Haydn / Curtis,Alan - Keyboard Sonatas 1 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Mozart / Adani / Calabrese / Jurinac - Marriage of Figa [COMPACT DISCS] date 06/05/2004

Haydn - Haydn [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/18/2005

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce Leon McCawley's Second Volume of Piano Sonatas by Franz Joseph Haydn. McCawley's admired first volume, pairing Haydn's Sonatas and Variations, received a coveted Diapason d'Or for playing of Inchgreat intelligibility and sensitivityInch. Sonata No.60 from Volume I has been selected by Diapason to appear on it's next album, Les indispensables de Diapason, featuring six Haydn sonatas played on different keyboards. In his authoritative booklet notes, Bryce Morrison makes a persuasive argument for the Piano Sonatas in Inchcelebrating Haydn's endless innovation, richness and variety and, most importantly, his humanityInch. Those qualities are brilliantly realised by McCawley in six sonatas spanning 25 years. Caught on the cusp of youth and maturity, Sonata No.19 is a work of lyrical and dramatic contrasts with a unique structure and surprising innovation. At odds with the inherited image of Haydn as a prankster, Sonata No.47 inhabits a dark, even menacing world that concludes in abrupt savagery. The Bach-accented Sonata No.50 is a work characterised by scintillating writing, Sonata No.54, in Morrison's memorable phrase, Inchfalls like balm on the earInch. Ushering in new approaches and radical thinking, two late Sonatas - Nos. 58 and 59 - show Haydn anticipating Beethoven with prescient command of tone and combustible technique. Leon McCawley's previous recordings for SOMM have received wide critical praise. Gramophone hailed his complete Rachmaninov Preludes as Incha distinguished issueInch, and the Inchsuperb collectionInch of Samuel Barber's piano music was an Editor's Choice. Fanfare described his playing of Brahms as Inchmusic-making of a very high orderInch with International Record Review adding InchWhen all is said and done, it is difficult to know whether McCawley's refined piano playing, his natural yet cultivated musicalit