Piano - Classical Explorer

Boundless: Beethoven for piano four hands

Beethoven discs don't often include World Premiere recordings ...

Beethoven's "Eroica": arranged Scharwenka!

Beethoven's Third Symphony, the "Eroica," is embedded in any musician's consciousness. It has been played regularly since the date of its composition and in the recorded era has unsurprisingly generated a cornucopia of recordings. Small surprise the market is flooded. And yet here is an arrangement of the mighty "Eroica"

Piano

Khachaturian Piano Music

Farrugia is a fine advocate for Khachaturian

Rachmaninov

Sonya Bach plays Rachmaninov

This is Sonya Bach's finest record to date

Chamber

Ravel and Saint-Saëns Piano Trios from the Sitkovetsky Trio

A glorious coupling here from the Sitkovetsky Trio: plus an animated cartoon!

Piano

Alexander Koryakin, winner of the International Competition Prize Jaén

The competition itself might be a bit of a mouthful ("International Competition Prize Jaén"), but it seems to have found a worthy winner in Russian pianist Alexander Koryakin. Founded in 1958, it is Spain's oldest running annual piano competition. But the real reason for this post was the inclusion in

Romantic

Romantic Piano Encores from Kenneth Hamilton

The front cover image says it all: a young girl peeping inside a treasure chest to see what lies within. And what we have here is a treasure trove of sound - beautifully shaped performances of music both well-known and awaiting discovery, each performance shaped like an individual jewel. Small

English Music

Cecil Coles & Gustav Holst: Piano Music

Pianist James Willshire is born to play this music; and Scottish composer Cecil Coles is a real discovery

Mozart

Mozart Sonatas for Four Hands with Rados & Gerstein

An absolute joy: two top musicians, beautfully attuned, both to each other and to Mozart

Piano

Reflections

This really is a voyage of listening; one is led through it, transfixed

Bach

Bach: a new Well-Tempered from Aaron Pilsan

Post includes a FOUR HOUR video bonus!

Beethoven

Daniel Barenboim revisits the Beethoven Piano Sonatas

An invaluable survey of the 32 Sonatas; Barenboim is never less than stimulating, his mind as chock-full of curiosity as ever

Orchestral

Fantasy of Companionship

My, how the world needs upbeat music, expertly performed, right now. And here it is!

Piano

Spira, Spera: Bach transcriptions

A disc of great imagination, performed with both power and beauty

Piano

French Duets

A decidedly Gallic pleasure garden of delights

Piano

Fantasie Nègre: The Piano Music of Florence Price

Vital listening, beautifully recorded

Piano

Benjamin Grosvenor's Liszt

This is a disc to satisfy both Liszt afficionados and newbies

Flute

Bonus Post! Trail of the Angels: Ireland meets China

At once a celebration of diverse cultures and a gift to the World to raise flagging spirits, there's no doubt that enterprises such as this should be encouraged

Piano

York Bowen Piano Concertos

Hyperion's series of recordings The Romantic Piano Concerto is one of the glories of our age. This is volume 46 and presents two concertos by a composer whose name is today known but not well known: York Bowen (1884-1961). Long-lived and prolific, Bowen's music is currently undergoing something of a

Piano

The many sides of Sabine Weyer

The Luxembourgan pianist Sabine Weyer's most recent disc, Mysteries, has just been released on the Ars Produktion label. It's at once a celebration of the music of Nikolai Miaskovsky - a composer who certainly warrants our attentions - and contemporary composer Nicolas Bacri on the Ars Produktion label. It continues

Piano

A composer like no other: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji

Mythologising about composers in general is rife: think Wagner, Beethoven; or Mozart with his Freemasonry and the alleged rivalry with Salieri. Few composers hold such a fascination as Sorabji (1892-1988), whose works are of magnificent length. His Opus Clavicembalisticum is a mammoth evening of knotty fugues and mind-bending complexity, all

Beethoven

A Creative Collision, A Bag of Bagatelles

Hodges' disc holds a definite authority, given his working relationship to Birtwistle

Beethoven

A Tale of "Two" Concertos

Something new for Beethoven year!

Piano

A trip to the opera, on the piano: Vanessa Benelli Mosell

It is not so often posts are tagged as both "Piano" and "Opera," but that's the case here. Even rarer in music criticism, I would have thought, for two versions of an operatic transcription by Sigismond Thalberg to come out in close proximity, but such is the case here, with

Chopin

BBC Young Musician winner Lara Melda plays Chopin

Lara Melda is most definitely a name to watch