Franck / Volker - Franck Avant Cesar Franck - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

César Franck's great Violin Sonata in A, arranged for piano by Alfred Cortot, forms the focus on our new solo album featuring the gifted and successful pianist Michael Korstick. InchThe version without disturbing scratching noises does indeed have it's appeal,Inch Korstick ironically opines and then explains, InchI know that I'm now making myself extremely unpopular with all violinists, but some things come across even better in the version for piano alone. One doesn't miss the violin.Inch This is of course a controversial statement, especially since it refers to the embodiment of the sensuous romantic violin sonata. InchThe fact is that Franck almost always thinks starting from the organ,Inch thus Korstick's argument continues, Inchand Cortot so genially distributed the voices of the octaves that the polyphonic structure becomes clearer.Inch The audience at it's premiere in Paris in 1885 was immediately enthused, and most pianists continue to be so even today. Michael Korstick regards this work as Franck's Inchmost important, central solo piece,Inch and the Franck expert Jörg Demus views the Prélude, Aria et Final as one of the few InchlucidInch compositions of the late romantic period and pardons it for it's difficulty in playing technique InchBut what do difficulties mean when the emotional content compensates one for it in such a rich way!

Assistant Director of Music, John Challenger, releases his second album on the Cathedral's Father Willis Organ. This album was recorded prior to the dismantling of Salisbury's famous instrument, which was built in 1876 and is currently undergoing major restoration. In this new recording, John plays organ works by the nineteenth-century composer and founder of the French Symphonic organ school, César Franck. The programme includes Franck's Pièce Heroïque, the Prelude, Fugue and Variation, along with the gigantic Three Chorals for Organ, which Franck composed in 1890, immediately prior to his death. This is the first album to be released independently by Salisbury Cathedral.

A wonderfully and sensitively curated recital of piano music with light and darkness, or night and day as the central theme. Water, fantastical dreams and visions also inhabit the world conjured by Maria Martinova from the music of Debussy, Ravel and the contemporary Swiss composer Georges Zanon, who's two movement work gives this album it's title. Martinova's pianism is by turn dazzling, tender and dramatic as she interprets the vivid sound world of these composers.