Kabalevsky / Schmitt-Leonardy - Piano Works - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Franz Lachner was a very productive composer. His work catalogue registers almost two hundred opus numbers representing practically all the important musical genres. Stylistically, Lachner was influenced by Beethoven and Spohr, by Meyerbeer, and above all by Franz Schubert. His music is distinguished by a sovereign command of form and above all by counterpoint. This month cpo is releasing the world premiere recordings of two of his symphonic works. Lachner composed his Symphony No. 3 between the spring of 1833 and April 1834, and after it's premiere it was enthusiastically received and reviewed. The Vienna correspondent of the Leipziger Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung celebrated the work emphatically as the Inchbold product of an imagination of youthful fire moderated by the laws of eternal truth and beauty; a conglomerate of harmonic art and melodic delightfulness, an appealing interplay of pathos and melancholy, of mirth and yearning, of gloomy lament and triumphant jubilation. Everything, however, is spun with golden threads of ordering unity and firmly guiding clarity.Inch This work lasting approximately fifty minutes may be extraordinarily long, but it's length does not come from redundant passages or unnecessary repetitions. Instead it is the logical consequence of a formal architectonic design operating with generously dimensioned thematic blocks such as they again are encountered - of course much more strictly elaborated - in the symphonies of Anton Bruckner. The Festive Overture in E flat major, which remained unpublished, is dated Inch22 February 1864Inch in the autograph. Although the autograph does not indicate a specific occasion for the Festive Overture, it's composition might have had something to do with the wedding of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria and Duchess Elisabeth of Bavaria. A recording marking the rediscovery of an important German composer

Montsalvatge - Comp Works for Violin & Piano [COMPACT DISCS] date 06/10/2014

Dmitri Borisovich Kabalevsky came behind Prokofiev and Shostakovich and along with Khachaturian in the InchBig FourInch of Soviet music. Following the releases of Kabalevsky's four symphonies, his complete works for piano and orchestra and the two cello concertos, CPO now presents the composer's music for solo piano. This includes the three piano sonatas and the two important rondos while a future will feature the complete preludes. There is also a short set of Three Rondos Op. 30 but as these pieces are nothing more than short and easy transcriptions from Kabalevsky's opera InchColas BreugnonInch they are not included here. Few careers are so closely linked to the recording medium as that of the pianist Michael Korstick. Among critics and experts in the piano world the Cologne-born Korstick has long enjoyed renown as one of the leading German pianists. Critics repeatedly emphasize the outstanding balance maintained by him between brilliant virtuosity and musical introspection, so richly informed by his striking personality and by his uncompromising faithfulness to the works he performs.