Tom Hicks - Chopin: The Complete Nocturnes - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Blue Sounds is a set of meditations on a color - from it's abstractness as an electromagnetic wave to Blues as a scale, a genre and a harmonic structure. All three works were written for Tom Hicks and mark a growth in fluency and an experimental approach to the sonority of the piano. Camden Reeves has written for several instrumental groupings but the piano has been a vital part of his life since the age of 5. Included amongst his many activities, he was appointed Composition Fellow with the Hallé orchestra at the age of 22 and is currently Head of Music and Senior Lecturer in Composition at the University of Manchester. Hailed as an artist of 'magnificent pianism', Guernsey-born pianist Tom Hicks has been praised for his 'gorgeously creative playing' that 'transports the listener to another place and time'. Hicks is a gold medalist in numerous national and international competitions and holds degrees and awards from The University of Manchester, The Royal Northern College of Music, Yale University and Northwestern University, where he now lectures. His first disc featuring John Ireland's Sarnia, 'Tom Hicks Ireland and Tchaikovsky' has been described as 'brilliantly evocative' by Colin Clarke in International Piano, and 'gorgeously creative' by Scott Noriega in Fanfare. This new album follows his March 2022 album centered around the Liszt and Ireland piano sonatas and works by Clarke, Coleridge-Taylor and Stanford.

Deeply felt new recordings of these landmarks in Romantic piano literature on a modern Steinway grand, by an Italian artist with an active interest in the lineage of piano history. On recordings for Piano Classics ranging from Beethoven to Alkan and beyond, the Italian pianist Vincenzo Maltempo has demonstrated a deeply informed understanding of Romantic piano literature, both in the nuts and bolts of it's composition and in the field of it's reception. According to a Fanfare review for album of Schumann, 'This impressive young Italian pianist displays a great love and dedication towards this music. Maltempo, who was born in 1985, begins with smouldering technique, no surprise for someone who has made a name for himself as a fearless interpreter of the briar-patch scores of Alkan. 'In his own booklet introduction to his latest recording, Maltempo explores the nature of a Chopin tradition, as handed down to us from accounts of the composer's own playing, his instructions to his students, and then the early recordings made by renowned interpreters such as Cortot and Pugno. 'What their recordings share is a relatively free or liberal interpretation of elements in the score that are now treated more rigidly. Their application of rubato is more subtle, their pedal technique does not cloud the sound but clarifies melodies and harmonies. They communicate a wide and infinitely varied dynamic range, and a diaphanous warmth of phrasing, without falling into mannerism or InchsentimentalityInch. 'These qualities, therefore, are the guiding lights to his own playing of the Nocturnes. Maltempo has chosen to record them on an 1888 Steinway piano, distinguished by the clarity of articulation which has always been a Steinway hallmark, but bestowing on these quintessential pieces of nocturnal poetry a softer and more rounded palette than we are accustomed to find on modern pianos. Thes

Album Tracks 1. Nocturnes, Op. 9 2. Nocturnes, Op.15 3. Nocturnes, Op.27 4. Nocturnes, Op.32 5. Nocturnes, Op.37 6. Nocturnes, Op.48 7. Nocturnes, Op.55 8. Nocturnes, Op.62 9. Nocturne in E minor, Op.72 No.1 10. Nocturne No. 20 in C Sharp minor, Op. Posth 11. Nocturne No. 21 in C minor, Op. Posth