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2022-02-12 09:11:28
György Cziffra: Pianist János Balázs on celebrating the great Hungarian's centenary & continuing his artistic legacy
George Cziffra 2021 was the centenary of the Hungarian pianist and composer György Cziffra, and there have been world-wide celebrations under the auspices of the György Cziffra Festival. The modern day Hungarian pianist János Balázs, who founded the festival, is determined to keep Cziffra's memory alive and celebrate Cziffra's art, both in organising the festival and in his own concerts and recordings. János Balázs (Photo Emmer Laszlo0 Born in Budapest in 1921, Cziffra's father was a cabaret artist who had lived in Paris prior to the First World War. Cziffra studied at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest but was conscripted during the Second World War and ended up a prisoner of war in Russia. After the war he played in bars and clubs in Budapest, as well as touring Europe with his jazz band. After trying to escape communist Hungary in 1950, Cziffra was imprisoned but […]
2019-06-26 17:54:00
Mozart-Saal, Konzerthaus, Vienna Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, op.34 Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A major, op.34 Some might have expected a clash of solo egos with an instrumental line-up such as this. Not a bit of it: the billing ‘Vadim Repin and friends’ seemed very much borne out by what we saw and heard in this Vienna Konzerthaus performance of piano quintets by Brahms and Dvořák. There are doubtless many ways to sound Brahmsian; we should not be prescriptive. This, from the outset of Brahms’s F minor Quintet, was undoubtedly one of them. Overall line and its ebb and flow were likewise immediately impressive: more often said than done, perhaps particularly in the first two movements. Similarly balance: what, one might have asked, is often held to be the problem? What struck me particularly about the opening ‘Allegro non troppo’ […]
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Faces of classical music
2018-12-17 07:08:00
Claude Debussy: Poèmes – Stella Doufexis, Daniel Heide (Audio video)
It is sometimes a shock to hear a mezzo sing this music, especially when we have had the bright-toned Debussy albums from Natalie Dessay on Virgin Classics and from Lorna Anderson and Lisa Milne on Hyperion so recently, but what a lovely discovery the Greek-German Stella Doufexis is. Her textually aware, warm-toned, luminous mezzo doesn't weigh the material down at all, given that many of the songs were written with the coloratura muse Marie-Blanche Vasnier in mind. Indeed, what pour out of the album are hidden depths to these sensual works.This hour-long program neatly covers the full extent of Debussy's song writing career, sung pretty much chronologically, from his teenage gems like the 1880's Nuit d'etoiles, to the three Stéphane Mallarmé settings of 1913, where the piano writing becomes far more sophisticated and harmonically complex. Doufexis adapts mercurially to the conflicting challenges of each song; playful and alluring in Clair […]
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Faces of classical music
2018-10-31 07:57:00
Nikolai Lugansky plays Claude Debussy: Suite bergamasque, Deux Arabesques, and οther works for solo piano (Audio video)
The distinguished Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky plays works for solo piano by Claude Debussy. The cd recorded in 2018, at Médiapôle Saint-Césaire, Impasse de Mourgues, Arles, France.✻Harmonia Mundi's centenary edition of the works of Claude Debussy necessarily includes several different interpretations of his keyboard music, and Nikolai Lugansky's single-disc contribution offers only a selection of well-known pieces, featuring the Suite bergamasque and including L'Isle joyeuse, the Deux Arabesques, La plus que lente, Jardins sous la pluie, three pieces from Images II, and the Hommage à Haydn. For the most part, this is an album of reflective pieces that don't require a big sound, and the program shows mostly Lugansky's quiet side, emphasizing his polished technique and ability to glide nearly effortlessly over the keys with a delicate touch and warm tone. These qualities were noted in Debussy's own playing, and the restraint and control displayed here gives us an idea of […]
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