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
BRAHMS LISZT Sonata
SCHUBERT
Wanderer Fantasy
JANÁCˇEK
BRAHMS
Handel Variations 2 Rhapsodies Fantasien Op. 116
Paganini Variations
LISZT
Mephisto Waltz Tarantella Danse Macabre Isolde’s Liebestod
Sonata 1.X.1905
Sofya Gulyak
Philipp Kopachevsky
PCL0084
PCL0085
3–CD
ALKAN
Alexander Gavrylyuk
PCL0086
DEBUSSY Early piano works
GENIUS-ENIGMA
Ginastera Danzas argentinas Piano Sonata 1 • Suite de danzas criollas 3 Pieces
François-Xavier Poizat
PCL0087
ÉTUDES Op. 39 (complete) SONATA “les quatre âges” SONATINA 3 Morceaux dans le genre pathétique
Vincenzo Maltempo PCLM0088
HUBERT RUTKOWSKI, ÉRARD 1880
PCL0091
PIANO SONATAS 1 & 7 ÉTUDES VARIATIONS
SUN HEE YOU
Nikolai Kapustin’s music is unique in its genre and it is difficult to use words to define it. He uses the structures of classical music, but his language and style belong to jazz. The fusion between these two worlds was already in Ravel’s music (Concerto for piano and orchestra, Concerto for the left hand, and Violin and piano sonata no. 2) and in Rachmaninov’s Concerto no. 4, but in these composers the use of jazz was only casual, whereas it would be difficult to imagine Kapustin’s music without it. In the first half of the 20th century, when a new sound started to become popular, many critics saw it as the new American Music, and many classically trained composers like John Alden Carpenter and Aaron Copland began to incorporate jazz features into their compositions. Unlike these, Kapustin does not cross the genres following an alternative path (third stream), but his language is based on both styles: as he has stated, in comparison with crossover composers who intentionally blend these two worlds, his jazziness is not calculated: he simply cannot write otherwise. This means that for Kapustin his language also represents the natural combination of jazz
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and classical music, and this is what makes it special. His life too allows us to understand his uniqueness. He was born in 1937 in Gorlovka, Ukraine, and when he was 7 he was already displaying a great talent at the piano, after only a few lessons he had received from his mother and from his sister. At 11 he already was a selftaught composer. In the Moscow Conservatory Preparatory School he studied piano with Avrelian Rubbakh, a pupil of legendary Felix Blumenfeld, and it was during this time that he heard jazz music for the first time on the radio, teaching himself the language and writing down what he heard on the airwaves. In 1956 he was admitted to the Moscow Conservatory to study with Alexander Goldenweiser, one of the most important pedagogues of his days. In the same year he began to play in Juri Saulsky’s band, and with them he premiered his first work, the Concertino for piano and Orchestra. After graduating in 1961, Kapustin played all over the URSS and abroad, working with the oldest jazz orchestra still active, Oleg Lundström’s Jazz Orchestra.He started composing for orchestra and producing some arrangements
after having assimilated the art of orchestration simply by listening to great recordings. In the Seventies he worked for the orchestra of Vadim Lyudvikovsky, recording many compositions of his, and after collaborating with Russian State Symphony Cinema Orchestra, in 1980 he decided to no longer perform and dedicate himself to composing exclusively. In 1983 for the first time his pieces were published, and from 1984 to 2007 he recorded his compositions. His past as jazz musician, together with his aspirations as a classical one, has made his music an intriguing mix of classical and jazz. Kapustin’s Sonata no. 1 was written in 1984, relatively late if we consider his previous production for piano and orchestra (2 concertos and 9 other pieces), for orchestra and big band. Its title, Sonata-Fantasia, suggests an improvisation, and the first movement begins with the feeling of an improvised quest. Kapustin himself underlines that he is no jazz musician, since the improvisation is far from being perfect, and this is why he writes it down. In the first bars the theme, that proceeds irregularly in a way that makes us think of
Scriabin, is presented, until the flow of the music finds stability in the D major key; we then reach the climax of a brief yet intense development, which ends with a short coda. The second movement starts right away, and the first three movements of this piece are to be performed without interruptions. Here too we find the idea of an undefined quest, which benefits from tango, blues, and even rock ideas in the central part, to then go back to the atmosphere of the beginning and close in an impressionistic mood. The third and fourth movements offer a clear example of Kapustin’s piano virtuosity. The Scherzo leaves a Toccata mark, without ever decreasing in tension and intensity, reaching light and ironic più vivo of the coda in A major from the syncopated rhythms of the preceding section. The last movement presents a structured composition in Sonata form, and the virtuosity combines brilliancy and power. This page opens with an introduction that highlights Kapustin’s typical style, not only because of this virtuosity that fuses jazz and classical, full of accents and chromaticisms in the bass, but also because of his ability to transform the development into a full-fledged jazz solo.
