‘Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.’ William A. Foster
WHO WE ARE We are two pianists: Ivo Varbanov and Fiammetta Tarli. We are based in London and have a wholehearted passion and drive to share the wonderful music we play, with as broad and far-reaching an audience as possible. We met as teenagers on a summer music masterclass in Italy. Since then our careers and relationship have grown to the point where we now have international careers as soloists and chamber musicians, and are married with a beautiful son. We love to listen to well-recorded music, free of compression and as near as possible to the real live performance. Generally, the aim of classical music recordings is to re-create the atmosphere of a concert. We like to think that our work at ICSM Records adheres to this principle. The artists who record for our label are like-minded artists who share the same values and passion. We strongly believe in a simple fact: well-recorded music can sound satisfactory in every possible format. We are very happy with our LPs and HD Master Studio format (192khz/24bit) as the ultimate (for the moment) analogue and digital audio formats. We are confident that whatever your preference, you will enjoy our music. ICSM RECORDS was founded in 2014 in London, UK. www.icsmrecords.com
The first release on ICSM Records (ICSM 001) features the complete recording of Johannes Brahms’s four-hand Waltzes. Dance music was in his blood. Two particular dance styles fascinated him throughout his life, the waltz and the Hungarian Czárdás. Here we explore what he could do with waltz rhythms, even on the smallest scale, in the medium of the piano duet. Brahms’s two sets of Liebeslieder-Walzer (‘Lovesong Waltzes’) used to be among his best-known works. These beguiling little waltz-songs remind us of a time before radio or television, when domestic music-making was a fact of life, a time when ‘quartet parties’ were frequent and when families would gather around the piano to play and sing for their evening entertainment.
ICSM 001 (OMNIA) Brahms on the piano – volume 1 J. Brahms, Walzer, Op. 39 Liebeslieder Walzer, Op. 52a Neue Liebeslieder-Walzer, Op. 65a Fiammetta Tarli & Ivo Varbanov piano four hands
Here you have an hour of sheer delight. Klassisk Musikkmagasin (Norway) A dizzying experience. Stephen Pritchard, The Observer (UK) An absolute delight to hear. Jerry Dubins, Fanfare (USA)
Performed by Fiammetta and Ivo, these interpreters enthral the listener with an imaginary fantasy on the waltz form, whose underlying theme is love.
and the piano transcription by Ferruccio Busoni of six of the eleven Chorale Preludes for organ, Op. 122, by Johannes Brahms.
ICSM 002 (SOLO) LEGACY L. van Beethoven, Bagatelles, Op. 126 R. Schumann, Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133 J. Brahms, Six Chorale Preludes, Op. 122 (transcribed by F. Busoni) Ivo Varbanov, piano
His playing has a quality of utmost subtlety, reverence, and seriousness of purpose. — Scott Noriega, Fanfare (USA) … it radiates the right sort of authority. Michael Church, BBC Music Magazine (UK) The first solo release by Ivo Varbanov on ICSM Records (ICSM 002) features the final piano works by Ludwig van Beethoven (Bagatelles, Op. 126), Robert Schumann (Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133)
Beethoven’s Bagatelles, written three years before his death, were considered by the composer to be the best of their kind that he had written, a true cycle of miniatures. Schumann’s Morning Songs, with their visionary intimacy inspired by the renowned German poet Friedrich Hölderlin, were written just a few months before Schumann’s tragic attempt to drown himself in the Rhine, as a result of his mental illness; the content is in stark contrast to his early piano works. As for Brahms’s Chorale Preludes, written following the death of his beloved Clara Schumann, they are works of lonely self-communing and consolation, the ultimate fruit of his lifetime immersion in early music. In these rarely performed transcriptions, Busoni has reimagined them in the style of Brahms’s own late piano pieces. More than a search for ultimate messages, this recording is a philosophical journey through the later lives of Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms, performed by Ivo in a minimalist but poignant manner.
All three piano works were performed at crucial moments in Brahms’s life: the Piano Sonata was the focus of one of the most romantic ‘first encounters’ in musical history. The handsome 20-year-old unknown from Hamburg presented himself at Robert Schumann’s house in Düsseldorf on 1 October 1853. Schumann invited him to play something, whereupon he sat down to begin the C major Sonata. ‘Visit from Brahms, a genius’, wrote Schumann in his diary for that day. The Scherzo, Op. 4, was one of the first works Brahms showed to Franz Liszt and to Schumann in 1853. Liszt found the piece so congenial that he played it to an assembled company at Weimar.
