Brahms the Progressive, Vol. 2

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[The Webern] is finely played here, in what is altogether a warm and affectionate account of this seminal work. The Brahms receives an impressive performance, too...Altogether, this disc was... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2022, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 29th Apr 2022
Catalogue No: ODRCD413
Label: Odradek Records
Length: 58 minutes

International Classical Music Awards

2023

Nominated - Concerto

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Webern: Concerto for Nine Instruments Op. 24

Work length7:53

$3.00

$4.20

$5.25

Pina Napolitano
Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra
Modestas Pitrėnas

I. Etwas Lebhaft

Track length3:09

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

II. Sehr Langsam

Track length3:19

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

III. Sehr Rasch

Track length1:25

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 83

Work length50:55

Album only

Pina Napolitano
Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra
Modestas Pitrėnas

I. Allegro non troppo

Track length18:36

Album only

II. Allegro appassionato

Track length9:48

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

III. Andante

Track length12:35

$2.00

$2.80

$3.50

IV. Allegretto grazioso - Un poco più presto

Track length9:56

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

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For the exceptional Italian pianist Pina Napolitano, there is no better way of looking at art and history than through the lens of inverted time, from the present to the past. This is what Schoenberg invites us to do in his essay, 'Brahms the Progressive', in which Brahms, often considered a musical "conservative", becomes instead the father of modernism. This provides the inspiration behind this album, the sequel to 'Brahms the Progressive' Volume 1: traversing time in two directions, looking at Brahms from the perspective of the modern Viennese, and looking at the Second Viennese School from the perspective of Brahmsian romanticism.

For Pina Napolitano there are romantic echoes in the works of the Second Viennese School; an enormous expressive force distilled and compressed, all the way up to Webern's rarefied language where even the silences are charged with music and significance. And on the other hand she has always perceived Brahms's music as a magical prism, in which an entire musical past (encompassing Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann) merges together, before breaking off into rivulets that will give birth to 20th-century music.

Whereas 'Brahms the Progressive' Volume 1 focussed on solo piano repertoire, Volume 2 expands into the realm of the concerto. Pina Napolitano is joined by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Modestas Pitr 279;nas for the sparkling, kaleidoscopic 'Concerto', Op. 24 by Webern and the expansive, delectable Piano Concerto No. 2 by Brahms. Both works, as Pina Napolitano puts it in her artist statement in the album booklet, possess "the same deep structures and musical logic. They address the same problems of musical construction: the perfectly economic use of classical forms, the absolute concision the presentation of musical material in crystal-like formations"

Listening to these works side by side illuminates both in new ways, creating two-way context as these masters seemingly reach out to one another across time, Brahms anticipating Webern and Webern, via his teacher Schoenberg, acknowledging Brahms, the progressive.

Reviews

July 2022

[The Webern] is finely played here, in what is altogether a warm and affectionate account of this seminal work. The Brahms receives an impressive performance, too...Altogether, this disc was a real and unexpected pleasure.

August 2022

Napolitano generally sails smoothly through the keyboard-writing’s gnarly and demanding textures.

Brahms the Progressive, Vol. 2

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