Scandale

". . . enjoy these dance pieces at face value, the performances and recording of which are terrific . . . the sections of motoric rhythm in [Stravinsky's] two-piano version of "The Rite" seem made for the percussive character of the instrument, while some of the slower passages reveal more so than in their original garb the challenging harmonic language that so provoked the first audiences . . . ["The Kalender Prince"] provides lyrical contrast before "La valse", deftly, brilliantly executed, the final pages [dogged and relentless] . . . The final Piece is the world premier of Tristano's "A Soft Shell Groove" which, with its foot-tapping (literally) rhythm, is bound to find many friends among listeners and other two-piano teams."  --Gramophone, July 2014

"A glintingly percussive "Rite of Spring" . . . Ravel's "La valse" is technically impressive . . . poetry is again at a premium." --BBC Music Magazine, July 2014

Alice Sara Ott (piano) & Francesco Tristano (piano)

For her new recording rising star Alice Sara Ott teams up with Francesco Tristano, who is a guarantor for highly innovative projects.

Fascinated from the idea of Ballets Russes their challenging programme for two pianos centers upon Stravinsky’s extremely rhythmic and avant-garde score of “The rite of spring”, the crowning success de scandale of Ballets Russes and includes the catchy tune of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade”.

The album features an exciting new composition by Francesco Tristano himself "A soft shell groove", which has never been recorded before.

No ballet company influenced the 20th-century intellectual world as did Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, with its signature conceptualization of dance, music and the fine arts as equal partners in a unified art form.

Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes became one of the most influential ballet companies of the 20th century, in part because of its ground-breaking artistic collaboration among contemporary choreographers, composers, artists, and dancers.

Ravel & Enescu: Music for Violin and Piano

“A compelling programme based principally around the figure of Georges Enescu, both as composer and as a performing phenomenon, the latter probably inspiring Ravel's Violin Sonata of 1897, a lavish essay redolent of early Debussy. Both Ravel pieces respond handsomely to Leonidas Kavakos's agile and refined approach, Tzigane in particular being meticulously prepared, the partnership with Péter Nagy ensuring clarity in matters of articulation and the 'pickup' of motives between violin and piano; you're unlikely to hear a more supportive or better gauged account of the piano part.

These aren't 'showy' performances. Though Kavakos is audibly appreciative of the folk flavouring in Enescu's Third Sonata, he treats the abstract element as paramount, suggesting keen parallels with the violin sonatas of Bartók. Again Nagy takes the greatest care over such issues as rhythm, texture and the shape of individual phrases: his precise musical thinking could serve as an object lesson in such matters. The highspot of the performance is the cantorial closing section of the Andante second movement, so exquisitely turned and sustained. The graphic Impressions d'enfance, with its lullaby, caged bird and cuckoo-clock, chirping cricket and ecstatic dawn, is endlessly fascinating, again rich in folk references, the sort that Enescu worked in to his Romanian Rhapsodies.

These performances justify consideration for their warmth, intelligence and superb sound.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Música de España

Igor Markevitch was a leading conductor, known for brilliant performances, especially of twentieth century music. He was also a composer who attracted some interest in his own day. He was known for his performance of the Russian repertory and twentieth century music. He had a quick temper, reflected in his music in sharp emotional shifts, yet the music was meticulously prepared and nearly always followed the composer's directions with exceptional care. In the late '90s, his recordings came back into demand in re-release, and even his compositions were finding a small but interested market and were praised anew for their originality.

Prokofiev & Ravel: Piano Concertos

“She is a wholly exceptional artist, the possessor of a fabulous technique, and her musical understanding is a very rare quality...Her playing of the Ravel Concerto is breathtaking...I am sure that this is just what Ravel wanted - it really crackles with electricity, her passagework as light and as brilliant as quicksilver...These concertos are very different works, but this young pianist has the measure of them both - in spades.” --International Record Review, April 2011

Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor was written in 1913 and dedicated to a friend of the composer who had recently committed suicide. It was revised in 1923, and this version remains one of the most technically challenging works in the standard repertoire. Following a highly successful tour of America as piano soloist, Maurice Ravel finished his Piano Concerto in G Major in 1931. The concerto is heavily influenced by jazz, which at the time was highly popular in Paris as well as the USA.

“The Prokofiev concerto can sound flashy and empty, but Vinnitskaya's more fantastical and demented view reveals its hidden depths. She rips through the fiercely tough first-movement cadenza like a force of nature...Exemplary, high-wire Prokofiev.” --Classic FM Magazine, April 2011 ****

“Anna Vinnitskaya has a dry, clear sound which I think [Prokofiev] would rather have admired...Gilbert Varga's direction is precise and detailed...I certainly want to hear more from this phenomenally equipped pianist.” --BBC Music Magazine, Febuary 2011 ****

“The opening whiplash of Ravel's "Piano Concerto in G major" portends the virtuosic fireworks to follow...But the concerto's real achievement lies in the final two movements, whose fantastical twists grow more unsettling by the minute.” --The Independent, 28th January 2011 ***

Ravel: Arrangements for Wind Quintet

A sheer delight: arrangements for wind ensemble of three of Ravel’s masterpieces!

Ravel himself was an avid arranger/transcriber of his own music, a master orchestrator, with an incredible ear for timbre and colour. A real treat therefore to listen to these excellent arrangements of the Sonatine (original piano solo), the string quartet and the popular suite from Ma mère l’oye (original piano 4 hands). The combination of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn offers a completely new spectrum of sounds and colours, without doing any injustice to the original: good music stands firm in any good arrangement!

Superb performances by Dutch elite players, soloists and first desk players of the Amsterdam and Rotterdam orchestras.