Ivo Varbanov, piano
The Ballades emerged at a fateful juncture in the 21-year-old Brahms’s life, shortly after his revered friend and patron Schumann had attempted suicide and been confined in a sanatorium near Bonn. Brahms had thus suddenly been thrust into the role of protector and comforter of Schumann’s wife Clara and her children, and was simultaneously wrestling with the fact that he had fallen in love with her. The Ballades, his first group of short lyric pieces, are prophetic of the compressed masterpieces of his later years.
Varbanov’s powerful, muscular reading of [Brahms's] op. 1 Sonata leaves no doubt of his authority. I was particularly impressed by the sweep of the first movement and the touching simplicity Varbanov brings to the folksong-based slow movement. – Huntley Dent, Fanfare (USA)
Ivo’s visionary choice of pieces is matched by his powerful rendition. This recording will impress the listener with its supreme beauty of sound and the interpreter’s unusual choices.
ICSM 004 (OMNIA) Brahms on the piano – volume 2 J. Brahms, Piano Sonata, Op. 1, Scherzo, Op. 4, Ballades, Op. 10
The second solo release by Ivo Varbanov on ICSM Records (ICSM 004) presents early piano works by Johannes Brahms: his Piano Sonata No. 1 in C major, Op. 1, the Scherzo, Op. 4, and the four Ballades, Op. 10.
This concert was a special night, probably one of those special concerts that happen rarely in one’s lifetime. Looking back, I can say that I am very happy I organised the gig at the South Bank in London for the Theodosii Spassov Trio. We had not been planning to record the concert, but after listening to the rehearsal, we decided to. But it was a Sunday, and the only thing available in the hall for recording was a mini-disc recorder plugged into the mixer. It was obviously not ideal, but we did not have a choice. At 5 p.m. I took a cab and went in search of a few blank mini-discs. I found some just ten minutes before closing time and made it to the South Bank fifteen minutes before the beginning of the concert. The quality of the recording itself is not what we would like a recording to be, but it has a very meaningful story behind it. It is also very significant because this is one of only three recordings available of this Trio. ICSM 005 (KOSMOS) Theodosii Spassov Trio, Live in London Theodosii Spassov, kaval, duduk, melodica, vocals Rumen Toskov, piano, keyboard Hristo Yotsov, drums, percussion Live at the South Bank Centre, London, on 30 June 2002
For me it is a privilege to release this disc, despite its shortcomings, because of the presence of the pianist Rumen Toskov, who is no longer with us. He died at the age of 41 on 22 July 2010 from lymphatic cancer. This recording is dedicated to his memory. Ivo Varbanov
They are thought to have originated as working scores while the ballets were in rehearsal: a few weeks before its first public performance, Stravinsky played through the first half of The Rite with Debussy, who was deeply impressed, admitting in a letter that ‘it still haunts me like a good nightmare’. Moreover, Stravinsky himself held these duet versions – his only ballet transcriptions for one piano/four hands, and the only complete arrangements he ever made of Petrushka and the Rite – in sufficiently high regard to revise them, along with the orchestral scores, in 1947.
ICSM 006 (DIALOGUE) LÉGENDES ANCIENNES I. Stravinsky, Pétrouchka, Le Sacre du printemps (original piano four hands versions by the composer) Fiammetta Tarli and Ivo Varbanov piano four hands … these four hand versions by Stravinsky translate into piano music with conspicuous success. – Classical CD Choice (UK) There is a persuasive argument for regarding the piano-duet arrangements of Stravinsky’s ballet scores as more than poor substitutes for the genuine article. On the one hand, they have lasting historical value, allowing us to experience masterpieces at a seminal, investigative stage of their development. The details and new perspectives that emerge in the piano versions hed new light upon the composer’s musical invention, as well as his architectural mastery.
Fiammetta and Ivo, as a piano duo, show just how these dense orchestral scores, when translated into purely pianistic terms, become completely new pieces which deserve their rightful place in the piano duo repertoire. On the other hand, the percussive nature of the piano brings to the forefront the harmonic bones and steely textures of the ballets, particularly in the Rite of Spring. The two pianists never compromise on the beauty of their sound and sensitive phrasing, yet this deceptively soft approach is flanked by massive sonorities and challenging virtuosity when facing acrobatic passages: the score calls for a compression of ideas within the seven octaves of the keyboard, which requires swift hand-crossings and changes between the players.
