A l s o ava i l a b l e A selection of Piano Classics titles
Variations
For the full listing please visit www.piano-classics.com Prokofiev PIANO SONATAS 7 & 8
Stravinsky
FIREBIRD (arr. Agosti/Korsantia)
Rachmaninoff Moments Musicaux Op. 16 Transcriptions
COMPLETE PIANO MUSIC
FRANÇOIS DUMONT
BEETHOVEN Eroica Variations
Alexander Ghindin
ALEXANDER KORSANTIA
2-CD
LIVE RECORDINGS
PCL0053
RAVEL
PCL0054
PCLD0055
CILEA
RACHMANINOFF Chopin Variations
Acque correnti
COPLAND Piano Variations
Piano Music Cello Sonata
Bach
& THE EARLY PIANOFORTE Sandro De Palma, piano
PCL0059
PCL0062
Luca Guglielmi CRISTOFORI PIANO 1726 SILBERMANN PIANO 1749 HUBERT CLAVICHORD 1784
MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition SCHUMANN: Kinderszenen
Alexander Gavrylyuk
PCL0063
Alexander Korsantia
Beethoven certainly considered that the two sets variations he completed in late 1802 followed the “new way” of composing he had recently embarked upon. He wrote to his new publishers Breitkopf und Härtel to emphasize their originality and novelty and, while no doubt seeking to reassure them that the 50 ducat fee was money well spent, Beethoven genuinely believed these variations to be in a different league from all the others he had previously produced and as such, “worthy of inclusion among the number of my greater works” that were dignified with an opus number – Op. 35 in the case of the E flat major set. He even suggested including a foreword to this effect, but Breitkopf und Härtel, who were already experiencing the usual difficulties encountered by all Beethoven’s publishers, were in no mood to indulge him. One of many points of dispute between them was that the E flat set contained only fifteen variations rather than the much larger number (either thirty or twenty-four) which their correspondence with Beethoven and his brother Carl had led them to expect. It is however possible to detect within this complex work more than the fifteen specific variations Beethoven actually marked in the autograph - in the sections preceding the
statement of theme, in the double variations within Variations 14 and 15 and the Andante con moto section and in the elaboration of the fugal Finale. Breitkopf also ignored his request to indicate that the original theme was taken from his music for the 1801 ballet The Creatures of Prometheus (Op 43), which he was also to employ as the basis of the finale of the Third symphony. The initial sketches for the symphony are contemporaneous with those for the variations and the close relationship between the opening sections of the Eroica’s fourth movement and Op. 35 has resulted in frequent reference to the latter as “Eroica Variations”, although Beethoven’s clear preference was for an association with the Prometheus music. He completed Op. 35 in the autumn of 1802 while at Heiligenstadt and during the dark period of his profound and occasionally suicidal depression as witnessed in the Heiligenstadt Testament. This however leaves no trace in this robustly confident work which, as many commentators have pointed out, contains much humour – abrupt dynamic shifts, unusual accentuation and obsessive repetition (most prominently in Variation 13) - the principal joke being the postponement of
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the theme until we have heard three “variations” in two, three and four parts on its bass line. Op. 35 also displays Beethoven’s increasing tendency to shift the centre of gravity of his works towards their conclusion. After the fifteen thematic variations, he launches into a 132 bar fugue on the first four notes of the original bass line followed by a 64 bar Andante con moto which together equal the rest of the work in length. The performer Beethoven had in mind for the PrometheusVariations was, of course, himself and the writing was to some extent tailored to suit his own performance style. Copland invited Walter Gieseking to give the première of his PianoVariations but the pianist declined, claiming that its “crude dissonances” would be too much for audiences to stomach. Copland therefore played the work himself at its first performance in January 1931, to his own great satisfaction: as he commented “ the Variations filled a special niche as the first of my works where I felt very sure of myself ”. Initial critical reaction seemed to confirm Gieseking’s judgment, but the Variations soon became hailed as a work of decisive originality, although various descriptions of it as “craggy”, “nervous”, “lonely”, “stark”
and “austere” accurately reflect its prevailing mood and Copland himself associated it with a journey into “the very essence of tragic reality”. The twenty variations and coda form a tightly-constructed, organic whole in which every element in some way derives from or is related to the opening four note sequence: E-B sharp/C natural-D sharp-C sharp. While Copland’s debt to Schoenbergian serialism is clear and acknowledged, the Variations show the influences of Stravinsky, jazz and Bach (the 4th Fugue of Das wohltemperierte Klavier 1 opens with the same four notes in different order). The apparently seamless sequence of variations, in which each leads naturally into the next, is all the more remarkable as Copland wrote them in no particular order before condensing sixty–two pages of sketches into the finished version which seems to contain no superfluous or extraneous matter. His explanation for this achievement was simply that “ one fine day when the time was right, the order of the variations fell into place”. The Variations on a Theme by Chopin (Op 22) was Rachmaninoff’s first major work for solo piano and the first of his extended treatments of themes supplied by other composers. He began work in August 1902 on
