Berman - Complete Piano - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Acclaimed tenor Gregory Kunde marks his 70th birthday by making his first foray outside operatic repertoire with an album inspired by his childhood jukebox favorites. During a career that took him from a small town in Illinois to the international opera stage, Greg has retained his love for the songs which represent the soundtrack of his younger years. With this album he realizes a long-held dream to follow in the footsteps of legendary artists such as Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Tony Bennett and Bobby Darin, using his vast operatic experience to create personal and unique interpretations of some of the best American songs ever written alongside an ensemble of brass, percussion and bass. This is Gregory Kunde Then and Now. Album Tracks 1. You Make Me Feel So Young 2. Our Love Is Here to Stay 3. For Once in My Life 4. My Kind of Town 5. Time After Time 6. Where or When 7. Beyond the Sea 8. Can't Take My Eyes Off You 9. How Do You Keep the Music Playing? 10. It Had to Be You 11. A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square 12. I Left My Heart in San Francisco 13. When I Fall in Love 14. Who Can I Turn To? 15. My Funny Valentine / Bewitched

Album Tracks 1. Sonata No. 1, Op. 6 2. Sonata Fantasy, Op. 19 3. Sonata No, 3, Op. 23 4. Sonata No. 4, Op. 30 5. Sonata No. 5, Op 53 Allegro Impetuoso. Con Stravaganzza, Etc

Bernstein's piano output reflects the various strands of his multifaceted personality, in works as different as Touches (1981) and, at the other end of the scale, his often tender, sentimental Anniversaries. Taken together his piano works form a musical diary tracing the breadth of his experiences and ideas. Four of his Five Anniversaries (1949-51) appear as themes in his violin concerto, the Serenade after Plato's InchSymposium.Inch The personal commemorations he created were not portraits so much as self-portrayals, revealing different aspects of his own multi-faceted personality. To play these works well requires an understanding of the various elements that made up the Bernstein persona. The Italian pianist Michele Tozzetti brings out the heartfelt tenderness of most of these tributes, the Jewish elements and the dance rhythms. In the Anniversary dedicated to Aaron Copland (in Seven Anniversaries, 1943), Tozzetti captures the sound and spirit of the man Bernstein called 'my first friend in New York, my master, my idol, my sage, my shrink, my guide, my counselor, my elder brother, [and] my beloved friend.' The pianist reveals a delicate sense of sonority along with fine dynamic control in For Paul Bowles, and brings an idiomatic edginess to For Sergei Koussevitzky. He also injects youthful vigor into Bernstein's Sonata (1937), a probing work rich in counterpoint, written when the composer was still a student. Also on this recording are Non Troppo Presto, a manuscript discovered in the Leonard Bernstein archive at the Library of Congress; and Touches Chorale, Eight Variations and Coda, commissioned by the Van Cliburn Piano Competition in 1981. It's bluesy chorale is identical to Virgo Blues, written for his daughter, Jamie on her twenty-sixth birthday in 1978. Bernstein dedicated this work 'to my first love, the keyboard'. In Michele Tozzetti's hands, that love is