Sivelov - Piano Concertos - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

SOMM Recordings highlights the pianistic mastery of Francis Poulenc (1899 - 1963) with a of extraordinary historic recordings including two of his four major concertante works and selected solo piano pieces. To mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Erik Satie (1866 - 1925), this recording also features Poulenc performing piano gems by Satie, whose distaste for academic routine and Romanticism had a profound influence on Poulenc and the other members of the ad hoc music group, Les Six. These performances, ranging from 1930 to 1950, have been brilliantly remastered by long-time SOMM collaborator, Lani Spahr, about whose work Gramophone has said, InchThere are historic releases that make the grade because they are just that - 'historic' - and there are releases that make history because they are musically overwhelming.InchThis opens with Poulenc's Concerto in D minor for two pianos and orchestra, commissioned by American-born heiress Princess Edmond de Polignac specifically to be premiered by the composer and his friend, Jacques Fevrier, at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Venice in 1932. The vibrant colouration inherent in the piece was inspired by Balinese musicians whom Poulenc had heard at the Paris Colonial Exhibition of 1931. The performance heard here with Georges Pretre conducting the Orchestre National de France was recorded the year before Poulenc's sudden death, and again pairs Poulenc and Fevrier, thirty years after they created the world premiere. While on tour in New York during the winter of 1949 /1950, Poulenc recorded selections of his piano music along with twelve of his favourite compositions by Erik Satie. Poulenc's own music ranges from his earliest works, Trois mouvements perpetuelles, to the C major Nocturne from a set of eight, and the neo-classical Suite francaise of 1935-a homage to his 16th century compatriot, Claude

The Swedish pianist Niklas Sivelöv (b. 1968, Stockholm) joins the ranks and continues the great tradition of the pianist-composer with this first-ever recording dedicated to his own compositions. His 24 Preludes, written 2010-14, takes it's place in the tradition established by Chopin, Scriabin and Shostakovich. This recording presents some of Mr. Sivelöv's early work and some of his most recent, completed earlier in 2015, with music colored by a range of influences, from Bach to jazz. The composer supplies the booklet essay himself, explaining what he was trying to achieve in each piece.

Niklas Sivelov (born in northern Sweden in 1968) is one of the leading representatives of the once-familiar tradition of pianist-composer that first achieved prominence with Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin and continued through Rachmaninov and Bartók. But Sivelov also has a sizable, and growing, body of orchestral music to his name. These three recent works reveal a style that balances delicacy of feeling and freewheeling energy, with something of Stravinsky's sense of rhythmic mischief, the vernal vigor of Tippett, just occasionally the harmonic density of Ligeti, and the unusual awareness of light and dark that characterizes the music of Sibelius and other Nordic composers.