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The Long 17th Century: A Cornucopia of Early Keyboard Music
Daniel-Ben Pienaar (piano)
Awards:
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BBC Music Magazine, April 2020, Instrumental Choice
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Gramophone Magazine, June 2020, Editor's Choice
Pienaar displays his collections thematically, connecting dances and variations, imitative and evocative works that suggest battles and birdsong, that paint portraits, tell stories and write...
The Long 17th Century: A Cornucopia of Early Keyboard Music
Daniel-Ben Pienaar (piano)
Purchase product
Awards:
-
BBC Music Magazine, April 2020, Instrumental Choice
-
Gramophone Magazine, June 2020, Editor's Choice
Pienaar displays his collections thematically, connecting dances and variations, imitative and evocative works that suggest battles and birdsong, that paint portraits, tell stories and write...
About
Daniel-Ben Pienaar presents “The Long 17th Century: A Cornucopia of Early Keyboard Music”, a two-and-a-half hour survey of 36 works, each by a different composer, many not recorded before on a modern piano.
The ever-inquisitive pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar presents The Long 17th Century: A Cornucopia of Early Keyboard Music. The Long 17th Century refers to the period from the late 1500s to the early 1700s, an era noted for forward-thinking individuality and invention in all areas of life. This two-and-a-half hour recital surveys a pan-European variety of styles, genres and techniques, and comprises 36 works, each by a different composer, many not recorded before on a modern piano.
Critical acclaim for Daniel-Ben Pienaar
“a gloriously multi-faceted opus maximus ... Amazing and very much worth hearing” - Der
Spiegel (on Beethoven’s Complete Piano Sonatas, AV2320)
“dizzying virtuosity ... fresh, spontaneous, original readings that shed new light on the keyboard player’s Bible” - BBC Music Magazine (on J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, AV2299)
“One of the most completely satisfying surveys ever committed to disc.” - The Sunday Times
(on Mozart’s Complete Piano Sonatas, AV2209)
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
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BBC Music MagazineApril 2020Instrumental Choice
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Gramophone MagazineJune 2020Editor's Choice
April 2020
Pienaar displays his collections thematically, connecting dances and variations, imitative and evocative works that suggest battles and birdsong, that paint portraits, tell stories and write elegies. It’s a deeply personal selection that makes for a captivating sequence…Pienaar makes light work of the virtuosic pieces, with their flashing scales and filigree ornaments.
June 2020
What makes it work is not just the dazzling precision and clarity of Pienaar’s finger technique (though that is certainly a vital factor), but the intelligence that has gone into his interpretations...he also communicates an individual and convincing vision for each piece, enough for every one of them to give delight.
9th March 2020
The curator offers instinctive, sensitive, non-dogmatic performances, making this music seem perfectly suited to the modern piano.