Sarah Beth Briggs - Small Treasures - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In her first solo recording for AVIE in 2019, Sarah Beth Briggs' performances of music by Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms were described as Inch81 minutes of pianistic HeavenInch by International Piano Magazine. In her latest offering, Small Treasures, Sarah returns to two of those composers' greatest sets of miniatures Schumann's piano cycle Waldszenen and Brahms's 4 Klavierstu¨cke, Op.119, his final statement for solo piano. Alongside these, Sarah sets Schumann's much loved Arabeske from earlier in his composing career and the delightfully fleeting Impromptu by his wife Clara, together with her 4 Pie'ces fugitives, much lauded in her lifetime. The remaining 'Treasures' transport the listener to 20th-century France, comparing works by two members of Paris's composing circle 'Les Six' - Francis Poulenc's evocative 3 Novelettes (written across a 30-year time span) and Germaine Tailleferre's Sicilienne. As an encore, Sarah - a former International Mozart Competition winner - ends with a tiny gem by Wolfgang Amadeus his 1789 Kleine Gigue in G in which light-hearted playfulness mingles with forward-looking chromaticism, miraculously seeming to find common ground with all of the works from the subsequent two centuries included on Small Treasures. Album Tracks 1. Waldszenen Op. 82~I. Eintritt 2. Waldszenen Op. 82~II. Jäger auf der Lauer 3. Waldszenen Op. 82~III. Einsame Blumen 4. Waldszenen Op. 82~IV. Verrufene Stelle 5. Waldszenen Op. 82~V. Freundliche Landschaft 6. Waldszenen Op. 82~VI. Herberge 7. Waldszenen Op. 82~VII. Vogel als Prophet 8. Waldszenen Op. 82~VIII. Jagdlied 9. Waldszenen Op. 82~IX. Abschied 10. Impromptu in E 11. 4 Pièces fugitives Op.15~I. Larghetto 12. 4 Pièces fugitives Op.15~II. Un poco agitato 13. 4 Pièces fugitives Op.15~III. Andante espressivo 14. 4 Pièces fugitives Op.15~IV. Scherzo 15. Arabeske in C Op. 18