Piano Music Round-up,
Piano Music Round-up - World Piano Day 2025
The first quarter of 2025 has been rich with new piano recordings, and this has happily included a great deal of diversity. Crucially, there have been albums that bring new and interesting approaches to much-recorded music, and recordings of repertoire with which even the most committed piano aficionados may not be familiar. There have been three new recordings of the Liszt sonata, two of which bring invaluable new insights, and one I found too much focused on technical virtuosity and often break-neck tempi.
Identifying links with the past is a common thread in these new albums, whether in programmes exploring repertoire in which composers signalled the influence of their forerunners, or in the choice of piano used. The variety of pianos which make it onto record is wider than ever, and in this group of releases we get to hear restored nineteenth-century instruments, and modern instruments by Bösendorfer, Yamaha, Steinway, Kawai, Fazioli and Stephen Paullelo.
We've covered a number of releases in interviews and reviews already, so I haven't included albums by Stephen Hough, Bertrand Chamayou, James Rhodes, Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yunjie Chen, or Seong-Jin Cho. Instead, my focus is on those other solo piano recordings that have stood out to me over the past three months, that you might have missed and which deserve your attention. After my short reviews of eleven albums, there's a playlist of extracts to explore.
A full exploration of the life and work of Myra Hess has been long overdue, but Jessica Duchen's new book has been well worth waiting for.
If you play the piano yourself, Nils Frahm has curated a sheet music collection for Faber Music, celebrating World Piano Day. It contains thirty-five atmospheric works by contemporary composers, and there's lots to explore.
Edition Peters has published nicely selected and beautifully set collections of music by Schubert, Beethoven and Mozart, presented in chronological order and with attention to exploring multiple facets of each composer. If you have a budding young pianist in your life, Schott has published Mel Bonis's Album pour les tout-petits op. 103, edited with fingerings, tempo, pedal indications and tips from Melanie Spanswick.
There is no shortage of recordings of either of these works, yet Daniel Grimwood draws on the character and qualities of a 1856 Erard London piano (owned by the University of York, and restored by Nigel Scaife) to shed new light on familiar music, with consummate musicianship and pianism. Grimwood shares fascinating information in the notes about the tuning and qualities of the piano, and his comments here are reflected in the clarity, balancing of voices and colour that characterise his playing. Throughout, there is evidence that Grimwood has steeped himself in the practices of what is often referred to as the golden age of pianism, and most obvious is the shock at the beginning, where the familiar opening of Carnaval is preceded by an improvised arpeggiation - a touch that gives a moment for acclimatisation to the sound of the Erard. I found the Liszt sonata revelatory; the speaking length of the piano is shorter than a modern grand, allowing for nuanced phrasing that enriches the quieter melodic moments, and clarity that Grimwood utilises to his advantage in an exciting reading of the fugue, to which he brings a standout sense of architecture. This can also be heard in Consolation No. 3, which is preceded by an introductory improvisation, and is the first track of my playlist.
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Titien Collard, like Daniel Grimwood, makes an interesting choice of piano for his recording of the Liszt sonata, in this case one designed by Stephen Paulello. It's a new instrument, but straight-strung, combining some of the clarity of the best nineteenth-century pianos with the longer speaking length expected of a twenty-first century one. It's a magnificent instrument, nicely captured by Indesens, and Collard uses its vast dynamic range and flexibility of tone to express Liszt's compositional command of the orchestral qualities offered by the piano. His sense of poise, used to dramatic effect in the sonata, is strongly in evidence in the Consolations, and his shaping in the second is a distillation of his understanding of the vocal qualities in Liszt's music.
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Olga Pashchenko plays an 1836 Conrad Graf for her game of Guess Who, which sees the music of the Mendelssohn siblings brought together in a charming programme, opening with the hunting call of Felix's Song Without Words, Op. 19 No. 3. It's a real call to action, the opening bars displaying a sense of aggression rarely associated with the composer, especially when played on a more refined modern piano. Even in the more hymn-like Op. 30 No. 3, which starts with such delicate playing by Pashchenko that the piano sounds like a harp, there is an leading edge to the sound that brings to mind a more assertive Felix than the one commonly derided as a composer for the parlour piano. Pashchenko finds similar strength and persuasiveness in Fanny's writing, as evidenced in Villa Mills, from her Vier Lieder, Op. 2. What pervades this entire album is a sense of fantasy, of worlds dreamt of and brought to life in music, and the similarities between the music of both siblings suggests musical equality, mutual influence and inspiration.
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Elina Akselrud is an intriguing personality, describing herself as artist, researcher, educator and entrepeneur. She has given live performances of the Scriabin sonatas as one of her Intertwining Arts projects, bringing the music together with movement. Her traversal of Scriabin's wide-ranging piano sonatas, from the Chopinesque qualities of the first to the harmonically intense nature of the later works, displays strong relationships with both music and instrument. She uses the tonal palette of her chosen Fazioli instrument to elucidate Scriabin's writing with a strong sense of fantasy and exploration, but also with tasteful judgement. This collection rewards repeated listening, and joins Yunjie Chen's recent recordings as a very welcome addition to our understanding of this often exotic music.
