Apekisheva,Katya / Owen,Charles - Rite Of Spring & Petrushka - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

One of the big events of 2017 was the opening of the Hamburg Philharmonie. Krzysztof Urbanski and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra gave inaugural concerts there that made a lasting impact on audiences and critics alike. On this occasion, the Polish conductor chose to record one of the works closest to his heart, The Rite of Spring InchStravinsky invented a new language. For me, The Rite is not a score, but a painting on each page, I see Matisse, Gauguin, the Fauve painters... It's an explosion of colours, emotions, and surprises too if you don't know the piece, you never know what's going to happen. It's so suggestive that you don't need to do all that much with the orchestra, the magic is written into the music.... When I conduct The Rite, I don't think the music penetrates your backbone, it's inside you... It's a ballet, and perhaps it's because I was a dancer when I was younger that I can't control my body when I hear and conduct this piece. It's a mystical experience for me!Inch The audio recording was made in sessions in the brand new Philharmonie and the BD that accompanies the album includes the film of the concert given in February 2017 in this superb building designed by the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron.

Debussy / Raat - Rite of Spring [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/12/2018

The young Stravinsky became acquainted with large parts of the Western music repertoire through piano arrangements. That might have been one reason for his later compositional practice to arrange major works for piano duet or for two pianos as well. With the new album InchPetrushkaInch, the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo has achieved it's intention to present a complete collection of Igor Stravinsky's published piano arrangements. The present recording contains two ballets which show Stravinsky's compositional development within the genre the almost film-like burlesque InchPetrushkaInch (1910/11) as well as the abstract late work InchAgonInch (1953/57) which puts the ancient Greek concept of competition into a contradictory musical setting. In addition, it contains two arrangements of concert pieces InchConcertinoInch for string quartet (1920) lives on the alternation between homogeneous instrumental passages and soloistic crossed accents. The orchestral InchScherzo a la RusseInch (1944) as 'jazz commercial' testifies to Stravinsky's adaptation to his life in America as well as to his love of the Russian types of form at the turn of the century. In their recording, Helena Bugallo and Amy Williams present the special charms of Igor Stravinsky's music in 'black and white' The piano arrangements reflect the sheer brilliance of his oeuvre in a concentrated form.