LETTERS

CHAN 20038

Louis Lorre completes his survey of Saint-Saëns’ piano concertos with Nos 3 &5 the ‘Egyppan’, along with the Rhapsodie d’Auvergne & Allegro appassionato.

NEWS NOTES

Boris Giltburg

Giltburg announces ‘Beethoven 32’ project

Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg will mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020 by learning all 32 of the composer’s piano sonatas, the majority of which are not currently in his repertoire. Giltburg’s performances will be  lmed to share at regular intervals throughout the year with a global audience via Apple Music and his own YouTube channel. He has also launched the dedicated website Beethoven32.com to host supporting written material and video content.

Giltburg said: ‘ e 32 Beethoven Sonatas are widely regarded as one of the pinnacles of piano music, and I am excited about the huge challenge as much as the ensuing journey of discovery. I have played nine of the sonatas so far, so 23 will be completely new, including some of the most challenging.’

By choosing to learn and  lm the sonatas in chronological order, Giltburg hopes to follow the composer on his original path of development. ‘I will attempt to view each sonata as the highest point of what Beethoven could achieve at that time,’ he explains, ‘which makes every sonata interesting in itself, not only for its position in the cycle.’ Giltburg will perform the cycle on Fazioli Pianos, with  lming taking place at the company’s concert hall in Sacile, Italy and their London showroom, Jacques Samuel Pianos.  e project will be shot by  lmmaker Stewart French of Fly on the Wall Productions. Alongside this landmark project, 2020 sees the completion of Giltburg’s recording cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko, plus performances of all  ve concertos over three consecutive days at the Flagey Piano Festival, Brussels, in February. beethoven32.com

Schimmel replaces  agship upright model

German piano manufacturer Schimmel has unveiled a new upright piano to replace its  agship C120 model – the C121.  is latest addition to the Schimmel Classic range features several design enhancements, including a reduced-mass bridge originally developed for Schimmel’s premium Konzert range.  e new bridge transmits the strings’ vibrations more e ciently, resulting in richer tonal colours and greater sustaining power.  e C121 is available in  ve di erent model variants: Tradition, Elegance Manhattan, Royal, Royal Intarsie Flora and Tradition Marketerie. Each is available in a range of veneers and  nishes.  e Schimmel Classic collection comprises three grand and  ve upright pianos, manufactured using traditional materials and craftsmanship at the company’s factory in Braunschweig, Germany.

Schimmel Pianos was founded in 1885 and by the mid-20th century had become Germany’s best-selling piano brand. Schimmel instruments have won more awards for design and performance than any other piano produced in Germany. schimmel-piano.de

Innovative soundboard to transform digital pianos

Italian soundboard manufacturer Ciresa has launched a new product called Resonance Piano – an innovative soundboard that can be used to amplify any digital piano.

Launched at last year’s Cremona Musica trade fair, Resonance Piano consists of two wooden soundboards and associated electronics, housed in a traditionally shaped case that can be placed horizontally on legs, or mounted vertically on a wall. It is described by Ciresa as ‘an instrument capable of bridging the two worlds – digital and acoustic – without compromise’.

e system is compatible with every digital piano, stage piano and 88-key keyboard. When a digital instrument is plugged into Resonance Piano, its output is fed to transducers on the soundboards, rather than being played through speakers. e resulting sound is closer to that of an acoustic instrument, with the wooden soundboards imparting a more natural character to the digital

signal. Volume changes and equalisation can be controlled via a touch panel, which also serves as a mixer for other external audio sources.

‘Each soundboard is designed to create the best possible acoustic sound,’ says Ciresa CEO and Resonance Piano inventor, Fabio Ognibeni. ‘Even if you exchange digital instruments, the sound is quite the same. Of course, it cannot be 100 per cent exactly the same because the soundboard is a natural element, but all the soundboards are designed to produce the best acoustic sound possible, regardless of which digital instrumental source.’

Enrico Ciresa s.r.l. is located in Tesero, northern Italy. e company has been making soundboards using local spruce since the 1970s. Around 190,000 pianos feature Ciresa soundboards, including top brands such as C. Bechstein, Blüthner, Förster and Fazioli. resonancepiano.com

NEWS IN BRIEF

British pianist Martin James Bartlett (pictured, above) has won rst prize at this year’s Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York. His prize package includes access to a minimum of three years’ management services, publicity and career guidance, plus opportunities to perform at leading venues across the US. e 23-year-old Bartlett was crowned BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2014 and has recently been signed to Warner Classics. He was described as ‘a pianist of rare poise and command’ in IP’s review of his Warner debut album, Love and Death, which features works by Bach, Liszt, Granados and Prokoev. martinjamesbartlett.com

Resonus Classics has announced a major new series of French piano music, featuring solo and orchestral recordings with the acclaimed British pianist Mark Bebbington. ‘French music has always been close to me since studying with Aldo Ciccolini in Paris,’ says Bebbington, ‘so I look forward to exploring the familiar, but especially the less familiar riches of the glorious French piano repertoire.’ e rst release in the new series includes Poulenc’s Concert champêtre for harpsichord in its less familiar piano version, coupled with the composer’s Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor. Bebbington performs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Jan Latham-Koenig. markbebbington.co.uk

