“She doesn’t only play the piano,” wrote a critic who was present at this December 2000 recital by the French pianist Hélène Grimaud. “She feels it and she lives it. Every single note proves her devotion to perfection”. Grimaud was still a rising star when she gave this performance at the Kammermusiksaal of the Berlin Philharmonie, but her very personal brand of artistry – her spontaneity, her sense of colour, her technical perfection – was already fully formed. Bach and Rachmaninoff frame sonatas by Brahms and Beethoven: a typically wide-ranging programme from a pianist whose technique is matched only by her imagination.
The Lindsay String Quartet plays Haydn, Tippett & Elgar
For four decades until 2005, the Lindsay String Quartet (affectionately known as “The Lindsays”) was at the heart of chamber music life in Great Britain, touring globally and building a unique relationship with Sir Michael Tippett – who coached the ensemble in his music. Tippett’s powerful postwar Third Quartet is the centrepiece of this live recording from London’s flagship chamber music venue, the Wigmore Hall. In classic Lindsays style, it’s framed with a late Haydn quartet – “The Rider” – and another British classic: the troubled, poetic Quartet in E Minor by Sir Edward Elgar. At the time of this recording, the Lindsay String Quartet was probably its pre-eminent interpreter.
Marta and Gyorgy Kurtag in Concert
When Márta and György Kurtág visited the Jerusalem Music Centre in 1996, it was to pass on their wisdom in multiple ways. On the first day, György worked with young musicians in masterclasses on his works. On the second, he and Márta offered a masterclass of their own in a very special concert featuring excerpts from the composer’s Játékok and a selection of his hauntingly beautiful Bach arrangements for four hands.
Helene Grimaud & Members of Orchestre de Paris play Schumann
Pianist Hélène Grimaud has been called “a renaissance woman”, and her painterly, passionate sensibility makes everything she plays glow with colour. She’s never more fully herself than when playing chamber music, and this beautifully filmed concert from 2001 captures that collaborative spirit in the round. Grimaud joins colleagues from the Orchestre de Paris at Paris’s Cité de la Musique to perform Schumann’s Piano Quintet and two gloriously poetic sets of miniatures. Together, they’re near-ideal interpreters of Schumann: a pianist-composer whose own imagination was never more potent than when (as here) the piano is merely first among equals in a world of high-Romantic emotion.
Busch Trio – Antonín Dvorák‘s complete chamber works for piano and strings
Named after the legendary violinist Adolf Busch, this young piano trio has received enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics across Europe. Winners of the 2012 Royal Overseas League Competition and further prizes in international competitions in Italy and Germany, the Trio performs regularly in some of Europe’s leading venues and festivals. They have been recognized for their achievements and playing of “incredible verve” with their recent Wigmore Hall appearance described in The Times as “most impressive was the group’s effortless musicianship and unity of thought and attack. The threesome even seemed to be breathing in synch.”
Beethoven – The 5 Cello Sonatas
Performing Beethoven’s entire work for cello and piano in a single concert is a special experience: It is a journey through a lifetime, a journey into the depths of the German composer’s soul. The sonatas represent all three of Beethoven’s major creative periods. Cellist Gary Hoffman, Master in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Waterloo, together with pianist David Selig dedicate an evening to the complete sonatas for cello and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven. The audience discovers the composer’s development in his desire to master the writing for the cello, but also, more generally, the evolution of his musical aesthetics. Beethoven’s cello sonatas have more strength, intensity and variety of expression than any previously written sonatas. He has succeeded in elevating instrumental music to the highest level of art, which the two artists of this special evening impressively demonstrate.
Brahms: The Complete String Quartets – Belcea Quartet
Founded in London in 1994, the Belcea Quartet is now seen as one of the world’s most renowned string quartets. The quartet’s broadly based repertoire ranges from the works of the Viennese Classical era to premieres of contemporary compositions. Here the Belcea Quartet devotes itself to the three string quartets by Johannes Brahms: “The three quartets are of great beauty and refined sophistication, which never fails to inspire us”, says Corina Belcea. It is a beauty and refinement that radiates from the brilliant and nuanced interpretation to be heard on this studio recording.
Jean-Yves Thibaudet plays Debussy’s Preludes
“Painter” – that is how Claude Debussy once answered the question of what profession he would have preferred to take up. His Préludes for piano, composed between 1909 and 1913, are like musical paintings whose impressive richness of tone colour invites the audience to let their imagination run free. French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet presents the complete cycle of these standard-setting compositions in an intimate concert in which the listener travels to snowy landscapes, the bottom of the ocean, a fairy ball, and much more. “A gourmet repast with refreshing contrasts of mood and texture.” (New York Classical Review). Programme: Claude Debussy: Préludes, Book I, L. 117 Préludes, Book II, L. 123 Edward Elgar: Salut d’Amour, Op. 12
Kit Armstrong – Bach’s Goldberg Variations and its predecessors
“Armstrong’s phenomenal recital was so exceptional that every attempt to describe it falls short” (NRC). When Kit Armstrong performed at Amsterdam’s hallowed Concertgebouw for the first time, he mesmerized his audience with Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations. By combining them with earlier polyphonic variation masterpieces by William Byrd, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and John Bull, in the present program he is shedding a new light on Bach’s masterpiece. When Kit Armstrong was only 14, the Los Angeles-born musical prodigy overcame his mentor Alfred Brendel’s reluctance to take on pupils. Brendel said: “He played so beautifully that I thought to myself, ‘I have to make time for him.’” Soon Armstrong was winning international prizes both as pianist and as composer and was appearing at some of the world’s foremost venues.
Piano Duos at the Teatro Colón – Martha Argerich & Daniel Barenboim
“Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim wow their hometown of Buenos Aires” proclaimed the FAZ newspaper. This is the first time the two musicians have performed together in the city of their birth. So this concert, which formed part of the Festival de Música y Reflexión was a sort of “home game” for them, and one for which Argentinians had waited long. “The opera house has not been so packed for a long time as for the concerts featuring these two great artists.” (FAZ) “The Colón seemed to burst at the seams”. (Buenos Aires Herald) Martha Argerich delights the audience as “the untamed lioness of the keyboard” no less than Daniel Barenboim, who radiates “an unusually exuberant sparkling sound” (FAZ). Works by Mozart, Schubert and Stravinsky were followed by frenetic demands from the audience for encores and so, accompanied by three musicians from the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Argerich and Barenboim gave Schumann’s Variations for two pianos, Rachmaninoff’s Suite No. 2 and pieces by Guastavino and Milhaud. The Buenos Aires Herald summed up: a “grand tour de force”.