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Variations
BRAHMS
Piano Sonata Op. 1
Songs without Words Complete
Chopin
racHMaNiNOFF cHOpiN VariaTiONs
ÉTUDES
cOpLaND piaNO VariaTiONs
Alexander Korsantia
PCL0066
complete
Balázs Szokolay
Z lata C hoChieva
2-CD
PCLD0067
PCL0068
Earl Wild
BENJAMIN GODARD
The complete transcriptions and original piano works VOLUME 1
Schubert
Giovanni Doria Miglietta, piano
PCL0069
PCL0070
Hammerklavier Sonata
Lukas Geniušas
MENDELSSOHN LIEDER OHNE WORTE
BEETHOVEN ErOica VariaTiONs
BEETHOVEN
PIANO WORKS
Piano Sonata in B flat D960 Piano Sonata in A D664
Barcarolles Scènes italiennes Vingt pièces Op. 58
Klára Würtz
ALESSANDRO DELJAVAN
PCL0072
Each of these sonatas marks a point of departure for their respective composers: in Brahms’ case, the C major sonata was the work he chose to be his first published composition with which to introduce himself to a wider public (although it was written after the Op 2 F sharp minor sonata and a note on the manuscript referring to it as the “fourth” indicates that there were at least two earlier works in this form which have not survived). While, for Beethoven, the Op 106 sonata marks his return to full creativity after a long barren spell during which dogged by illness and depression and distracted by the legal battle for guardianship of his nephew Karl, he wrote little of substance. When Brahms set out on a concert tour of Germany in the spring of 1853 with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi, he took the manuscript of the C major sonata with him, not necessarily for public performance but rather in the hope of impressing the great and the good he might meet along the way. After a disastrous encounter with Liszt, when
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he was observed either to have fallen asleep while Liszt was performing his recently completed B minor sonata or at least not to be giving the music his full and undivided attention, he finally found the support he sought in Schumann whom he plucked up the courage to visit at the end of September. When Brahms began playing the C major sonata, Schumann asked him to stop after only a few bars so that Clara could be summoned. “Now” he said to her when she arrived “you will hear music such as you have never heard before”. Schumann’s enthusiastic, if somewhat hyperbolic, endorsement of Brahms and his music was to prove pivotal in the launch his career and Robert and especially Clara, were play a continuing and important role in his personal life. The opening bars unmistakably recall those of the Hammerklavier to which, save for an absent initial quaver, they are rhythmically identical. The spirit of Beethoven also hovers over the exposition whose structure recalls that of the Waldstein (a work which Brahms
knew well). Yet having acknowledged the tradition from which he has emerged (and one of its greatest exponents) Brahms has the confidence to assert his own voice, in which dynamic virtuosity producing quasiorchestral textures (Schumann referred to the early works as “veiled symphonies”) is interwoven with the spirit of the romantic lied (something which was to inform all Brahms’ music). This is most prevalent in the Andante which was not originally composed for this sonata, having already existed as an independent piece and so is probably Brahms’ first essay in variation form. He may have chosen to incorporate it into this work to create a parallel with the F sharp minor sonata which also included a “lied” influenced variation movement. The theme of the Op 1 Andante, although referred to as “after an old German Minnelied” was in fact a relatively modern folk song and Brahms made no attempt to disguise its true origins, printing the first verse with the music and pointing up its call and response structure by indicating “Vorsänger” and “Alle” at the appropriate
places. After three variations, which are no longer linked directly to the song text, a coda unrelated to the other material brings the work to a contemplative close in a descending chord sequence which is picked up in the opening bar of the Scherzo, thus knitting the movement firmly into the work (the outer movements are similarly linked through the thematic similarity of their opening bars). The Scherzo and Rondo Finale alternate vigorous passages thick with thirds, octaves with thirds and involving enormous leaps (all of which were to become typical features of Brahms’ piano music) and warmer lyrical episodes, that of the Finale apparently inspired by the Burns song “My Hearts in the Highlands”. In late summer of 1817 Beethoven confided to Czerny that he was working on a piano sonata that would be his greatest. The first two movements were complete by 17th April 1818, name day of Beethoven’s pupil and patron Archduke Rudolph to whom it is dedicated and the sketches for the first movement contain