Serving the music

Elisabeth Brauss blew the critics away with her debut album, showing herself to be a pianist of maturity well beyond her years. Josephine Miles spoke to the German rising star

‘For pianists, everything is chamber music – you have to find the right way for the voices to communicate’

Unlike many young artists, it was not a major competition win that brought Elisabeth Brauss to international attention, but her debut CD. Recorded when Brauss was 21, the album won overwhelming critical acclaim from Gramophone and led to her being selected as a BBC New Generation Artist: after listening to the recording, Emma Bloxham, editor at BBC Radio 3, invited Brauss to an audition in London at ve days’ notice. Within a month, she was chosen for the 2018-20 programme.

‘It really has been one of the greatest experiences and a fantastic journey,’ says Brauss, ‘especially because of all the concert opportunities – not only solo concerts but a lot of chamber music, collaborations with conductors, and of course recordings with the BBC.’ e busy schedule and travelling do not faze her – and the maturity and graciousness with which she speaks of her career reveal a refreshingly pragmatic outlook.

Born in Hannover in 1995 to professional musicians (her father is the conductor and pianist Martin Brauss; her mother a viola player), Brauss was destined to become a pianist: ‘One of my earliest childhood memories is lying under the piano listening to my father play through symphonies or operas. He introduced me to the whole world of piano playing. Making music was always the most natural thing and I knew, from the very beginning, that I wanted to play the piano professionally.’

e Levit family, hailing from the same city, played a large role in Brauss’ formative years. Igor Levit’s mother, Jelena, was her rst teacher, and Igor something of an icon: ‘I wanted to be like him when I was younger, and still to this day! What he can do with his hands and his mind is incredible. It’s something very special.’ But her father remains her most important inuence. From him, she learnt how to craft her own understanding and interpretation of music – and through him she developed her love of Mozart, the composer most dear to her.

Beethoven and Schubert are also rm favourites. ‘I have a very strong connection to German music because it is literally my language. For example, when I play Schubert I can imagine the words he had in mind, like a song, so I understand the structure.’ French and Russian music (she cites Rachmaninov in particular) do not yet feature so heavily in her repertoire, but she will be performing a selection of Debussy Préludes at the Snape Maltings Festival in February. ‘With French or Russian music, it’s just a dierent kind of approach – which can be even more enriching because you don’t know the end of the journey.’ She is keen to bring more contemporary works into her repertoire, pairing them with classical pieces to build a ‘healthy connection’ with contemporary music; she included Michael Denho ’s Étude de couleurs in her debut CD alongside Beethoven’s Sonata No 7 Op 10/3, Chopin’s Second Sonata Op 35 and Prokoev’s Second Sonata Op 14. For Brauss, connections should lie at the heart of all programming: she chose the Chopin and Prokoev sonatas to follow the Beethoven because these later composers ‘are still kind of classical in terms of structure,

form and even harmony, but they develop the whole idea of the sonata. All the sonatas have four movements and they all compare in dierent ways.’ She will perform the Beethoven and Prokoev with Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses at her Wigmore Hall solo debut next June, where tonal connections will also be apparent: ‘is programme is all based around the key of D!’

Alongside solo performances, chamber music is an integral part of Brauss’ professional life. She has collaborated with 18-year-old Dutch violinist Noa Wildschut for the past year-and-a-half, and 2020 sees them tour to major European venues as part of the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) Rising Stars programme. It’s clear that Brauss thrives from communicating with other musicians – ‘it’s just the best working process’ – helping her learn more about her own musical ideas. She points out that, as a pianist, ‘everything is chamber music in the end, because you have so many voices and notes, and it’s always important to nd the right way for the voices to communicate with natural phrasing and articulation. You have to care about every single note.’

Commitment to each and every note is the root of Brauss’ philosophy on music and her role as performer. She does not actively set out to produce new

PIANO AT SIBELIUS SUMMER ACADEMY 8.-13.6.2020

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interpretations of the repertoire; she simply wants to ‘come as close to the music as possible’. Knowledge of the composer and historical period, combined with a sheer love of music, is what enables her to share the message of each piece with her audience. With self-assuredness she arms that ‘just through being myself, my playing will naturally be dierent from other musicians.’

Her unwavering focus on the music alone also explains her lack of social media presence. Unusually – and refreshingly – for a young artist today, Brauss has chosen not to engage with social media: ‘It seems that the artist often becomes more important than the music itself. I’m sceptical about the whole idea of social media – I nd it a little narcissistic.’

As to future plans, alongside performances in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK (including concertos with the BBC Philharmonic), Brauss wants to spend time working on herself as a musician and pinpointing where her true specialities lie. ‘I know I’m still young, but I’m really trying to nd out where I can best serve the music.’ IP

Elisabeth Brauss will make her Wigmore Hall solo debut on 15 June 2020 with a recital of works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Prokoev. elisabethbrauss.com