New Piano Albums

Duo Pleyel:2024-12-24

Yuletide Treats

Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya and Richard Egarr name themselves after the 1848 Pleyel they own. But the instrument on which they play here is a Chris Maene straight-strung concert grand.They have selected and arranged "some of the greatest classical Yuletide hits for your festive delight", such as Handel's Hallelujah chorus arranged by Czerny, and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite.
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Nobuyuki Tsujii:2024-12-19

Beethoven – Piano Sonata No. 29, An die ferne Geliebte

Nobuyuki Tsujii shared the Gold medal in the Cliburn Piano Competition in 2009, and has become a national hero in Japan – through his pianism but also because of his tireless work for various charities. Menahem Pressler said: “I have the utmost admiration for Tsujii. God has taken his eyes, but given him the physical endowment and mental endowment to encompass the greatest works for piano."
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Alexander Soares:2024-12-14

Tippett, Beethoven, Knussen

"Tippett’s four piano sonatas hold an unusual position in the repertoire, comprising 100 minutes of highly inventive and totally idiosyncratic music", says Alexander Soares. On this album he places Tippett’s Second and Fourth Sonatas alongside Beethoven’s ‘Les Adieux’ Sonata, and Variations for Piano, op. 24 by one of Tippett’s great champions, Oliver Knussen.
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Mathias Halvorsen:2024-12-10

Ravel & Korngold – Piano Concertos for the left hand

Ravel’s and Korngold’s concertos for the left hand were both commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I. Both stand out as some of the darkest and most dramatic works they ever composed, "possessing an intensity that feels almost unhinged at times", according to Mathias Halvorsen, who recorded the concertos live with conductor Otto Tausk and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.
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François Dumont:2024-12-05

Debussy – Clair de Lune

This recording is the first ever made on Debussy's own piano, a Blüthner that he acquired in 1904 and used for nearly fifteen years, until his death in 1918. François Dumont's encounter with this instrument was "a real aesthetic shock. All of a sudden I felt as though I were getting closer to a far-off sound-world; I felt that I had a living, vibrant instrument in my hands, certainly capricious but always warm and colourful."
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Abdel Rahman El Bacha:2024-12-02

Bach – Goldberg Variations,
Italian Concerto

Abdel Rahman el Bacha came to the world's attention in the mid-1970s, when he won the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Competition by unanimous decision of the judges. Since then he has appeared at the most prestigious concert halls and recorded a large part of the standard repertoire – Beethoven's 32 Sonatas, Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues, and Chopin's complete works, just to mention some of it.
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Alessandro Simonetto:2024-11-28

Giya Kancheli – 33 Miniatures

Giya Kancheli, Georgia’s most famous composer, was born in Tbilisi in 1935 but lived in Western Europe from 1991 until his death in 2019. After studying piano and composition he followed a familiar path for composers in the Soviet era and wrote mostly for stage and film, which allowed him greater freedom. His music often unfolds quietly with a slow, measured pulse, punctuated by violent outbursts.
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Margherita Santi:2024-11-25

Fantasies – Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann

Margherita Santi's new album is a collection of Fantasies, through which we discover the history that changes between two centuries and witness the balance between creativity and form. "In each composer we find characteristics typical of the time in which he lived, others typical of the composer, and sometimes phrases, ideas, fragments, which seem to come out of time and space."
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Yoav Levanon:2024-11-19

Liszt – Piano Concertos 1 & 2, Totentanz

Yoav Levanon is only 20 years old but has already released two solo albums — his "A Monument for Beethoven" included a much-praised performance of Liszt's mighty Sonata in B minor. So it's only logical that his first album with orchestra features three concertante works by Liszt — the Concertos Nos 1 & 2 and the Totentanz.
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Sergei Redkin:2024-11-17

Prokofiev – Piano Sonatas 6 & 7

According to Sergei Redkin, the Sixth and Seventh Sonatas are "the brightest examples of Prokofiev’s genius: two symphonies for piano, two deeply tragic poems, two vivid documents of their time. I’ve been in love with this music since my school years; I hope this recording will help bring it to the attention of new listeners."
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Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu:2024-11-15

Tchaikovsky – The Seasons

Since winning the International Chopin Competition in 2021, Bruce Liu's life has changed completely: “I’ve gone from being a student to not having much time at home for a whole year, being constantly on tour. I find the ‘cosiness’ and ‘intimacy’ in this music give me a chance to stand back and reflect, because it is so much about private memories.”
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Peter Jablonski:2024-11-13

Ronald Stevenson – Piano Works

This album includes several world première recordings of works by the Scottish pianist-composer Ronald Stevenson, who wrote music in a variety of styles – often with direct reference to other composers or works, visible in titles like: Piccolo Niccolò Paganinesco, Little Jazz Variations on Purcell's New Scotch Tune, or Pensées sur des Préludes de Chopin.
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Khatia Buniatishvili:2024-11-11