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a version of the opening motif set to the words “Vivat vivat Rudolphus” (which may been intended for a choral work for the name day celebrations which, not untypically for Beethoven, was not ready in time). In this sonata Beethoven returns to the four-movement structure he had not employed since Opus 31 no. 3 of 1802 and which he was not to use again in the three subsequent late sonatas (although a case can be made that the Hammerklavier is actually in five movements). Its vast and complex architecture defies brief analysis but the omnipresence of the interval of the third, in particular the falling third, informs the work on a microcosmic and macrocosmic level. This is established in the opening bars in which the thunderous Vivat motif encompassing a two-octave leap and a falling third is followed by a lyrical phrase also incorporating a rising and falling third and thereafter there is a downward key progression in thirds in the development and recapitulation. As in the Ninth symphony, which Beethoven had also begun sketching around this
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time the Scherzo precedes the Adagio. The brief endlessly repeated motif of the Allegro assai, a parodic version of the opening motif, is followed by a mysterious B flat minor trio, with the movement ending in some uncertainty as to whether the key is B or B flat (the latter finally prevailing). The Adagio, one of the longest sonata movements Beethoven wrote, is introduced by a bar which he inserted at the very last moment, its rising third providing a link to the end of the Scherzo. Beethoven instructs the player to play the first F sharp minor theme una corda and throughout the movement he provides bar-by-bar pedalling instructions. After a D major episode, the theme returns in a series of extended variations alternating moments of heightened intensity with simple statements of great tranquility. The transition to the final movement is effected through a short Largo section in which the music wanders uncertainly through various keys as if trying out different possibilities until a B flat minor trill leads it into the massive fugue
featuring augmentation, retrograde, stretto and inversion forms in various combinations. The second episode introduces a brief and serene D major chorale which is then combined with elements of the fugue now restored to B flat major. A series of unison passages in the closing bars finally breaks the spell and the movement and the work ends with a passage of emphatic octaves descending and ascending inevitably in thirds. Beethoven’s judgement of his achievement in the Hammerklavier was that at last he “knew how to write music” and in its gigantic scale and massive conception it remained unrivalled in the genre (at least until Liszt who was an early champion of the work produced the B minor sonata). David Moncur
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Lukas Geniušas “ While his peers are doing their best to charm everyone around, including the global music industry, Mr Geniušas has embarked on an altogether more serious mission: an agonizing search for a performance style that is fully modern and catching the spirit of the age.” Kommersant Russia
Born in Moscow in 1990, Lukas Geniušas started piano studies at the age of 5 at the preparatory department of F. Chopin Music College in Moscow, going on to graduate with top honours in 2008. He was born into a family of musicians which played a major role in Lukas’ swift musical development. His grandmother, Vera Gornostaeva, the prominent teacher and professor at the Moscow Conservatory, became his first mentor. This culminated in Lukas winning the Silver medal at the Chopin International Piano Competition in 2010
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and, in 2012; Lukas was nominated and became the recipient of the German Piano Award in Frankfurt am Main. He has appeared with numerous orchestras including the Hamburg Symphony, Duisburg Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Kremerata Baltica, Katowice Radio and Warsaw Philharmonic. He has also collaborated with conductors such as Andrey Boreyko, Saulius Sondeckis, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Antoni Wit, Roman Kofman and Dmitry Liss amongst others. His international career has already seen him perform at venues throughout the world, as well as at a number of prestigious festivals including the Rheingau, Ruhr and Lockenhaus Music Festivals. Highlights of the 2014-15 season include concerts with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt and a return to the Festival de la Roque d’Anthéron. In recital, he will appear at the Auditorium du Louvre
in Paris and makes his London debut at the Wigmore Hall as well as giving recitals in Russia & South America. His musical interests are extensive and he explores a wide range of repertoire, from Baroque right up to works by contemporary composers. His repertoire spans from Beethoven Piano Concerti through to Hindemith’s ‘Ludus Tonalis’ Cycle, as well as a strong interest in Russian repertoire such as Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Lukas is an avid chamber music performer. He is an extremely inquisitive performer and enjoys working on new works by modern composers, as well as resurrecting rarely performed repertoire. At the age of 15, he was awarded a federal grant ‘Young Talents’ from the Russian Federation and two years later was awarded the ‘Gifted Youth of 21st Century’ grant. He has since received many accolades and awards in recognition of his talent.