This recording is a classic by virtue of the natural flow of the music and the extraordinary empathy between Hristo Yotsov and the Donchev brothers, Anthony and George. Acoustic Version has always been about the musical synergy and chemistry between the players. Their classical training and cultural background combine to create a style which is hard to pigeon-hole. Certainly, there are elements of Bulgarian folklore – treated in an ‘urban’ way – blended with a European classical music heritage of chamber music-making and experimental contemporary jazz.
ICSM 009 (KOSMOS) Time In Time Out Acoustic Version Anthony Donchev, piano Hristo Yotsov, drums, vibes George Donchev, bass
Donchev and Yotsov have managed to extend the jazz language to fields, where no one has made experiments. – The Magazine of the European Jazz Association – Jazz Forum Most jazz fans will remember Milcho Leviev and his quartet Focus ’65, which was awarded the Critic’s Prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1967. Over the last 30 years jazz, ethno-jazz and fusion have flourished in Bulgaria, featuring some uniquely talented musicians such as Theodosii Spassov and Ivo Papazov.
Their language is based on an intelligent dialogue, whereas the conventional style of a jazz trio is inclined towards personal expressive needs. The three instruments here are equals. Anthony’s voicing creates musical spaces for the other two players with the support of his left hand. George is subtle in shaping the phrases and has lots to say in his solos. Hristo, conversely, has a very rich palette of colours that helps to create a complex musical texture. Acoustic Version has retained its character, but has evolved and matured over 30 years without changing its style, thus cementing its position among the European jazz classics.
In his highly individual compositions Martin Georgiev aims at pursuing eternal themes, such as the meaning of human existence, the responsibility of the Creation to the Creator and the divine essence of the human being. In his Triptych No. 1 he uses ‘morphing modality’ – a newly created composition technique inspired by the process of computer-generated manipulation of images, ‘image morphing’ and medieval Orthodox Chant theory – to portray forces of nature, need, solitude, self-sacrifice, salvation and redemption. Yet the Triptych is not celebratory, redemptive music, and salvation at the end rings out only as distant music of the heavens (high violins, glockenspiel).
ICSM 010 (CHRONOS) GENESIS Martin Georgiev, Symphonic Triptych No. 1, Percussion Concerto No. 3, Genesis, for Marimba and Symphony Orchestra Tatiana Koleva, marimba, Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Martin Georgiev, conductor Music of celestial influence, as if watching the night sky with its myriad stars, comets, planets and meteors is somehow captured in these scores. – Lynn René Bayley, The Art Music Lounge (UK) A triumph. Bold, sophisticated compositional vision executed with brilliance. Limelight Magazine (Australia) The CD debut of the young Bulgarian-British musician Martin Georgiev brings us an entirely individual musical narrative world. – Das Orchester (Germany)
The liquid transformation technique of ‘morphing modality’ is then used to measure the spiritual implications of the biblical Creation accounts in Martin’s Percussion Concerto, Genesis, for Marimba and Symphony Orchestra. The soloist, Tatiana Koleva, has ample opportunity to make the marimba sing like a melodic instrument, to weave polyphonic textures like a keyboard, or even to raise a furious thunderstorm: the eternal battle between light and darkness. This triumphant debut recording showcases the depth and trenchant precision of Martin’s conducting and the versatility and radically innovative technique of Tatiana’s marimba playing.
‘Music must repeat the thought and aspirations of the times. My people are American, my time is today.’ This was George Gershwin’s most heartfelt belief and objective. By the end of his career he was a tennis partner of Arnold Schoenberg’s and a respected composer of a concerto and an opera. Of all the Modernist composers, Gershwin had perhaps the most remarkable faculty for assimilating and fusing diverse styles: whereas Stravinsky uses many styles – Russian folk, ragtime, Baroque, twelve-tone – holding them all gingerly at arm’s length, Gershwin synthesises so enthusiastically that it is difficult (in his concert pieces) to tell where the world of Ravel ends and where the blues begin. Gershwin may have done more than any other composer to show just how flimsy the division between ‘high’ and ‘low’ music can be. ICSM 011 (SOLO) AMERICAN DREAMS G. Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue, Preludes, Songs (transcriptions) Includes three bonus tracks from the Gershwin Songbook (arranged for piano and orchestra by Hershy Kay) Viv McLean, piano, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Simon Lee, conductor (by kind permission of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and RPO Records) The pianist Viv McLean never faltered, spewing molten lava. – The Times (UK) The pianist knows how to distribute this brilliantly between immediate power, rhythmic liveliness and a fascinating feeling for the poetry of this music. – Pizzicato (Luxembourg)
The pianist Viv McLean applies the same eclectic approach to the contrasting choice of solo piano compositions and the arrangements of songs. The nuanced tones and variety of sound, essential ingredients of classical music performance, are skilfully employed to render Gershwin’s idiom even more captivating and mellow. Her performances ensure that this will be a welcome addition to any music lover’s collection and a highly enjoyable listening experience. The final three tracks, recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, are a delightful bonus.
