Mozart / Litvintseva / Klassische Philharmonie - Pno Cons - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

During his lifetime, Carl Friedrich Abel was fêted all over Europe both for his supreme skills as a performer of the viola da gamba as well as for the quality of his compositions, and was responsible (along with J.C. Bach) for setting up arguably the first series of subscription concerts in the history of Western music, the InchBach-Abel-ConcertsInch. Even the prodigy that was Mozart benefited from Abel's teachings (and was claimed as the composer of one of Abel's own symphonies). 12 years after his recording of pieces from the Drexel Manuscript (for solo viola da gamba), Paolo Pandolfo teams up with an exquisite ensemble to record a fine selection of Abel's sonatas, many of them recently discovered and being recorded here for the first time. Often adding his own cadenzas and ornamentations, Pandolfo and his team offer a breathtaking and colorful display of virtuosity and sensibility. The contemporary painter Thomas Gainsborough wrote that Abel Inchexcelled at feeling upon the instrumentInch, while the writer of one of his obituaries likened him to Laurence Sterne, famous as the author of Tristram Shandy InchThe death of Abel occasions a great loss to the musical world. Sensibility is the prevailing and beautiful characteristic of his compositions. He was the Sterne of Music.Inch Thus, this recording is aptly entitled A Sentimental Journey- an exploration of the world of feeling paralleling Sterne's unfinished novel A Sentimental Journey though France and Italy.

Franz Xaver Mozart, the youngest son of Wolfgang Amadeus, has some 30 piano works to his name. They include nine cycles of variations with opus numbers, three sets of Polonaises melancholiques, sonatas, fantasies, rondos, and several smaller forms. In contrast to his father, he never displayed a performing interest in any instrument other than the piano. He used his outstanding performing skills in his compositional output, the lion's share of which was for the piano. It is these works that pianist Anna Liszewska has included on this . Anna Liszewska studied at the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, gaining her diploma in 1995. She later went on to study under Barbara Halska, John Owings, and Andrzej Jasinski. In addition to an active performing and recording career, Anna is a teacher, and has directed a piano class at the Henryk Wieniawski Primary and Secondary Music Schools, and is on the faculty of the Music Academy in Lodz, lecturing in the Department of Piano, Organ, Harpsichord, Early Music, and Jazz.

Mozart / Kaljuste / Estonian Philharmonic - Litaniae [COMPACT DISCS] date 08/12/2014