Category: Record releases of Note

20240922 Random notes

Couple of things to note:

Daniil Trifonov has a new album due next month and Apple Music is already streaming a couple of tracks from it. I can’t find his recording of it on YouTube but definitely worth checking out his recording of China Gates by John Adams. You’ll find other recordings of that piece on YouTube including by Yuja Wang (the piece is currently on my TBL list which is almost longer than my reading list). The other thing to take a look at is this:

Daniil Trifonov When I Fall in Love

Very understated. I love it. He did the transcription and from what I can see, he doesn’t publish them. This is gorgeous though.

Also on Apple Music/Apple Music Classical, Deutsche Grammophon have been good enough to curate a bunch of playlists. If you’ve any interest in classical music at all, it’s worth looking through them and my particular recommendation is their Piano Masters list which includes Yuja Wang’s rendition of Philip Glass’s Etude 6. It’s worth taking a look around their other play lists as they have some good composer specific lists.

Yuja Wang playing Etude 6 by Philip Glass

I haven’t listened to it yet but Ben Laude, late of ToneBase but now doing nice stuff on his own channel, was interviewed for Behind the Tech, which is a tech podcast. You can find a taster here:

Ben Laude taster of interview with Kevin Scott

They talk extensively about Scriabin’s Opus 8 number 12 which is to be fair, a great piece of music. I came across it on Boris Giltburg’s Instagram channel. In particular, they discuss Horowitz’s playing of said piece but personally I like Garrick Ohlsson’s recording and Daniil Trifonov played it on at a Yellow Room concert for Deutsche Grammophon and it’s definitely worth you time too.

God plays Scriabin

I see there’s a Nikolai Lugansky version as well. I must check it out at some point.

I want to learn this but it will have to be for the LRSM I guess, feel sure it would be acceptable difficulty wise. Annique Gottler had a go at it here. She said it was hard and she definitely is better than I am atm.

In other news, the Leeds Piano Competition has been running. Jaeden Izik-Dzurko won in the end and you can find his Brahms II concerto final here. I also recommend taking a lot at the second placed Junwan Chen’s Rachmaninoff 4 if and when it’s been posted. I don’t see it there yet. The competition’s YouTube is worth an exploration though so find it here.

Last two things to mention: Alexandre Tharaud has a Bach release on the way, again check it out on your streaming service of choice as a couple of tracks are already available and my little piece of joy to listen to from Vikingur Olafsson is the Bach No 4 Organ Sonata, transcribed by Stradal. It looks like IMSLP is the main source for the sheets. I hope that link eventually takes you to the right place.

Here he is on YouTube with a rather sobering video.

Noteworthy releases to come later this year

Warner Classics{I think, at least} and Alexandre Tharaud have been pushing tasters of his upcoming four hands album. This week it was the single with Vikingur Olafsson, some Grieg. This album is absolutely worth your time. There is also a brilliant single with Bruce Liu with one of the Hungarian dances. Definitely worth following Alexandre Tharaud’s instagram to keep an eye out for this. The man is criminally under-rated internationally.

Another interesting recording which hasn’t actually been made yet but which is in the pipeline is Medtner No 1 with the Belgian National Orchestra, soloist Florian Noack. As I speak, he should be in Lyon ready to play it; I heard it in Brussels Bozar last night. It was mesmerising. Noack I have been aware of for his transcriptions so assumed I should get to see him sooner or later once I relocated to Brussels. Here I am and yes I did. The performance last night was fantastic, and you can listen to it on Musiq3 here for about the next year if you want.

That being said, the record of the year is still looking to be Trifonov and Babayan but who knows how it will turn out.

Noteable releases: Trifonov/Babayan

Trifonov/Babayan Rachmaninoff for Two

I really wish that Daniil Trifonov and Henle or someone would do a deal and release his transcriptions. He has done some lovely work on Bach.

However, quite by chance, I found out about this yesterday. I asked myself, how good can it possibly be? Oh god, it’s amazing. I’m not really familiar with Sergei Babayan’s playing but I’m going to be frank, this album is approaching the recordings Trifonov did of the Rach concertos a few years ago and I wish he would record the cello sonata without a pesky cellist grabbing all the limelight.

In particular, I’d kill to have the sheets for the Symphonic Dances from this. It’s amazing.

This is one of those albums that has to be on your listen-list. I really would love to see them if they toured. This lad does things with a piano that very, very few other people can manage. I love listening to him play.

There are not enough superlatives in the world for this. The dynamic range is extraordinary; the pianos sound like god built instruments and the mics are disturbingly clear (this means one of them was singing along while playing). It’s the end of March. Debargue’s Fauré album is exquisite, and Tharaud’s duet album is also due in May and I expect wonderful things from that (the tasters are already gorgeous).

But I have a feeling this will be my piano album of the year.

Releases of Note: Leif Ove Andsnes

36 hours of Leif Ove Andsnes. Definitely worth your time

I love listening to Leif Ove Andsnes. I especially love his Rach and his Sib. But this is an interesting selection and the Nielsen album is something I want to listen to in a little more detail. I somehow missed that this was coming out.

Releases of Note: Alexandre Tharaud: Ravel

Alexandre Tharaud plays Ravel piano concertos

Alexandre Tharaud is one of my favourite pianists and he might get me to go listen to these Ravel concertos although Ravel is tainted in my mind by the Bolero which turns up in the figure skating world a lot (although for the 23-24 season, Kevin Aymoz is worth a look),

Anyway, even Argerich couldn’t get me to give much time to Ravel – it doesn’t talk to me in general. But Tharaud has a magical touch.

Record releases of note this week

I don’t intend to turn this into a regular feature but two records dropped yesterday which are probably worth your time.

Goldberg Variations – Vikingur Olafson. Vikingur extracted a 5 star review from the Guardian for his last live performance of these in London which is quite an achievement. It’s worth catching his social media clips actually talking about this recording because he achieves something which other pianists don’t. He places the music in the context of dreaming and backs it up. Variations 7 and 9 so far stand out.

Chopin Etudes – Annique Goettler. Annique Goettler runs the YouTube channel Heart of the Keys which is one of my go tos for feeling part of a piano community online. She’s been working on this project for a long time, the launch concert was 6 October (last night per my writing date) and one noteworthy comment from one of her local papers was the pointer at how many young people attended that concert.