New Releases

[JBS]

Yes, indeed. I personally don't think Wagner's operatic masterpieces would lend themselves to a two piano reduction.

Given the colorations of timbre Wagner used, I agree with you. But remember that until mass market recordings appeared, this sort of reduction was the only way people without access to an opera house that put on a production could hear the music.

These sort of reductions were serving the same function that YouTube videos of contemporary music serve now. Of course with YouTube we don't need to be limited by Little Sister's abilities to play the piano.

[Mirror Image]

Given the colorations of timbre Wagner used, I agree with you. But remember that until mass market recordings appeared, this sort of reduction was the only way people without access to an opera house that put on a production could hear the music.

These sort of reductions were serving the same function that YouTube videos of contemporary music serve now. Of course with YouTube we don't need to be limited by Little Sister's abilities to play the piano.

Yeah, I can certainly understand this.

[Brian]

This is the first I have ever heard of the Eden-Tamir piano duo but Wiki informs me that almost nothing is known about her life (contrasting with his - he survived a Nazi death camp as a child), and that Stravinsky chose them to premiere the two piano Rite of Spring arrangement.

[vandermolen]

Also, NYM's 27th Symphony and Prokofiev's 6th Symphony will be released in 2021.
Personally, I with that they had coupled the two Miaskovsky symphonies on the same CD:

[MusicTurner]

Yes, indeed. I personally don't think Wagner's operatic masterpieces would lend themselves to a two piano reduction.

Agree.

Heresy, surely, but I'd like to hear them arranged as piano concertos, maybe full-length, and not 'medleys'.

This would also make it initially easier to follow the long melodic lines, for pedagogical/educational content.

Well, nobody did apparently, so far. Not even Peter Breiner, who'd be a candidate.

[Brian]

I listened to clips of V. Petrenko's new Prokofiev 5 and it seems destined to create controversy. The slow movement is extremely slow - over 14 minutes - and the initial melody gets stretched out so far it can barely be called a melody anymore. Part of an overall conception that's nearly 10 minutes longer than reference recordings like Szell.

[kyjo]

I listened to clips of V. Petrenko's new Prokofiev 5 and it seems destined to create controversy. The slow movement is extremely slow - over 14 minutes - and the initial melody gets stretched out so far it can barely be called a melody anymore. Part of an overall conception that's nearly 10 minutes longer than reference recordings like Szell.

Sounds like one to avoid, then...

[Brian]

Just found a few more January releases worth noting:



and in case you're wondering what composer anniversary year could possibly live up to Beethoven 2020:



"The Complete Grainger Edition contains all twenty-one Chandos albums of his works in a luxurious boxed set."

[Mandryka]

The result shows a different and unheard approach, focused on silence and minute gestures, where each instance of the work is magnified and put in a ever-changing relationship with its environment, through the constant dialogue between the tapes and the violin

That's from a note about the recording on the Ricordi site, I'm not sure if it's supposed to distinguish this performance or the music that Nono wrote. Not clear what Pier Luigi Billone is up to.

[Artem]

Just found a few more January releases worth noting:

Is there a track list for that disk yet?

[MusicTurner]

Is there a track list for that disk yet?

I was curious too and found a list of content on the naxosdirect.co.uk website. Nørgård's 3 solo sonatas, Ruders' L'Homme Arme Variations. All have been recorded before by others.

[Maestro267]

Just found a few more January releases worth noting:

I completed missed your first posts of January releases until just now. Interesting to see just one Naxos release among the set. Maybe having a quiet month, or are running out of stuff due to the effect of Covid on recording ability.

[Brian]

I completed missed your first posts of January releases until just now. Interesting to see just one Naxos release among the set. Maybe having a quiet month, or are running out of stuff due to the effect of Covid on recording ability.

Naxos' distribution site just wasn't updated promptly and they pushed their own Jan. releases to the end of the month. Looks like this week they uploaded the disc titles and artist names, but not the tracklists or artwork, so I decided not to post them until next week. I can say that there is a great deal of pretty interesting stuff happening on Naxos in January. Big new post coming Monday or Tuesday (whenever they upload the album covers), but get ready for Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata "performed on a real arpeggione", Adams' My Father Knew Charles Ives, and multiple percussion-centric albums.

[The new erato]

All available under new releases on prestoclassical, but thanks for the good and costly work you do for all of us, Brian.

[Daverz]

I listened to clips of V. Petrenko's new Prokofiev 5 and it seems destined to create controversy. The slow movement is extremely slow - over 14 minutes - and the initial melody gets stretched out so far it can barely be called a melody anymore. Part of an overall conception that's nearly 10 minutes longer than reference recordings like Szell.

I only listened to the Myaskovsky so far, being somewhat worn out on the Prokofiev 5th.

[Brian]

All available under new releases on prestoclassical, but thanks for the good and costly work you do for all of us, Brian.

Yup, looks like they are there (also without art yet)...

