scarlatti and Leonard Bernstein was so impressed by his performances that he invited him to the Tanglewood Music Festival. These days he is professor of piano at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and the Academy of Music in Łódź, Poland. Here he performs on a Pleyel 1848 fortepiano.