A L S O AVA I L A B L E A selection of Piano Classics titles For the full listing please visit www.piano-classics.com ALKAN
Chanson de la folle au bord de la mer Song of the madwoman on the seashore
A collection of eccentric piano works
MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition SCHUMANN: Kinderszenen
Alexander Gavrylyuk
PCL0037
PCL0063
LISZT Sonata
SCHUBERT
Wanderer Fantasy
JANÁCˇEK
Vincenzo Maltempo, Érard 1899
PCL0083
BRAHMS
Handel Variations 2 Rhapsodies Fantasien Op. 116
Sonata 1.X.1905
Sofya Gulyak
Philipp Kopachevsky
PCL0084
PCL0085
PCLM0088
BRAHMS
Paganini Variations
LISZT
Mephisto Waltz Tarantella Danse Macabre Isolde’s Liebestod
Alexander Gavrylyuk
When Brahms chose Paganini’s Caprice in A minor (Op 1/24) as the foundation on which to build his monumental two volume Studien für Pianoforte Op 35 (1862-3) he knew that he was encroaching on musical territory inhabited by an illustrious predecessor and contemporary. Both Schumann and Liszt had used the Paganini caprice as the basis for an original study, Schumann in the first of his Studien nach Capricen von Paganini, Op 3 (1832) and Liszt in the last of the Grandes Études de Paganini, S141 (1851) which were revised and “simplified” versions of pieces written in the 1830s. Apart from wishing to pay homage to Schumann, it is likely that Brahms also intended to challenge Liszt on both compositional and pianistic terms: he was a virtuoso keyboard performer in his own right and this is his most overtly pianistic work which Clara Schumann referred to as hexenvariationen – witch variations – declaring them beyond her own considerable capacity as a pianist. That Brahms wrote the work for and dedicated it to Carl Tausig, one of Liszt’s star pupils (with whom he enjoyed both playing duets and getting drunk) adds to the piquancy of this exercise in poaching on his rival’s preserves. However by referring to them as “studies” and dividing them into two books, he also prompts an obvious and intended comparison with Chopin’s two sets of Études (and possibly also with Bach’s twin volumes for Das wohltempierte klavier).
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Brahms had a strong affinity for the variation form, introducing it into many of his works and creating several freestanding sets for one or two players. In the Op 35 variations, Brahms treats Paganini’s theme in a very different fashion to his predecessors. Schumann took it as the starting point for a freewheeling study which bears only a tenuous relationship to its model, while Liszt remained close to Paganini’s theme and eleven variations, preserving their notation where possible but presenting the player with a set of pianistic challenges that corresponded to the completely different problems the original posed to the string player. Brahms’ scheme was altogether grander and more complex: after a straightforward rendering of the twelve-bar theme (only initial arpeggiated appoggiaturas are added) each volume contains fourteen variations and an extended coda in which Brahms explores the possible permutations and treatments of the theme while setting the player a series of formidable technical challenges – double thirds and sixths, mirror figuration, octaves, leaps, trills and polyrhythms. Unlike Chopin, Brahms does not stray from the home key other than a few excursions into the relative major (I/12 and 13 and II/4) and unexpectedly into F major (II/9). Each variation follows the theme’s 24-bar bipartite structure (2 x 4 + 2 x 8) with repeats either fully written out (sometimes with minor differences) or indicated by conventional notation. The only exception is II/6 where no repetition is marked
for the first section creating a sudden a puzzling asymmetry in what is otherwise a regular structure. As this omission appears in both the autograph and the first edition to which Brahms made corrections, this is unlikely to be a simple error. Many players incorporate a repeat at this point, (as in this recording) but it is open to speculation that he may have wished to jolt the listener out of complacency with a departure from the established pattern. Liszt frequently revised or rewrote his works (often to the extent that the result is something more or less entirely new) and in 1859 he looked again at a set of four unpublished pieces he had composed in 1840 just after his return from Italy. Collectively entitled Venezia e Napoli, they were based on popular Italian tunes he had encountered on his travels, in the case of a Neapolitan piece, originally called Tarantelles, and various canzonas by Guillaume-Louis Cottrau. Substantially revised and reduced to three, they appeared in 1861 as an appendix to the second Italian volume of the Années de Pelerinage (S161). The third and final piece, now the singular Tarantella, contrasts rapidly repeated note patterns of the frenetic dance with a swooningly lyrical canzona which Liszt subjects to ever more elaborate cadenzalike treatments in a display of uninhibited exuberance, before eventually incorporating it into the hectic dance. The same process of
