Alexandre Kantorow - Alexandre Kantorow Plays Brahms & Schubert - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]

The child Mendelssohn developed extraordinarily rapidly after progressing, apparently late in 1819, from imitative student exercises to composing his own music. Over the next two years he tackled increasingly ambitious large-scale works, including a number of string symphonies, a Singspiel, and his first concerto, in A minor for piano, written early in 1822. The Concerto for Violin and Strings in D minor followed later that year, and the Concerto for Violin and Piano, again in D minor, in the spring of 1823; the latter was also initially accompanied by strings only, but Mendelssohn later added parts for wind and timpani, in which version it is heard here. Even between these two concertos one can hear a striking advance in the young composer's sense of originality and mastery. The Violin Concerto draws on Classical-era models such as Mozart, but it is also influenced by French innovations in violin writing developed in Mendelssohn's own time, and fully exploits the evolving techniques of new virtuosos. Among them was Eduard Rietz, Mendelssohn's teacher, the work's dedicatee, still a teenager himself and yet leader of the Berlin Court Orchestra. There is much dazzling filigree writing here but also some deeply expressive modulations which convey an emotional maturity far beyond what one could expect from a 13-year-old composer. Dating from six months later, the Double Concerto is an even more polished work, full of memorable melody, no less brilliant in it's solo writing but astonishingly confident in it's handling of material indebted to Bach, to Mozart and Beethoven and somehow none the worse for all that The Ukrainian violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv is now based in the US, where she works as both a soloist and a teacher, including Head of Strings at the University of Connecticut. She is fluently partnered here by Antonio Pompa-Baldi, who has performed and recorded much of

In 2019, when Alexandre Kantorow, at the age of 22, became the first French pianist to win the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky competition, his program included no less than three works by Johannes Brahms. Two of these, Piano Sonata No. 2 and the Rhapsody in B minor, he went on to record for on his previous, highly praised recital disc, which was awarded distinctions such as Gramophone's Editor's Choice, Diapason d'Or, and Choc de Classica. The Brahms interpretations won Kantorow particular praise - the Guardian (UK) described them as 'magisterial' while the website ResMusica placed his sonata 'among the great reference recordings of the piece - if not the modern one.' There is much to look forward to, then, when Kantorow releases an all-Brahms album with a playing time of no less than 85 minutes. He opens with music by a composer of a similar age as himself Brahms wrote the Four Ballades in 1854 while only 21 years old, taking up a fashionable genre introduced by Chopin as late as 1840. The set is followed by the even earlier Sonata No. 3 in E minor which forms the center of the program. The sonata is of almost symphonic dimensions and it was indeed, along with it's predecessors, famously described as a disguised symphony by no one less than Robert Schumann. To bring this stormy, impassioned album to a close, Kantorow has chosen a later, and contrasting work With a lifelong admiration for Bach, Brahms in 1879 made a piano arrangement, for the left hand alone, of the iconic Chaconne from Partita No. 2 for solo violin - a composition that Brahms himself described as 'a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful impressions'.

For his series called Schubert+, pianist Can Çakmur juxtaposes the complete major piano solo compositions by the Viennese composer with works by other composers who were inspired by his music, thus providing the opportunity to see these works in a new light. While making up a near complete anthology of Schubert's completed major piano music, each disc is also intended as a selfcontained recital. In this second instalment, Çakmur performs pieces published after Schubert's death, the three Klavierstucke, D 946, which are not known to have been intended as a new series of impromptus. Since their first editor was Brahms, it seemed logical to include one of his late cycle of miniatures, here the Vier Klavierstucke, Op. 119. The pieces by Schubert and Brahms share a spontaneity, even an apparent lightness, that often conceals an unsuspected depth beneath the surface. The programme concludes with the Four Impromptus, D 935, an ambitious cycle also published after Schubert's death. Schubert's name would become closely associated with this genre, often characterised by a lyrical melody and a free-flowing structure, with a sense of spontaneity. With it, Schubert seems to have found an ideal setting for the expression of his genius.