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Any work by Boulez is a brave way to open an album, but Stefanovich is ideally placed to bring his second piano sonata to life, having studied it with the composer himself. She makes sense of the music, even where it edges into pointillism, and communicates it in a way which could persuade many listeners to reassess their thoughts about Boulez the composer. The Eisler sonata which follows is a work I hadn't come across before, and it regularly reminds me of Shostakovich, but especially of Berg's Op.1 sonata, both harmonically and in some of the melodic and rhythmic shapes. Given that both Eisler and Berg were pupils of Schoenberg, and Berg's piece came 16 years earlier, this perhaps isn't so surprising, but it's certainly more than a pastiche and worthwhile on its own terms. Stefanovich proves a convincing proponent, as she does for the Bartok and Shostakovich works also included here. The piano is a Yamaha CFX, one which offers subtlety, depth and beautiful sustain without sacrificing clarity in any register. Pentatone's sound is, as usual, excellent.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
In her new album, Beatrice Berrut proves that the 'golden age' practice of virtuoso arrangements is alive and well. She uses her assured technique and a Bösendorfer 280vc to demonstrate an understanding of orchestral colours and textures that betrays her interest in the pedagogical writings of Heinrich Neuhaus, and places her own arrangements alongside examples by Liszt, Agosti and Pabst. Berrut has also included her original composition, Untold Tales - a set of three pieces which are unashamedly romantic, and which offer another glimpse into a swirling world of mystery. From the opening notes of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, to the final bars of the Hedwig theme from Harry Potter, I was transfixed by the magical world Berrut creates, and adding this album to my CD collection was an easy decision. The booklet quotes her saying ‘Transcription is necessarily an act of blasphemy. So I suppose I enjoy blasphemy!'. If this is what it sounds like, so do I.
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The concept behind this album is to illuminate how central the works of his predecessors were to Brahms. The centrepiece of the programme is the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24, a work which marks the composer's respect to Handel and, through the twenty-five variations and closing fugue, demonstrates his aptitude for re-setting influences into his own distinctive musical style. Similarly, Brahms's arrangement for left hand of the Bach Chaconne, more famous in the spectacular virtuosity of Busoni's arrangement, demonstrates an almost worshipful understanding of Bach's writing, and it is nice to hear it played with the sensitivity, structural coherence and clarity that Samson Tsoy brings. His considerable technique is such that it is always at the service of the music, and this is the kind of playing that defies anything but full attention. The programme creates a valuable thread between Bach, Brahms and Busoni with a scattering of the latter's arrangements of Brahms's chorales throughout, and Tsoy displays an understanding of all three composers in his supple and balanced playing. This is a special album, and Tsoy uses everything the Steinway D has to offer, captured in excellent sound by Linn.
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The title of this album makes direct reference to the piece Dvořák is most widely known for, but the programme reveals a side of the composer that is often neglected. Dvořák himself wasn't a pianist, and some of his music for the instrument betrays this with some challengingly unpianistic writing. James Vitaud rises to the challenge, and does so with panache and musical sensitivity to reveal qualities that mark these pieces as worthy of more attention. The opening of the Suite in A major conjures a certain nostalgia for Dvořák's homeland before bringing to life the Czech folk influences so central to the composer. Vitaud doesn't shy away from the primitivism of the writing, with a bright and rhythmically strong attack which brings to mind the orchestral Slavonic Dances, but neither does he ignore the quieter moments of reflection, and he uses the wide dynamic and tonal range of the Stephen Paulello Opus 102 piano to express every aspect of Dvořák's sound world. The first of the Silhouettes, Op. 8 demonstrates this clearly, with Vitaud's flexibility of touch and command of articulation unfailingly serving the music, and in Twilight Way, the first of the Poetic Tone Pictures, Op. 58, he creates an atmosphere of calm contemplation.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Roman Borisov's debut solo album sees him exploring what Nicolas Derny terms Modern Baroque in his booklet notes. The concept has common ground with Simon Tsoy's album in focusing on composers looking back to their predecessors and encapsulating those influences into their music, either directly as in the pieces from Godowsky's Renaissance collections, or indirectly as in Franck's much-recorded Prelude, Chorale et Fugue. Borisov finds light and dark, and builds tension always with the overall arc of the music in mind, nowhere more so in the Franck, where there are deft touches to wonder at, grounded in a coherency that places this recording amongst the top established contenders. Franck was particularly adept at taking his influences and placing them at the heart of his own identity - a true Janus composer looking back and forward at the same time - and Borisov captures this with complete conviction. Similarly in the Rachmaninoff, there is a calm simplicity in Borisov's statement of the La Folia theme and then a beautifully judged move into the composer's instantly recognisable sound world without ever losing sight of that theme as the kernal of the work. Subtlety abounds throughout this album, but never at the expense of drama and virtuosity when the music demands. This debut announces Borisov as a recording artist to watch.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