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Alexander Korsantia his return to Russia, following an extended honeymoon during which he and his wife visited Venice, Lucerne, Bayreuth and Vienna where he met the Polish pianist and teacher Theodor Leschetizky, to whom the Variations are dedicated. He took as the basic theme Chopin’s Prelude Op 28 no. 20 in C minor, truncating the original by the omission of bars 5-8, and the harmonic possibilties of the measured chord progressions (not unrelated to his own Prelude in that key) provided solid ground on which to construct a musical edifice (as Busoni had done before him and Mompou was to do in due course). It has been proposed that the progression of the twentytwo variations conceal a three or even four
movement work but such theories, although in many ways persuasive, are damaged by the fact the published edition authorizes the omission of variations 7, 10 and 12 ( in addition to the Presto coda) thus potentially removing certain building blocks from any proposed inner structure. Rachmaninoff also expressed his dissatisfaction with the work as it stands, remarking that he had taken to playing it in “ shortened and altered form” and stating his intention to issue a new edition. Unfortunately this never materialised so his final thoughts remain obscure. Author: David Moncur.
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Dubbed “a major artist” by the Miami Herald and a “quiet maverick” by the Daily Telegraph, pianist Alexander Korsantia has been praised for the “clarity of his technique, richly varied tone and dynamic phrasing” (Baltimore Sun), and a “piano technique where difficulties simply do not exist” (Calgary Sun). The Boston Globe found his interpretation of Pictures of an Exhibition to be “a performance that could annihilate all others one has heard.” And the Birmingham Post gushed that “his intensely responsive reading was shot through with a vein of constant fantasy, whether musing or mercurial.” Ever since winning the First Prize and Gold Medal of the Artur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition and the First Prize at the Sidney International Piano Competition, Korsantia’s career has taken him to many of the world’s major concert halls, collaborating with renowned conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Gianandrea Noseda, and Paavo Jarvi and orchestras as
the Chicago Symphony, Kirov Orchestra and Israel Philharmonic. Resent seasons bring him to the Cincinnati Symphony, Pacific, Louisville, Oregon, Vancouver, Omaha and Elgin symphonies, a summer stint with the Israel Philharmonic where he performed Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto and the 2nd Brahms Piano Concerto nine times, Israel Chamber Orchestra with Beethoven’s Fourth, Fifth and early E flat major Concerto. In Europe he is heard in Germany on tour with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse performing Chopin’s 2nd Piano Concerto, RAI Orchestra in Turin performing Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto, Kirov Orchestra Gergiev conducting with Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini, Oslo Philharmonic with Dvorak Concerto, British Youth Orchestra Noseda conducting with Stravinsky Concerto, Polish Radio Orchestra as well as with the Neuburg Chamber
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Orchestra. In August 2008 he has toured Brasil with Israel Symphony Orchestra performing Rachmaninoff’s Second concerto. He also gave recitals at the Festival Piano Jacobins in Toulouse, Calgary, San Francisco, Lodz, and his hometown, Tbilisi, Georgia. Other noteworthy engagements have included a televised performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg; performances at the Stresa Festival in Italy under the baton of Yuri Bashmet; concerts at the Newport, Tanglewood, Vancouver, Gilmore festivals; with the symphony orchestras of Louisville, Brazil, Bogota, Jerusalem and the City of Birmingham, the Georgian State Orchestra, the Kirov Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra and others. He has also participated in a United States recital tour with renowned violinist Vadim Repin.
Enjoying great popularity in Georgia, his country of birth, in 2004 he was awarded one of the most prestigious national awards, the Medal of Honor, bestowed on him by then-President, Eduard Shevardnadze. In 2003 National TV released a full-length documentary about him. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Alexander Korsantia began his musical studies at an early age. Among his mentors are his mother, Sventlana Korsantia and Tengiz Amiredjibi, Georgia’s foremost piano instructor. In 1992, he moved his family to the United States and joined the famed piano studio of fellow Georgian, Alexander Toradze, at Indiana University. Korsantia resides in Boston where he is a Professor of Piano on the faculty of the New England Conservatory.
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