Brahms: Handel Variations & Ballades

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This recording of her Brahms was made at Snape Maltings in 1995, but is only now released for the first time. And it’s a revelation: I’ve never heard Brahms Handel Variations played like this.... — BBC Music Magazine, February 2018, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 17th Nov 2017
Catalogue No: PTC5186677
Label: Pentatone
Length: 63 minutes

BBC Music Magazine

February 2018

Instrumental Choice

Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24

Work length33:21

$28.00

$36.40

Nelly Akopian-Tamarina (piano)
Recorded: November 1995
Recording Venue: Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk, United Kingdom

Aria

Track length1:11

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 1

Track length1:06

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 2

Track length0:47

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 3

Track length1:05

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 4

Track length1:00

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 5

Track length1:22

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 6

Track length1:09

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 7

Track length0:35

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 8

Track length0:37

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 9

Track length1:25

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 10

Track length0:42

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 11

Track length1:07

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 12

Track length1:16

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 13

Track length1:38

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 14

Track length0:40

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 15

Track length0:50

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 16

Track length0:44

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 17

Track length0:48

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 18

Track length1:10

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 19

Track length1:10

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 20

Track length1:15

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 21

Track length1:03

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 22

Track length1:12

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 23

Track length0:37

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 24

Track length0:36

$1.00

$1.30

Var. 25

Track length0:59

$1.00

$1.30

Fugue

Track length7:17

$2.00

$2.60

Brahms: Ballades (4), Op. 10

Work length30:02

$7.00

$9.05

Nelly Akopian-Tamarina (piano)
Recorded: October 1995 & January 1996
Recording Venue: Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk, United Kingdom

No. 1 in D Minor "Edward"

Track length5:23

$1.00

$1.30

No. 2 in D Major

Track length7:26

$2.00

$2.60

No. 3 in B Minor

Track length4:38

$1.00

$1.30

No. 4 in B Major

Track length12:35

$3.00

$3.85

About
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About

The incomparable, soul-searching playing of the veteran Russian pianist Nelly Akopian-Tamarina is captured in a rare studio recording for PENTATONE with a luminous performance of Brahms's towering Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, Op. 24 and the introspective Four Ballades, Op. 10.

Nelly Akopian-Tamarina is an exemplar of an exquisitely crafted and poetical style of playing which is subtle, probing, deeply lyrical and utterly spellbinding. Winner of the 1963 Robert Schumann International Competition for Pianists and Singers and recipient of the coveted Robert Schumann Prize in 1974. Her public appearances are all too infrequent but sought after and cherished by aficionados; for an all Brahms recital in 2008 she was praised for her "luminous fortissimi, ice-edged chords, fine pianissimos, deliberated textures, intricate pedalling, and expansive, singing melodies".

For this new release, Akopian-Tamarina approaches the programme with her customary sensitivity and poetic insights to give performances of rare subtlety and perfection. "Classically framed romantic miniature fantasies, intricate, entwining studies in embroidery, decoration and voicing", she writes of the Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, "the twenty-five variations navigate the theme to a coronation of fugal triumph, immeasurable and immortal".

"The piano sound made by the Moscow-born Nelly Akopian-Tamarina was not only distinctive, but almost tangible ... a playing tradition going back to the giants of the past, to Rachmaninov, Moiseiwitsch, Scriabin and what we imagine of Liszt ... a fragile, poetic creation in every fold of her dress and with each flick of the wrist." (The Sunday Times, December 2010).

This recording, her first for PENTATONE, was made in the warm acoustic of the Snape Maltings in England.

Reviews

February 2018

This recording of her Brahms was made at Snape Maltings in 1995, but is only now released for the first time. And it’s a revelation: I’ve never heard Brahms Handel Variations played like this. The music seems to come from a distant place and time, but it draws us in with the most heart-warming immediacy…When the score calls for lyricism she finds a caressing tone, and when it demands assertiveness she’s absolutely there, but the drama is restrained until the towering fugue at the close.

January 2018

Nelly Akopian-Tamarina’s Brahms recital is so personal, distinctive and musicianly, that it makes one think again, erasing all pre-conceptions. This is Brahms as you never previously knew him. Time and again she brings a near-Mozartian clarity to music with a potential for opacity. The pianist has supplied her own personal and affectionate essay and she is finely recorded: a crowning touch to an inspirational and enlightening issue.

Brahms: Handel Variations & Ballades

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