library, one finds a very unusual manuscript of the Stabat Mater. This particular manuscript is presented in an unexpected arrangement. Apart from a few minor modifications in the instrumental parts, the second solo-voice part is entrusted to a baritone (without a doubt because of the disappearance of the castrati), while the fugues and verse ‘O quam tristis’ are arranged for five voices. Thus, the Latin poem takes on a whole new dimension, gaining theatricality and dramatic emphasis.
ICSM 012 (CHRONOS) A NEAPOLITAN STABAT MATER A new perspective from G.B Pergolesi’s masterpiece G. B. Pergolesi, Stabat Mater Le Concert de l’Hostel Dieu Franck-Emmanuel Comte, organ and conductor It’s a unique concept Choir and Organ Music Magazine (UK) … hair-raising intensity – Gramophone (UK) Since the middle of the eighteenth century, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater has been an absolute triumph all over Europe. Its initial success in Lyon can be accredited to the booming musical societies, in particular, the Académie du Concert. This academy was one of the most formidable of its kind, performing a wide range of sacred and profane Italian and French music. In the library of this outstanding institution, now kept in Lyon’s
In order to accompany this dramatisation of the Stabat Mater, as well as nourish its intention, we have integrated various traditional Neapolitan polyphonies (Stabat Mater, Miserere …), songs (Donna Isabella, La Carpinese) and two tarantellas. This juxtaposition of scholarly music and popular art, of the sacred and the profane, conveys the Neapolitan soul. Today, this authentic spirit continues to flourish, especially during Holy week, through incredible and bewitching ceremonies. Musically, these are characterised by an astonishing convergence of religious songs sung by the celebrants, polyphonies improvised by the confrères in procession carrying the cross, ‘flonflons’ of the local band interpreting extracts from the Stabat Mater or from a Verdi opera, and simultaneously outdoors, tarantellas are sung, danced and hammered. This musical amalgamation resonates continuously on the forecourts of the churches, whose doors have remained ajar ... From all this, a collective emotion emerges, one that is mystical and festive, painful and joyous, surprising and troublesome. Franck-Emmanuel Comte
it evokes, and how it represents not only the feel and spirit of the pieces on the album, but also the distances between the land of my birth and the land of my current home, and between the three music traditions that find common ground in my work – Bulgarian, Western European ‘classical’ and American blues and jazz. Milen Kirov Music in the moment is the most ephemeral of arts. But those intangible vibrations compensate with remarkable shaping and staying power. They play with our perception of time and space, evoke memories, inspire visions, connect people and places, enlarge both our internal and external awareness and linger long in heart and mind.
ICSM 014 (CHRONOS) MILEN KIROV SPATIUM M. Kirov, includes Back to Bulgaria, Bulgarian Stride, Intermezzo I Raindrops, Pharos, Intermezzo II, For Grandma, Take 7, Tonus Peregrinus, Intermezzo III Spatium, Intermezzo IV, The Shepherd and the Mountain,Thracian Blues, Time. Milen Kirov, piano The title of this collection of pieces – some written specifically for the album, some older ones – comes from Distance, a composition I wrote in 2001 for trumpet and piano. I reimagined and reworked the piece for solo piano in 2017 and decided to use the Latin word spatium, because besides suggesting the distance between two geographical points or two people, it also means ‘space’ (the English word comes from spatium), cosmos, an interval of time … I liked the depth of its meaning, the multifaceted connotations that
That may be an overly grand introduction for an album that reminds us at every moment of music’s more primal pleasures of kinetic rhythms and ear-charming tunes. But the stunning hybridity of Milen Kirov’s music, with its complex, utterly idiosyncratic mix of multiple cultures past and present, provokes big thoughts as readily as it does tapping toes and smiling humming. (It also reminds us how hard it is to write about music – but great fun to try!).
