Janáček: Solo Piano

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Adès’s account [of On an Overgrown Path] eschews sentimentality and refuses to duck the suppressed violence that occasionally erupts…His care shown over Janáček’s inner part writing is often... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2020, 3 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 8th May 2020
Catalogue No: SIGCD600
Label: Signum
Length: 66 minutes

Presto Editor's Choice

June 2020

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Excerpt, Janáček: On An Overgrown Path

Work length39:13

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Thomas Adès (piano)

Our Evenings

Track length3:08

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A Blown-Away Leaf

Track length2:20

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Come with Us!

Track length1:06

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The Madonna of Frydek

Track length3:34

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They Chattered like Swallows

Track length1:43

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Words Fail!

Track length1:55

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Good Night!

Track length2:56

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Unutterable Anguish

Track length2:29

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In Tears

Track length2:12

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The Barn Owl Has Not Flown Away!

Track length3:20

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Andante

Track length3:22

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Allegretto (Presto)

Track length2:31

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Più mosso

Track length2:14

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Allegro

Track length6:23

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Janáček: Piano Sonata 1.X.1905 in E flat minor, JW VIII / 19 'From the Street'

Work length13:12

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Thomas Adès (piano)

Foreboding

Track length5:51

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Death

Track length7:21

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Janáček: In the Mists

Work length14:15

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$7.00

Thomas Adès (piano)

Andante

Track length3:36

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Molto adagio

Track length4:21

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Andantino

Track length2:02

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Presto

Track length4:16

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About
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About

Nearly all of the music for solo piano written by Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) dates from before the First World War and thus belongs to the period before the composer’s remarkable late creative surge, which was triggered by the hugely successful 1916 production in Prague of his third opera, Jenůfa (1894–1903; rev. 1907–8), and facilitated by his retirement from his teaching position at the Brno Organ School. Nevertheless, all three of Janáček’s major solo piano works – On an Overgrown Path (1900–1911), From the Street 1 October 1905 (1905-6) and In the Mists (1912–13) – contain music that is both profoundly individual and also integral to the now widespread view of the composer as one the most original musical voices of early twentieth- century music.

Thomas Adès was born in London in 1971. He studied the piano with Paul Berkowitz at the Guildhall School, winning the Lutine Prize for piano, before continuing his studies at King’s and St John’s Colleges, Cambridge. Dr Adès has given solo piano recitals at Carnegie Hall, New York and the Wigmore Hall and the Barbican in London, and appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic. He has performed Schubert’s Winterreise extensively throughout Europe with Ian Bostridge and in 2018 recorded it at the Wigmore Hall. In 2018, following a recital of Janacek’s music at the Reduta Theatre in Brno, Janacek’s home town, he was awarded the Leoš Janáček prize.

Reviews

July 2020

Adès’s account [of On an Overgrown Path] eschews sentimentality and refuses to duck the suppressed violence that occasionally erupts…His care shown over Janáček’s inner part writing is often revelatory, and he seems very much at one with the near improvisatory nature of these pieces. There is perhaps less delicacy in his approach to the more elusive soundworld of in the Mists, but his performance is impressive for its clarity and cohesion.

June 2020

It’s apparent from the get-go that Adès is determined to check all expressive clichés at the recording studio door, accept Janáček’s plain-spoken syntax and lack of artifice for what they are, and simply play the music straight...Adès seems less interested in colour or moody subtext than rendering text with intensive clarity in the two-movement Sonata…An illuminating release.

June 2020

Adès’s understated but hugely engaged and engaging playing on last year’s recording of Winterreise with Ian Bostridge was a welcome reminder of what a wonderful pianist this eminent composer is, and his Janáček shares many of the same virtues: his clarity of voicing, rhythmic precision and ability to summon such a range of colours that you’d swear he was switching between different instruments in the blink of an eye illuminate this ‘overgrown path’ to perfection.

7th May 2020

It’s always fascinating to hear composers interpreting those who have been significant influences on their own work, and Thomas Adès’s music certainly owes much to Janáček. Adès’s performances...certainly project the originality and freshness of the piano writing, even if there is not quite the range of keyboard colour of Rudolf Firkušný’s classic accounts for DG.

Janáček: Solo Piano

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