Bartok / Vivanet - Andrea Vivanet Plays Bartok & Mussorgsky - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Byu Choirs - Lord Is My Light [COMPACT DISCS] date 08/05/2003

The relevance of the piano in Karol Szymanowski's work may hardly be underestimated. During his whole career the composer took the instrument into high consideration. As a result of that, piano music- starting from 1900 with the Nine Preludes Op. 1 and ending in 1934 with the Two Mazurkas Op. 62- runs like a red thread throughout his worklist. Though only twelve of his numbered works are meant for solo piano, we must take into account more than 100 songs with piano accompaniment, several chamber works for violin and piano, the Mythes Op. 32 being the most popular, and the Symphony No. 4 Op. 60 known as the Symphonie concertante for piano and orchestra. Andrea Vivanet began playing piano at age 8 and continued his studies at the Conservatorio di Musica Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina in Cagliari. He continued at the Conservatorio di Musica Girolamo Frescobaldi in Ferrara where he graduated with honors. He currently lives in Paris, where he pursues an active teaching and performing career.

A young Italian virtuoso breathes new life into the ornate fantasies of a Dutch Baroque master.Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) enjoyed a great reputation in his time that spread throughout northern Europe and Scandinavia. He attracted pupils from afar, Heinrich Scheidemann, Jacob Praetorius and Samuel Scheidt being the most famous. Sweelinck's influence can, therefore, be said to have reached Buxtehude and Bach through his teaching and compositions He was not only the founder of the true fugue but a splendid player and teacher whose profound influence on northern European keyboard music particularly lasted long after his death.Sweelinck's extant keyboard outputcomprises some 70 pieces, of which 14 are represented here in an original sequence of alternating toccatas, fantasias and variation sets. The precise instrument for which each of the pieces was written cannot always be determined with certainty. While the song variations suit either harpsichord or virginal, the fantasias and toccatas may well have been played on whatever keyboard instrument was to hand, including the organ.Especially in his Variation pieces on popular songs such as 'More Palatino' and 'Onder een linde groen'. Sweelinck shows himself as one of the supreme masters of the form. He retains the structure of his themes throughout each set, but his mastery and inventiveness is shown in the shaping of the inner structures of each variation. The complexity of polyphony can change overthe course of one single variation, and the sets as a whole make use of the whole spectrum of compositional structures, from the most plain to the most elaborate.The Italian pianist Andrea Vivanet takes a historically informed approach to Sweelinck's music on the piano. He incorporates graceful ornamentation, and stylistic features necessitated by the limits of early keyboards, but he also takes full advantage of the