John Field is so often squeezed into compilations of 'relaxing piano music', and rarely receives much attention. He was a celebrated pianist, having been taught by Muzio Clementi, and as a composer he was one of many influences on Chopin amongst others. Field is often described as the creator of the nocturne, and this album collects all that he wrote. They are predominantly gentle pieces, and whilst there are occasional flourishes and moments of disruption in some of them, they don't veer into drama and darkness in the same way Chopin's nocturnes do. Alice Sara Ott proves an ideal champion of these pieces, and her genuinely interesting liner notes are infused with admiration for this music and its composer. She revels in the long legato phrases and chromatic decoration in the right hand, anchored by suitably expressive accompaniment in the left. Variations in tone and dynamic are made naturally, and Ott successfully treads the fine line between over-sentimentality and being too objective, bringing this music to life on its own terms. This beautifully played collection is a welcome addition to the catalogue, and an engaging showcase for both composer and pianist. The Steinway D sounds superb, but given the other releases in this round-up, wouldn't it be nice to hear these pieces played by Ott on a restored Clementi piano? After all, Field did work as a salesman for them, and a side-by-side comparison would be fascinating, at least to this piano geek.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV
The centrepiece here is Schubert's Op.90 set of four impromptus. I was especially struck by the balance Çakmur achieves in the third of these, in G-flat major, where some pianists allow the accompanying figuration in the middle of the texture to detract from the melody and what is a very important bass line. The same control of balance is found in his playing of the following A-flat major impromptu, where the glittering arpeggio figurations in the right-hand are well judged against those cello-like left-hand melodies. In the contrasting C-sharp minor section, the repeated chords underpin the well projected melody, swelling and easing as the harmonic and melodic direction requires. The brightly lit clarity typical of the Shigeru Kawai SK-EX piano supports Çakmur's approach nicely, and is advantageous in the glittering outer sections of Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu. In the contrasting middle section this helps to highlight Çakmur's improvised embellishments, but it won't suit all tastes. The piano also has a shorter speaking length than most modern pianos, and Çakmur uses that to his advantage in the two Voříšek impromptus, if losing out to it a little in the Scriabin pieces that end the album.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Rachmaninov’s piano sonatas are too often obscured by the popular familiarity of the second piano concerto, second symphony and preludes, yet they are easy to fall in love with, especially with Boris Giltburg as guide - his technical command is so fluid that it effortlessly places the focus on the music. The balance he achieves between emotive and rhapsodic expression with clarity, control and a complete lack of self-indulgence makes this album a wholly engaging experience, and demonstrates how richly this music deserves to be valued as highly as anything Rachmaninov wrote. The album closes with an arrangement for piano of Isle of the Dead, in which Giltburg explores the darker tonal possibilities of the instrument to create a truly mesmerising soundscape. The Naxos engineers have reached phenomenal heights in capturing the huge tonal and dynamic range of Giltburg’s playing, in an unmissable addition to the pianist's Rachmaninov recordings.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Piano Music Round-Up – March 2025
Curated by Matthew Ash
Tracks from the recordings featured in the latest of our Piano Music Round-Ups. 62 minutes
Suitable for intermediate pianists and featuring music by Ólafur Arnalds, Hania Rani, Ludovico Einaudi, Olivia Belli, Nils Frahm and many more, Piano Day: The Collection is a celebration of the piano in the twenty-first century. Founded in 2015 by Nils Frahm, Piano Day is an annual worldwide event which takes place on the 88th day of the year – derived from the number of keys on a piano. The goal of Piano Day is simple: to raise the profile of the piano, inspire more people to play the piano and encourage piano playing in public spaces.
Available Format: Sheet Music
Myra Hess - National Treasure offers previously unpublished extracts from her correspondence and post-war American tour diaries, full of insights into her collaborations with towering musicians of her day, including Arturo Toscanini, Pablo Casals, Bruno Walter and Kathleen Ferrier. Interviews with her former pupils shed light on Hess's rigour, intensity and warmth, her dislike of recording and her special way of building connection with her audience when on stage. Dame Myra Hess emerges at last from behind the myths: a unique personality full of generosity, courage, humour and sheer, unfailing 'chutzpah'.
Available Format: Book
The French composer Mélanie Bonis enchants with delicate melodies from the colourful and imaginative world of children. These light miniatures are perfect for young pianists. Includes fingerings, tempo, pedal indications and tips from Melanie Spanswick.
Available Format: Sheet Music
Matthew Ash - Product Manager, Recorded Music
