Schubert: Piano Sonatas

“The first word that comes to mind, after extensive listening, is 'unflinching'. These performances don't prioritise finesse per se but they are fiercely honest.” --Gramophone Magazine, October 2014

“The D major Sonata, D850, can often seem too explosive, but Barenboim gives as convincing an account of it as I've heard. He is even finer in the Sonata in G major, the most lyrical of them all...There is noble music-making here, but it is less consistent than we expect from this great artist.” --BBC Music Magazine, December 2014 ***

Mozart, Schubert & Stravinsky: Piano Duos

“Stravinsky's Rite of Spring prompts several adjectives: brutal, revolutionary, relentless, terrifying...But elegant? Urbane, seductive, sensuous? This astonishing performance is all that and more. Few orchestral accounts equal the colouristic range on offer here...This is keyboard sorcery near the levels reported of Chopin and Liszt.” --BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2014 *****

“the audio experience has its own fire and majesty as these two old friends pitch in and strike sparks...an electrifying live recording.” --The Times, 31st October 2014 ****

“Barenboim's instinct is to sing out, to play to the very back of the hall...[Argerich] acts in a way as a moderating influence on Barenboim's flights, thanks surely in part to her years of experience as a chamber musician...These two-piano bodges always draw from critics the cliche that one misses the orchestral colouring of the work...This shattering performance sweeps away all such notions.” --Gramophone Magazine, October 2014

A reunion of the two classical superstars after more than 15 years.

THE concert highlight from Berlin's fully packed Philharmonie on the occasion of the "Festtage der Berliner Staatsoper 2014"

“Stravinsky originally wrote the Rite of Spring in a two-piano version and one of the first performances was given privately by the composer and Claude Debussy. […] Argerich and Barenboim […] surely possessed even better technique than Stravinsky and Debussy and their commitment could hardly be exaggerated”. (The Guardian)

A Second Of Silence

The Knights are an orchestra of friends from a broad spectrum of the New York music world who cultivate collaborative music-making and creatively engage audiences in the shared joy of musical performance. This is the Knights second album for Ancalagon Records, and follows their 2011 Juno Award-winning recording of Mozart with Scott & Lara St. John. The album features music of Schubert, Satie, Glass, and Feldman, composers who either influenced or were influenced by the great playwright Samuel Beckett.

"The future of classical music in America." --Los Angeles Times

The starting point for this intriguing programme from young US ensemble The Knights is Morton Feldman's suggestion that part of the magic of Schubert is "that kind of hovering, as if you're in a register you've never heard".

Accordingly, The Knights have sought to intersperse works by Schubert amongst subsequent pieces reflecting that hovering characteristic, from Debussy's arrangements of two of Satie's "Gymnopédies" to Philip Glass's four-part "Company". It's a daring conceit which works beautifully, particularly the section which elides between Satie's "Gymnopédie II", Schubert's 3rd and Feldman's "Madame Press Died Last Week At Ninety", a sequence which seems to erase time within a single fluid flourish.