Ludwig van Beethoven - Diabelli Variations Op. 120 / Bagatelles Op. 126 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In 2015, pianist Jonathan Biss initiated the Beethoven/5 commissioning project with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and more than fifteen other orchestras, resulting in a groundbreaking collaboration over nine years. The project yielded five extraordinary new piano works by some of today's most significant composers, responding to Beethoven's own concerti.Volume Two sees InchCity Stanzas,Inch written by British composer Sally Beamish to pair with Beethoven's first piano concerto, marking a thematic departure from Beamish's earlier works often inspired by nature. The concerto shifts focus to urban landscapes, and while initially envisioned as a celebration of human creativity the tone of the piece altered due to the political unrest in the UK and USA in 2015, with Beamish's work responding to the greed and disparity prevalent in centres of power, and issues such as profit-driven technology, efficient armaments, and social inequality.While all the material in InchCity StanzasInch derives in some way from Beethoven's concerto, with Beamish inspired by Jonathan Biss's individual, expressive and virtuosic playing, the work is also deeply affected by both the composer and artist's shared anxiety for the future.

J.S. Bach - Goldberg Variations [COMPACT DISCS] Jewel Case Packaging date 10/11/2011

Szymon Laks - the number 49543 in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, was an outstanding composer, violinist, writer, a passionate linguist and translator, admitted that it was music that saved his life in the extermination camp where he was from 1942 to 1944, he was a kapellmeister, musician, and copyist of the male orchestra. It was also there that he arranged and performed together with instrumentalists-prisoners Three Warsaw Polonaises by an unknown author from the 18th century for a chamber orchestra. They were found by accident and published by the Polish Music Publishing House already in 1950 and became the first published camp music literature. The Messages Quartet, established in 2014, focuses on 20th and 21st century Polish music, particularly promoting the works that are still being discovered and are rarely performed. The name of the ensemble refers to the famous String Quartet No. 2 InchMessagesInch by Andrzej Panufnik. The Messages Quartet was created in the year of the 100th anniversary of Panufnik's birthday- 2014. The musicians of the Quartet are graduates of the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw and the Academy of Music in Krakow. They also graduated from the solo studies and from masterclasses at European universities. Apart from the concert activity, they also dedicate themselves to teaching at the Academy of Music in Katowice and Krakow.