revision and adaption applied to a set of six pieces composed between 1844 and 1849, which were reworked prior to their publication in 1850 as Consolations S172, a title derived either from a poem by Lamartine, from Harmonies Poétiques et religieuses which had supplied Liszt with inspiration for his 1847 collection of pieces of the same name (S154) or a collection entitled Les Consolations by Charles Saint-Beuve. At a late stage Liszt replaced the original third piece in the set with a completely new composition – a dreamlike nocturne in D flat major, probably written in response to the news of Chopin’s death in October 1849 in homage of a composer for whom he had the greatest admiration. Throughout his career, beginning with the Impromptu brilliant sur des themes de Rossini et Spontini, S150 of 1824 written when he was eleven, Liszt created versions for piano of popular operatic melodies, either as faithful transcriptions or freely adapted paraphrases, among which were twenty-one treatments of excerpts from Wagner’s operas (Liszt never allowed their often troubled personal relationship to interfere with his programme of creating “modest propaganda on the inadequate piano for the sublime genius of Wagner”). In tackling the closing scene from Tristan und Isolde, S447 (1867) he was faced with the problem of replicating on what is essentially a percussive instrument the massively extended musical lines
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of soloist and orchestra and to do so deployed a battery of tremolandos, arpeggios and rapid chord repetitions, together with extensive use of the pedal (which is to be applied throughout virtually the entire piece). In the opera, Isolde’s Schlusslied (as it was then known) emerges out of nothing and so to provide a starting point, Liszt prefaces it with four bars from the Act II duet where the lovers imagine a “sehnend verlangter Liebestod” (yearned-for longed-for love death). As this is the only occurrence of the word Liebestod in the opera – Isolde does not use it herself - it has been suggested that Liszt’s inclusion of these bars in the piano version may have contributed to, if not actually created, the association of that term with the opera’s final scene. Camille Saint-Saëns was in every respect much easier to deal with than Wagner, and Liszt and he enjoyed a long and mutually supportive relationship, each championing the other’s works. When Saint-Saëns’ orchestral tone poem Danse Macabre received a cool critical response, with many including Mussorgsky, considering it a pale imitation of Totentanz, S126 Liszt indicated his approval by creating an elaborate and extended paraphrase which is considerably longer (by some 200 bars) than its model and uses tiny details of the score to generate original material (to the extent that Saint-Saens himself referred to it as a “new work”) . In 1942 Vladimir Horowitz reworked Liszt’s reworking, rendering it if possible even more brilliant but substantially
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reducing it in length to proportions more closely related to Saint-Saëns’ original. Liszt had a longstanding fascination with the Faust legend and there were many who felt that, as with Paganini, there was something diabolic about him even after his assumption of minor orders in 1865 – “Mephistopheles disguised as an abbé” as he was once memorably described. When he composed the first of his Mephisto walzes, Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke, S514 (The Dance at the Village Inn) he used a version of the Faust story by his Hungarian compatriot Nikolaus Lenau (1802-50) which departs in many respects from that made famous by Goethe. It is an overtly programmatic piece in which the events of the poem are vividly delineated in the music – the rustic fiddler tuning up, the increasingly frenetic pace of the dance once Mephistopheles takes command of the music, the song of the nightingale as the Faust and the village girl he has seduced lie exhausted in the forest after their erotic tryst which is evoked in musical terms which would do justice to Tristan and Isolde themselves. The piece also exists in an orchestral version as the second of the Zwei Episoden aus Lenau’s Faust S110/2 as well as a piano duet (S599/2), all dating from the period 1859-62, although it is now thought that the solo piano version predates the others. David Moncur
