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Track Listings
| 1. 12 Études in all the minor keys |
| 2. Little Nocturne |
| 3. Con intimissimo sentiment |
| 4. Theme and Variations Cathys Variations |
Product Description
Review
As a Pianist/Composer Marc-Andre Hamelin's abilities know no bounds.I hope your disc sells millions.After all, no piano music lover can afford to miss it. GRAMOPHONE RECORDING OF THE MONTH --Gramophone awards issue,2010
Hamelin's original etudes are as enjoyable as his homages.While brashly flaunting his influences(Gershwin,Poulenc,Rachmaninov)he sounds utterly individual.Of course,the composer makes all the technical difficulties sound easy to play in these vividly recorded performances. Perfomance ***** Recording ***** BBC MUSIC INSTRUMENTAL CHOICE --BBC Music Magazine,Nov 2010
Hamelin's original etudes are as enjoyable as his homages.While brashly flaunting his influences(Gershwin,Poulenc,Rachmaninov)he sounds utterly individual.Of course,the composer makes all the technical difficulties sound easy to play in these vividly recorded performances. Perfomance ***** Recording ***** BBC MUSIC INSTRUMENTAL CHOICE --BBC Music Magazine,Nov 2010
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Marc-André Hamelin, with this disc,continues in a line of distinguished composer-pianists who have written a series of études for solo piano. (Chopin,Alkan, Liszt, Scriabin, Liapunov, Godowsky and Sorabji being some of the others.)
The reason I mention these composers is that Hamelin pays tribute to some of them by using one or more of their tunes, in his studies. Chopin (No.1 and No. 10) Liszt (No 3), Alkan (No. 4), and, although unmentioned in his program notes, surely a slight reference to the heady world of Sorabji in the Prelude of No. 12.
The time of composition of these works span some years and a few of the twelve were already available on CD.
It is great to now have a complete set.
The music is of the highest order, with composing of great diversity, feeling and wit.
The first study employs not two (à la Godowsky) but three Chopin studies, in one piece. The idea verges on the outrageous, but in Hamelin's music, and fingers, it works!
Needless to say, the technical demands made on the pianist, in this case the composer himself, are gargantuan.
It is only my personal opinion, but I believe Hamelin to be in a class of his own when it comes to technical mastery at the keyboard.
Some of the demands are almost beyond the possible and I am sure many other pianists have looked at the scores of some of these works and decided to leave well alone.
So, in summary we have here twelve studies exploring every aspect of what the piano is capable of producing.
The works are most enjoyable and very individual.
The CD is rounded off with some shorter pieces and ends with Cathy's Variations, dedicated to the Composer's wife.
It is almost superfluous to add that the recording is of the usual exemplary standard that Hyperion produces, time after time.
The reason I mention these composers is that Hamelin pays tribute to some of them by using one or more of their tunes, in his studies. Chopin (No.1 and No. 10) Liszt (No 3), Alkan (No. 4), and, although unmentioned in his program notes, surely a slight reference to the heady world of Sorabji in the Prelude of No. 12.
The time of composition of these works span some years and a few of the twelve were already available on CD.
It is great to now have a complete set.
The music is of the highest order, with composing of great diversity, feeling and wit.
The first study employs not two (à la Godowsky) but three Chopin studies, in one piece. The idea verges on the outrageous, but in Hamelin's music, and fingers, it works!
Needless to say, the technical demands made on the pianist, in this case the composer himself, are gargantuan.
It is only my personal opinion, but I believe Hamelin to be in a class of his own when it comes to technical mastery at the keyboard.
Some of the demands are almost beyond the possible and I am sure many other pianists have looked at the scores of some of these works and decided to leave well alone.
So, in summary we have here twelve studies exploring every aspect of what the piano is capable of producing.
The works are most enjoyable and very individual.
The CD is rounded off with some shorter pieces and ends with Cathy's Variations, dedicated to the Composer's wife.
It is almost superfluous to add that the recording is of the usual exemplary standard that Hyperion produces, time after time.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Marc-Andre Hamelin is perhaps the greatest techician in the world today so I came to this disc expecting piano pyrotechnics. What I didn't expect is the sheer musicality and wit of much of the writing. I wouldn't put Hamelin with the great composer-pianist but he shows here that he is in the line of great pianist who compose more than acceptably on the side. Most entertaining - with playing of a preternatural techinique! I just wonder how many pianists today could play this stuff. An interesting thought. Recommended for all pianophiles.
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I came across Marc Andre Hamelin some months back on a R3 performance in which he was playing Alkan. I was driving at the time and I recall being made to sit bolt upright by the crackling energy of his playing. That led me on to the very fruitful discovery of several of Alkan's works on CD, played by both Hamelin and others. The end of the performance was taken up by a couple of Hamelin's own etudes, which again seemed to convey a uniquely intense excitement. I was somewhat disappointed to discover that only a couple of these etudes were available on disc, as fillers on his recordings of other composers. So I was most gratified to see that now we have a disc entirely of Hamelin's compositions, which are as extraordinary as the pianist who penned them.
I must concur with the reviewer above who would place Hamelin in a class of his own. We admire other pianists for making the difficult look easy, but Hamelin for making the impossible possible. It is not only the dazzling speed and precision of his awesome virtuosity that sets him apart. It is the extraordinary soundworlds that he manages to conjure, that somehow makes the piano more than the instrument with which we are so familiar. He plays at times as much with his fists as with his fingers, and beneath his hands the piano becomes an infernal engine that growls and roars, leaps and whirls. This might sound alarming to aesthetes of one hue or another, but this is no mere showmanship, all this prodigious energy being deployed in the service of a particularly rich and full-blooded musicality.
The reviewer above has listed some of the composers whose spirits have been invoked in the creation of these wonderful compositions, their works having been used to serve as their basis, more or less disguised. The results can stand proud alongside the very best of their forerunners, being masterpieces in the great Romantic tradition, leavened, just a little, here and there, with nods and winks to the music of the intervening period, just enough to make them fresh and of their time. In so doing Hamelin makes an eloquent case for the progression of that tradition through incremental evolution. If only there were more composers like him at work today.
This disc is an absolute must for anyone who would claim to be a lover of the very greatest of Romantic piano music.
I must concur with the reviewer above who would place Hamelin in a class of his own. We admire other pianists for making the difficult look easy, but Hamelin for making the impossible possible. It is not only the dazzling speed and precision of his awesome virtuosity that sets him apart. It is the extraordinary soundworlds that he manages to conjure, that somehow makes the piano more than the instrument with which we are so familiar. He plays at times as much with his fists as with his fingers, and beneath his hands the piano becomes an infernal engine that growls and roars, leaps and whirls. This might sound alarming to aesthetes of one hue or another, but this is no mere showmanship, all this prodigious energy being deployed in the service of a particularly rich and full-blooded musicality.
The reviewer above has listed some of the composers whose spirits have been invoked in the creation of these wonderful compositions, their works having been used to serve as their basis, more or less disguised. The results can stand proud alongside the very best of their forerunners, being masterpieces in the great Romantic tradition, leavened, just a little, here and there, with nods and winks to the music of the intervening period, just enough to make them fresh and of their time. In so doing Hamelin makes an eloquent case for the progression of that tradition through incremental evolution. If only there were more composers like him at work today.
This disc is an absolute must for anyone who would claim to be a lover of the very greatest of Romantic piano music.
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