Was so lovely a recording of such sweet-souled music expected from modernist virtuoso Leif Ove Andsnes? Was it expected that the sharp-cornered and hard-edged Andsnes -- the player whose Schumann is tart, whose Brahms is bitter, whose Chopin is cruel -- could have played Grieg's delightful and delectable Lyric Pieces with such beauty of tone, ...
This performance of Grieg's Piano Concerto with Mariss Jansons leading the Berliner Philharmoniker is not the first time Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes has recorded his fellow-countryman's concerto. Back in 1990 when he was a young steel-fingered super-virtuoso, Andsnes also recorded the work with Dmitri Kitayenko and the Bergen Philharmonic ...
What a brilliant idea: having Pierre Boulez record Bartók's Piano Concertos (3) with three different soloists and three different orchestra. That way, each work has its own sound and identity with the only constants being the composer and the conductor. In Bartók's Concerto No. 1, Boulez welds Krystian Zimerman's graceful intensity and the Chicago ...
Before issuing this recording, the Artemis Quartett had already made clean, tight, and driven performances of several Beethoven quartets and a Verklärte Nacht that could seduce even the most chaste listener, and Leif Ove Andsnes was already established as one of the finest living pianists. But something about the combination of the two here doesn ...
Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and conductor Antonio Pappano work in tandem to give Rachmaninov's first two piano concertos zing and excitement. They bring out all the drama in these concertos, going full tilt where Rachmaninov calls for it, but they don't quite let it slip into hearts and flowers sentimentality in the slow movements. They keep these ...
With the performers on this disc, you would expect first-rate performances of Dvorák's Violin Concerto and his Piano Quintet. Unfortunately, no matter what you think of the performances, the sound quality of the recording will leave you disappointed. In both the concerto and the quintet, the sound from everyone is rather thin and flat. The depth ...
Béla Bartók's Sonatas (2) for violin and piano (1921-1922) reflect the influences of Schoenberg, Debussy, and Hungarian folk music, though not necessarily in that order and not always in a distinguishable way. Lusty and austere by turns, the Violin Sonata No. 1 has many violent, expressionist episodes, though these are ameliorated somewhat by ...
Titled Horizons and subtitled "A Personal Collection of Piano Encores," Leif Ove Andsnes' 2006 release can only make longtime fans of his playing ask three little questions: Andsnes? Encores? Really? A self-confessed "very serious young pianist" who played "only the most important repertoire," Andsnes had heretofore always seemed to be the ...
The idea of Ian Bostridge's Winterreise has promise. He has made a number of enjoyable Schubert recordings (particularly his first set on EMI, with Julius Drake), and there are surprisingly few recordings of the cycle by tenors -- the voice for which it could best be said to have been written. Throw in Leif Ove Andsnes, one of today's hottest ...
One inevitably wonders why pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and tenor Ian Bostridge have joined together for this disc of one sonata and four songs by Schubert. Is there a subtle tie between the sonata and the songs? Are the songs' melodies the basis of the one or more movements of the sonata? Are the song's emotional contents somehow connected to those ...
Punk Mozart? Surely, you jest. And yet here it is: spiky, angular, and hard as a shiv, Leif Ove Andsnes' performances of Mozart's Jeunehomme and Piano Concertos in B flat major with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra cuts to the quick of the music and reveals Wolfgang in leather and chains.And, amazingly enough, it works. Andsnes is the tough-guy ...
Recorded in 1997 and first released in 1998, Leif Ove Andsnes' The Long, Long Winter Night was re-released only 10 years later in early 2007. And while tt was bad to see it go out of print, it was good to see it return to the catalog so quickly. Why? Because this disc should be readily available until the music on it is as familiar as Für Elise or ...
This album is a budget-priced reissue of part of Leif Ove Andsnes' 1992 recording of all of Chopin's sonatas, and it's really worth more than its price compared to similar recordings. Andsnes' playing is always technically smooth, clear, and naturally expressive without being forced, overly sentimental, or overwrought. The drama in the opening of ...
This is the third disc by Andsnes and Bostridge that combines one of Schubert's piano sonatas with a few of his songs. Here it is, Schubert's great, final sonata, two songs, and an infrequently heard melodrama. Whether or not Schubert recognized the sonata as his last, a presentiment of death is often attributed to its mien, particularly in the ...
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