This is the Malaysian pianist Dennis Lee’s eagerly awaited second instalment of Debussy’s complete piano music: the Préludes, Books I and II. With his Préludes, Debussy had accomplished the subtlest of music revolutions. Piano music after the Préludes would never be the same again. They are almost unparalleled in their evocative potency: any child with a vivid imagination will be able to create a story by listening to them, yet their titles appear (in brackets) at the end of each prelude, an unusual practice to encourage a more personal response from the interpreter.
ICSM 015 (OMNIA) Debussy piano works, volume 2 C. Debussy, Préludes, Livres I et II Dennis Lee, piano
Dennis Lee embarks on these landmarks of piano music with intensity and passion. Many musicians before him have recorded the Préludes; Dennis’s version captivates the listener with his restrained but apposite gestures, multi-layered sound finesse and rhythmic exactness. In this pianist’s hands the Préludes blossom like exquisite flowers and cannot but touch the soul. Unforgettable..
Fiammetta Tarli & Ivo Varbanov, two pianos
OMNIA ICSM 016
Johannes Brahms, Sonata in F minor for two pianos, Op.34b; Variations on a theme of Haydn, Op.56b, Brahms on the piano – volume 4
ICSM 016 (OMNIA) Brahms, Sonata in F minor for two pianos, Op. 34b Variations on a theme of Haydn, Op. 56b Fiammetta Тarli and Ivo Varbanov, two pianos
This disc presents the only two-piano sonata by Johannes Brahms and the version for two pianos of his Haydn Variations. Though they also appeared in other forms, the homogenous texture of these keyboard scores serves to highlight the composer’s structural mastery.
Though the piano quintet version is widely regarded as the most successful of the score’s three incarnations, Brahms thought sufficiently highly of the two-piano variant to sanction its publication in 1872 and in that edition it has maintained a foothold in the repertoire. As for his Haydn Variations, Brahms himself is thought to have expressed a strong desire that the keyboard version of them should exist in its own right and not be regarded, like the four-hand piano arrangements he subsequently made of the symphonies, as an expedient, scaled-down representation of its orchestral relation. Fiammetta and Ivo join forces again in Varbanov’s journey through all of Brahms’s music involving the piano. This recording is a significant milestone in that journey, as it is quite rare in late-Romantic repertoire to encounter two-piano music of this compositional level and density. Fiammetta and Ivo recorded both compositions at the Steingraeber factory in Bayreuth, on two of their brand-new grand pianos. The wonderful palette of these exquisitely crafted instruments allows the two pianists to plunge into rich sonorities. They entrance their listeners with Brahms’s magnificent architectures, opening the doors to Northern landscapes and contrasting moods of dark and shimmering lights. This is piano music duplicated in power and sound effects.
Jacques Cohen is equally known as a conductor and a composer. He is the Music Director of the Cohen Ensemble and has conducted many of Europe’s finest orchestras. Some of his most performed compositions for strings, including Yigdal, Love Journeys and his string orchestra arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, are fast becoming staples of the repertoire.
ICSM 017 (CHRONOS) Cohen’s Carols Original compositions and arrangements for unaccompanied choir by Jacques Cohen J. Cohen, includes Cradle Song, O Magnam Mysterium, The Twelve Days of Christmas and Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind Oxford Camerata/Jaques Cohen
Although he has written a great deal of instrumental and orchestral music, this disc testifies that Jacques is equally at home writing for voices. Most of the pieces on this disc were originally written for Christmas concerts and services given by Lloyd’s Choir to perform at its Christmas Concerts conducted by Jacques Cohen in London. Only three of them (Gaudete, I Saw Three Ships and I Wonder as I Wander) are arrangements of pre-existing melodies. The others are all original compositions. Most of the Christmas pieces are part of the Cohen's Carols anthology published by Norsk Musikforlag. As you will hear, some of them are serious, others are more fun. The disc is supplemented by Two Remembrance Anthems (Anthem for Doomed Youth and In Flanders Fields), also published by Norsk, which were originally written for the annual remembrance ceremony at Lloyd’s in London and which have remained a regular feature of that event.
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