Russian Last Romantics - Berlinskaya, Ludmila - Glazunov, Alexander
Leveranstid: Skickas vanligtvis inom 2-5 dagar
Firma Melodiya presents the second disc from the Two Pianos Originals project recorded by the piano duo of Ludmila Berlinskaya and Arthur Ancelle. The representatives of the famous artistic dynasties and apprentices of different musical and performing traditions, they began to perform together in 2011 and have won the hearts of listeners in Russia, France, Switzerland and other countries. The duo’s first joint CD was highly acclaimed by BBC Music Magazine. The artists’ subsequent releases on Melodiya received praises from the press and a series of prestigious prizes such as the editorial prize of the British magazine Gramophone, the Album of the Year of the French newspaper Le Monde and the Maestro Pianiste award. The musicians’ collaboration with Russia’s biggest record label started in 2014 when their disc with Prokofiev’s music became the first new Melodiya release in twenty-five years. The musicians have also released solo albums – so, Berlinskaya’s latest one, Reminiscenza, were awarded the Choc de Classica by the French magazine Classica and is a nominee for the 2019 International Classical Music Award (ICMA). Ludmila Berlinskaya, a daughter of the outstanding cellist and teacher, is an Honoured Artist of Russia and prize-winner of the Grand Prix of prestigious international competitions. Arthur Ancelle is a great grandson of the legendary opera diva Fanny Heldy. The son of a theater director, he has actively performed in France and abroad since he was thirteen and won recognition as an interpreter of twentieth century music. Unlike the previous recordings, the Two Pianos Originals is a project in which Berlinskaya and Ancelle turn to original works for two pianos rather than their transcriptions. If the first disc of the project, Belle Époque, was dedicated to French music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this time the listeners will meet with Russian romanticists of the first half of the twentieth century. Rachmaninoff, Glazunov and Medtner – each of them had his own way of reflecting the sunset light of late romanticism in his music. If the bright sonorousness of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Suite No. 2 written at the peak of the composer’s creative powers is well known to the public, Alexander Glazunov’s large-scale Fantasy composed in the midst of the Civil War (in the hardest winter of 1919 and 1920), just like Nikolai Medtner’s late opus, which emerged during World War II, is much less known. However, all three compositions are masterpieces of musical art and combine a virtuosic concerto style, the highest mastery of composition, the composers’ individuality and a pronounced Russian character of the music. The disc recorded by Ludmila Berlinskaya and Arthur Ancelle gives us an opportunity to feel the atmosphere of the most tragic time in the history of Russia through the eyes of its great contemporaries.