PRD 250 119

PRD/DSD 250 217

To L. Koželuh, rival and successor of Mozart,, one essentially owes the abandoning of the harpsichord in favour of the pianoforte, to Dusík/Dussek the advent of the modern piano. The second was erred only by being right too soon and writing avant-garde music before the pre-eminence of Liszt. It remains to grant them the place that they deserve, for his instrument - 32 Piano Sonatas - and in the sphere of forgotten piano duets.

PRD/DSD 250 213

PRD 250 163

In June of 1894, Bruno Walter attended the world premiere, in Weimar, of the First Symphony, and was keenly interested in meeting his strange composer..’ At the time, he traditionally relied on pianist-coaches, for realising Clavierauszüge (‘reductions’). Walter was responsible for those of the first two symphonies, which he even had occasion to play with the master.

PRD/DSD 250 197

‘My compliments on the keyboard version, very well and carefully carried out,’ wrote Haydn on the 23rd of June 1787 to Artaria, his Viennese publisher, stipulating that he wanted a new contract for this highly profitable version which came immediately after the initial versions for orchestra and string quartet. Haydn himself pointed out that the music, thus deprived of vain ornaments, ‘makes a profound impression even on the most inexperienced souls’. Today, this music reveals the beauty of timbre and fullness of sound of the instrument used: a copy of a pianoforte built by the Viennese firm Walter & Sons in 1806.

PRD/DSD 250 196

Three different aspects of Bartok's both aesthetics and ethics in a programme which is totally original for two pianos : - exquisite "watercolors" in the Images which constitute a sort of second suite for piano duo, - expressionist tale, almost autobiographical, in the Mandarin, where the use of the two keyboards deprives the music of its oriental magnificence but enhances the violence of the story and the character almost religious of the final suicide of all creative genius, - sovereign balance of the last Sonata, between unbearable anguish and radiating remembrances, with its central nocturnal music which reveals a world of cries, inintelligible snarls and excitements of undestroyable vitality.

PRD/DSD 250 184

The last of Chopin’s four sonatas – the first three being for solo piano – has become an essential work in the repertoire of… cellists, taking its place alongside the Beethoven models and the more-immediately lyrical scores of Mendelssohn. Grieg, in the central Andante molto tranquillo of his own Sonata, borrowed from the portrait of Sigurd Jorsalfar (Sigurd the Crusader), incidental music which, owing to its charm and noble bearing, deserves to be as well known as some parts of Peer Gynt. A triptych in chromatic harmonisations as free as they are appealing.

PRD/DSD 250 229

PRD 250 166

==> CLICK HERE TO ORDER THIS ALBUM ON OUR ONLINE STORE

It is difficult to think of Dohnányi as a contemporary of Kodály and Bártok – his music is so much of the earlier generation of Post-Romantics. He has developed from Brahms, after as Richard Strauss, instead of reacting against these inluences. Apart from his career as a concert pianist – one of the last of the great pianist-composers following the tradition from Liszt to Rachmaninov – he has held a wide variety of professional and administrative positions, ranging from his professor-ship of the Berlin Hochschule, in 1908, through the conductorship of the Budapest Philharmonic. He has served as director of the Budapest Conservatoire, director of the Hungarian Broadcasting Corporation, and, his last post, composer-in-redidence at Florida State University. During this final period, he has appeared all over the world as a pianist, and recorded some basic masterworks of his repertoire.

PRD/DSD 250 231