Mozart – Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 23, "Sonata facile" K 545

Khatia Buniatishvili plays and directs two of Mozart most beloved concertos, No. 20 in D minor and No. 23 in A major, and rounds off with a performance of the "Sonata facile". In the booklet, she shares something that her piano teacher once said which has remained with her since: “Mozart’s music is smiley but there is always a hidden sadness in that smile. Like in your eyes.”
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Maurizio & Daniele Pollini:2024-11-10

Schubert

The great Maurizio Pollini, who passed away in March 2024, planned and recorded his last album together with his son Daniele. It showcases the three essential areas of Schubert’s music for piano – sonatas, short pieces, and works for four hands – exemplified by the Piano Sonata No. 18 (recorded by Maurizio), the Moments Musicaux (recorded by Daniele), and the four-hand Fantasia in F minor.
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Alexandre Tharaud:2024-11-08

BachTharaud

On his new album, Alexandre Tharaud makes a personal selection of J S Bach's music on the piano. Among the many works included, only a few were originally written for solo keyboard – most of the tracks are the pianist's own transcriptions of works for other solo instruments or for orchestra, and excerpts from the Passions.
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Edna Stern:2024-11-05

Carnaval

Edna Stern's Schumann portrait album features Carnaval Op. 9 and Kinderszenen Op. 15 but also Stern’s own first recorded composition, very much inspired by Schumann: "It is while reading a passage written by Schumann in his journal, that I got the idea to compose. Schumann believed that any pianist should put aside two of his ten fingers, and use them for the purpose of composing."
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Zlata Chochieva:2024-11-01

Prokofiev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tsfasman – Works for Piano & Orchestra

Zlata Chochieva is well known for creating unexpected associations – on Chiaroscuro, she combined the worlds of Scriabin and Mozart, and Im freien featured the little-known Petit Histoire by Draeseke alongside Ravel and Schumann. Here, Prokofievs second Piano Concerto is prefaced by the obscure Rimsky-Korsakov Concerto. Then comes a total change of atmosphere with Alexander Tsfasman's Jazz Suite, evoking Hollywood and Soviet film scores.
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Louise Besette:2024-10-31

Port of Call: New England – Ives, MacDowell

Louise Bessette's A Piano Around the World series began with a stop in the Caribbean to pay tribute to the “Chopin of Curaçao,” Wim Statius Muller (1930–2019), followed by a detour to Buenos Aires, the home of tangueros steeped in the music of Astor Piazzolla. Now she heads north to visit the music of two composers from the United States: Edward MacDowell and Charles Ives.
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Marc-André Hamelin:2024-10-29

Hammerklavier – Beethoven Sonatas Op 106 & Op 2 No 3

Pianist-composer Marc-André Hamelin is well-known worldwide for his intrepid exploration of the rarities of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, in concert and on recordings(89 albums to date) and his "near-superhuman" technique (New York Times) with which he also takes on great works of the established repertoire – as on this Beethoven album.
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Isabel Dobarro:2024-10-27

Kaleidoscope

Isabel Dobarro’s new album proposes an interchange among women composers from distant continents, cultures, and traditions. "Kaleidoscope explores the spectrum of my musical journey… I deeply admire each of the composers selected for this album, and it was both a thrill and a delight to perform their works. Each composition has affected me profoundly".
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Daniil Trifonov:2024-10-25

My American Story – North

With My American Story – North, Daniil Trifonov retraces his immigrant’s journey in the “New World,” through American piano scores ranging from jazz and swing to modernism, minimalism, and popular soundtracks. “I did not wish to record an anthology,” he says. “These are simply pieces that I feel personally connected to. Favorites of mine that speak to me on a musical level.”
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Anna Tsybuleva:2024-10-23

Debussy – Complete Preludes

Anna Tsybuleva shot into the international spotlight in 2015 when she was crowned First Prize Winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition. "When I play Debussy, I seek to capture the feeling of wind, of squinting in the shining sun, of the goosebumps from 'the sounds and fragrances floating in the evening air', with my hands."
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Jaeden Izik-Dzurko:2024-10-21

Leeds 2024 – Chopin, Ravel, Ligeti

Jaeden Izik-Dzurko won this year's Leeds Piano competition after performing Brahms' second Piano Concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in the final round. On this album are a selection of recordings taken from the previous competition rounds including Chopin's Scherzo No. 1, Ravel's Miroirs, and two Ligeti Études.
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Eloïse Bella Kohn:2024-10-18

Parisienne – Massenet, Ravel

When Eloïse Bella Kohn first discovered Massenet's almost completely forgotten Piano Concerto in 2021, she immediately felt it was high time it had a renaissance. On her first album with orchestra (Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and conductor Christoph Koncz), she pairs it with one of the most celebrated works of French piano literature, Ravel's Concerto in G.
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