While looking at Presto I also saw this interesting bit of piano history.



"A debut on CD for the American Decca legacy of Ruth Slenczynska, a prodigious Romantic-age keyboard lioness. The biography for her Wigmore Hall recital in March 1957 claimed that the 32-year-old Ruth Slenczynska had given 1600 concerts. Scarcely believably, perhaps, but no less so than other elements of her extraordinary life story – making her public debut at the age of four, under the instruction of a tyrannical and abusive father, playing a Mozart concerto at the Salle Pleyel in Paris just three years later, attracting the admiration and tutelage of Cortot and Rachmaninov, apparently burnt out before adulthood.

"A first marriage and highlights such as playing for (and duets with) Harry Truman followed. Touring with Arthur Fiedler and Boston Pops in the mid-50s taught Slenczynska how to work an audience and to draw strength from their attention, but she readily understood the imperatives of the microphone. The year before her Wigmore Hall date she began recording for the American Brunswick division of Decca at the label's New York studios, and once their sales were boosted by the publication of her painfully honest autobiography in 1957, her albums won acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. She has continued to perform and to teach well into her 90s, but this box is the first comprehensive tribute to her artistry.

"Born in California to Polish parents, Slenczynska was a Chopin pianist by nature and nurture, with a temperament and background that tended towards the extremes of the Romantic style, abounding in rubato and timbral nuance. The facility and security of her technique were shown to best advantage by the Études (1956), then the Scherzos (1957), followed by a selection of waltzes (1959), the Ballades and Polish songs arranged by Liszt (1960) and the Préludes (1962). A Liszt album from 1958 tests her bullet-proof technique with the exigent demands of the Rhapsodie espagnole, Feux follets and the most gravity-defying versions of the Grandes Études de Paganini. A mixed recital from 1957 marks the silver jubilee of her debut at New York City Hall. The Brunswick discogrpahy [sic] is rounded off with a disc of encores (1959) and a pair of concertos, Saint-Saëns' Second (1959) and Liszt's First (1963).

"By the time of these recordings, Slenczynska had thrown off the prodigy tag and her musicianship had matured accordingly from machine-tooled virtuosity to lyrical fantasy. The pianism presented here is extraordinary, and shows no trace of a performer who had learned her craft through the harshest discipline and punishment. The first release of these albums on CD is celebrated in style by Eloquence with an 'original covers' box and a booklet full of hitherto unpublished photographs and memorabilia as well as a new survey of Slenczynska's life and studio career by Stephen Siek."

lots of sound clips https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8860552--ruth-slenczynska-complete-american-decca-recordings

Check out this Wiki quote: "When she was four, she began her piano studies in Europe, later studying with Artur Schnabel, Egon Petri, Alfred Cortot, Josef Hofmann, and Sergei Rachmaninoff." wow that's a lineup of teachers 

EDITING to add a quote of the one and only previous GMG post to mention this pianist or her work:

I love spring days when I can open the doors and windows and let what's out in and what's in out.  No retreat from cold or heat.  For these fleeting paradisiac moments, my listening choice is :

[broken image link]

I searched and didn't see her mentioned in GMG - she had quite a following long ago.  She was a Schnabel student and lives still    (that's funnier than I'd intended).  When I bought this, several years ago, I knew her not; I confess I got it 'cause I like Ivory Classics.  Gurn'd be interested in her Haydn Sonata #47.  She takes Brahms' B minor rhapsody agitato at breakneck, hell-bent-for-leather, white knuckles speed; I'm always afraid we might crash into something when I hear it. It is impressive, if, to me, ultimately unconvincing (these are live performances, so some slack can be cut).  But Copland's Midsummer Nocturne is endearing and perfection exemplified.  And then, the real treats: Chopin Sonata in B minor ; Rach's Eight Preludes where she seems perfectly at home.  "Play it again, Slenczynska..."

[Symphonic Addict]

I was expecting the version with piano of the Quintet, but another recording with oboe is fine as well.

[Madiel]

That's from a note about the recording on the Ricordi site, I'm not sure if it's supposed to distinguish this performance or the music that Nono wrote. Not clear what Pier Luigi Billone is up to.

I'm not seeing the image at all.

[T. D.]

That's from a note about the recording on the Ricordi site, I'm not sure if it's supposed to distinguish this performance or the music that Nono wrote. Not clear what Pier Luigi Billone is up to.

This link

https://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/fusi-pierluigi-billone-marco-luigi-nono-la-lontananza-nostalgica-u-cd/KAI.15086CD.html

mentions a novel spatial arrangement of speakers for playing back the tape. Perhaps Billone was involved with that? Unfortunately, the CD recording may not reveal the subtleties, as implied by the included "free download of the binaural version". [Disclosure: I have no relationship with Forced Exposure. The above is the most informative link I found.]

[JBS]

I'm not seeing the image at all.

The AmazonUS listing
[Asin]B08L4J3PR1[/asin]