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Kapustin’s Eight Concert Etudes, composed in the same year as the First Sonata, present the different technical difficulties of its piano virtuosity, with jazz, blues, boogie-woogie and ragtime stylistic features. Prelude, the first of the series, presents a rapid and vital impact, while at the same time anticipating the characteristics of the etudes that follow, as Liszt had done in the Prelude that opens his Transcendental Études. Etude no. 7, Intermezzo, turns out to be one of the most beautiful and pleasant ones, containing an improvised blues song, seduced in the second part by the use of double-thirds, with an obvious reference to the concert etudes of Chopin, Liszt and Debussy. Out of the 10 Bagatelles composed in 1991, two are presented here, bold examples of short unpretentious compositions. No. 6, characterized by its leisurely flowing, proceeds to a song-like swing, and ends with a coda in a key that, after a passionate development, reaffirms the Toccata style. Endlessly rhythmical, no. 9, an Allegretto, seems to be a cheerful example of a Baroque composition, organized in a tripartite form. Sonata no. 7, composed in 1991, presents a
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higher level of complexity compared to Sonata no. 1. The opening movement, very troubled, starts with an impetuous theme in the first two measures, followed by a songlike theme that is expanded with big contrasts, and is woven together with the first one in the development. In the closing più mosso Kapustin unleashes his recurring obsession, repeating the first theme several times, presented in the key of the beginning, G major. The Adagio amoroso of the second movement, also titled Adagio lugubre in a recording Kapustin himself made, appears to be very mournful in the first few bars, but the lyrical theme, almost in a duet between a male and a female voice, leads us to a melancholic idyll, framed by blues and jazz quotations, before going back to a nostalgic memory of the opening theme. The Minuetto that follows breaks the traditional balance of the Trio, presenting in the second theme an unexpected reference to the beginning of the sonata. The Allegro vivace that ends the compositions concentrates in a short span the monumentality of the first two movements, offering in a few minutes the essence of Kapustin’s music. Composed in the key of the sonata, it presents
two characteristic syncopated themes, a perfect paradigm of Kapustin’s style in which he combines classical and jazz. After showing his virtuosity, as if to finalize the majestic first movement, he concludes the work, once again, with the triumphant thematic material with which he opened the sonata. The Variations op. 41 (1984) is a homage to Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and he quoted the famous theme of the bassoon. In the variations that follow Kapustin enriches this melody with the colors and the timbres of jazz music, clothing it with the stylistic features of the meltin’pot. From a triple meter starts a fast movement that gives rise to a prayer-like Larghetto, in which we hear building up the expectation for the dizzying final movement, signature of Kapustin’s piano mastery. Sun Hee You Translation by Emanuele De Biase
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SUN HEE YOU Among the most interesting emerging talents, the pianist Sun Hee You is gathering successes and approval both from the public and from the juries of the competitions. In particular, she has been praised for her passion at the keyboard, based on a profound artistic and professional solidity. Ever since her debut with Seoul’s Yangeum Orchestra in Beethoven’s Second Concerto, she has succeeded in transforming the gifts of an enfant prodige into the expressive and technical maturity of a complete artist. She has played with many orchestras, among which the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma, the Orchestra Sinfonica Abbruzzese, the Kaunas Symphony Orchestra and the Stara Zagora Orchestra, playing under the conduction of Francesco La Vecchia, Julian Kovachev, Pavel Berman, Rui Massena and Yun Ho Chu. Sun Hee has performed in important venues, such as the Auditorium Conciliazione (Rome), Santa Cecilia Hall of Parco della Musica (Rome), the Societe Chopin (Geneva), the Sejong Center (Seoul), Teatro Luigi Pirandello (Agrigento) and the Hall of the Conservatory of Kristiansand.
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After obtaining numerous victories in several national competitions she was awarded the first prize at the Vanna Spadafora International Competition (Rome) and the Città di Avezzano International Competition, where she was also given the prize of the public. Born in Seoul, Sun Hee You has studied at the famous Yewon School, to then move to Italy where she obtained the Diploma from the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia (Rome) under the guidance of Fausto di Cesare; she went on to study with Lazar Berman and Valentina Berman at the Accademia musicale di Firenze and with Rocco Filippini for Chamber music. She has also had to opportunity to work with famous artists such as Bruno Canino, Oxana Yablonskaya, Paul Badura-Skoda and Boris Petrushansky. Her repertoire goes from the Baroque Period to the Twentieth Century; for Naxos she has recorded A notte alta, La Partita, and Scarlattiana, for piano and orchestra by Alfredo Casella with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma conducted by Francesco La Vecchia.