Eero Heinonen - Romantic Finnish Piano Music - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Eero Heinonen has long been a champion of the composer's neglected output for piano. With this recording he continues to make the case for music that does not easily give up it's secrets but, in the right hands, sings with Sibelius's unique voice. Sibelius was not himself an accomplished pianist, but he wrote for the instrument - at which he composed - throughout his career, and maintained that, while often overlooked, it's time would come. In recent years his prophecy has come true, especially with the Op.75 suite of five pieces which he composed in 1914 and titled 'The Trees'. They move from a Tchaikovskian melancholy common to much of his earlier piano output, through impressionist studies of light and darkness, to the kind of sombre, dissonant harmonies in the final piece ('The Spruce') which call to mind orchestral masterpieces such as en Saga and Tapiola. Rather than cherry-picking from a considerable output, Eero Heinonen has chosen to present four complete opus numbers which nevertheless encapsulate the range of Sibelius's piano writing. In the Six Impromptus Op.5 of 1890-93 he successfully integrates elements of Finnish folk music within the idiom of fantasy inherited from Schubert and Chopin. The 10 Pieces Op.24 were written between 1895 and 1903 - formative years for the composer, in which he moved away from his German-influenced training and discovered for himself a more distinctively Finnish voice, but in this context still within the genre of salon pieces. These are the works most directly comparable with Grieg's Lyric Pieces. Then, before the Op.75 masterpieces, he wrote a trio of Sonatinas Op.67 in 1912, around the same time as the troubled Fourth Symphony. The first of them, as played here by Eero Heinonen, shares some of the symphony's austere idiom and introvert nature.

Eero Heinonen - Complete Piano Music [COMPACT DISCS] date 09/22/1994

Russ Morgan was one of America's most popular big-band leaders of the 1930's, 40's and 50's. Staring out in Pennsylvania in the early 1920's, he played trombone in bands with Jimmy Dorsey and Tommy Dorsey, moved to New York and wrote arrangements for John Phillip Sousa and Victor Herbert, toured Europe with Paul Specht's orchestra which included Paul Whiteman and Artie Shaw, and joined Jean Goldkette's orchestra upon his return to the states. For a short time, Morgan arranged for the Fletcher Henderson orchestra and in 1935 played trombone in the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. He became a music director for Brunswick records and was later offered the position of Musical Director for Detroit Radio Station WXYZ. His show, InchMusic in the Morgan Manner,Inch became one of the most popular radio shows in the U.S. in 1939 he formed his own orchestra which had record breaking runs at some of the most prestigious ballrooms around the country. Morgan's big year was 1949 when four songs he recorded hit the charts in a big way. His orchestra continued to be one of the most popular dancebands throughout the 1950's and early 60's. in the late 50's and early 1960's he recorded several fine albums for the Everest tag, pioneers in the field of stereo recording. This unique collection of hymns recorded in 1961 harkens back to Morgan's days in the early 1920's when he was a member of the Georgians; a small group offshoot of Paul Specht's commercial orchestra that played very similar material. All selections newly remastered.