“Gavrylyuk demonstrated immense command, pianistic colour, dynamic range, dazzling technical assuredness, conviction, musical personality, and a deep understanding of the music” – Bach Track, April 2013 “Just witnessing Alexander Gavrylyuk’s clean sense of line and texture, and obvious sensitivity and imagination, one could hardly help but be impressed. But when one combines this with his visceral energy and his almost demonic whiteheat virtuosity, I can safely say that it would be almost impossible for anyone to go home from this festival other than somewhat entranced.” – Vancouver Classical Music, April 2014 Born in 1984, Alexander Gavrylyuk began his piano studies at the age of seven and gave his first concerto performance when he was nine years old. He went on to win First prize and Gold Medal at the 1999 Horowitz International Piano Competition, First Prize at the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan in 2000 where the Japanese press lauded him as the “most talented 16-year old” and, in 2005, he took both the coveted Gold Medal as well as the award for Best Performance of a Classical Concerto at the internationally renowned Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Masters Competition. Following his debut in 2010 with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Gavrylyuk has
returned to Amsterdam each year, either in recital in the Master Piano Series or with the RCO. He is now increasingly in demand by orchestras and conductors for his noble and compelling interpretations and has appeared with, among others, the Philharmonic Orchestras of New York, Los Angeles, Warsaw, Moscow, Israel and Rotterdam as well as the Royal Scottish National, Bournemouth Symphony, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, the Netherlands Philharmonic, San Antonio Symphony, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Brussels Philharmonic, the Vancouver Symphony and OFUNAM. He has collaborated with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Fedoseyev, Vladimir Jurowski, Alexander Lazarev, Lang-Lessing, Vassily Petrenko, Segerstam, Yuri Simonov, Herbert Soudant,Osmo Vänska and Andrey Boreyko. Alexander has received critical acclaim for his thrilling performances of Rachmaninov. He has performed the complete Rachmaninov concerti and the Rhapsody with both the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Neeme Järvi (May 2013) and as part of the Vancouver Symphony’s Rachmaninov Festival in March 2014 with Bramwell Tovey. He regularly visits Japan and Asia, performing with orchestras such as NHK Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic as well as regular recital tours, often playing to sell-out audiences in
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Suntory Hall and Tokyo Opera City. He returns to Russia on a regular basis and has performed with the Russian National Philharmonic under Vladimir Spivakov and the Svetlanov Russian State Symphony Orchestra, as well as recitals at the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory and at the Kremlin. At the age of 13, Alexander moved to Sydney where he lived until 2006. He has performed with all the main Australian orchestras including Melbourne and Sydney Symphonies, returning each year for concerts and recitals. In 2009 he made an acclaimed recording of the complete Prokofiev Concerti with Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Sydney Symphony which was recorded live at the Sydney Opera House. In addition to the Prokofiev cycle, he has made several recordings including a recital disc of works by Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Prokofiev for Piano Classics. His most recent recording, a recital disc featuring Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Schumann’s Kinderszenen, has been widely praised. Highlights of the 2014/15 season included concerto performances with the Concertgebouworkest, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, NHK Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Russian State Svetlanov Orchestra and Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He also gave recitals in Fribourg, Budapest, London, Vienna, Zurich, Moscow, Geneva & Tokyo.
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Alexander supports a number of charities including Theme and Variations Young Pianist Trust which aims to provide support and encouragement to young and aspiring Australian pianists as well as Opportunity Cambodia, which has built a residential educational facility for needy Cambodian children.