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CKD 244 Beethoven piano sonatas CKD 225 Beethoven last three piano sonatas CKD 248 Chopin reminiscences CKD 250 Chopin sonatas CKD 290 Ravel complete piano works vol.1 CKD 293 Rimsky-Korsakov piano duos with Vita Panomariovaite

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pages 12 | 1 Artur Pizarro piano 1 PRéLUDE ...... 1.32

THE COMPLETE PIANO WORKS 2 MENUET SUR LE NOM D’HAYDN ....2.03

3-5 SONATINE Linn is an independent precision engineering company specialising in top I Modéré ...... 5.01 quality audio and video reproduction. Founded by Ivor Tiefenbrun, MBE in II Mouvement de menuet ...... 3.23 Glasgow, Scotland in 1972, the company grew out of Ivor’s love of music III Animé ...... 3.48 and the belief that he could vastly improve the sound quality of his own hi-fi system. Now sold in over 45 countries, Linn remains unremittingly committed 6 MENUET ANTIQUE ...... 6.22 to manufacturing products for applications where sound quality matters. Linn strives to thrill customers who want the most out of life with 7-14 VALSE NOBLES ET SENTIMENTALES demonstrably higher fidelity complete audio and video entertainment I Modéré ...... 1.18 solutions. Our standards also ensure that even the most affordable Linn volume TWO II Assez lent ...... 2.21 system can communicate the sheer thrill and emotion of the performance. III Modéré ...... 1.31 IV Assez animé ...... 1.25 Linn has earned a unique reputation in the world of specialist hi-fi and multi- channel sound recording and reproduction. The company can now satisfy Recorded at St Georges Church, V Presque lent ...... 1.19 the demanding requirement of any discriminating customer who cares Bristol, UK, on the 14th & 15th April 2008 VI Vif ...... 0.45 about sound quality, longevity and reliability. Produced and engineered by Philip Hobbs VII Moins vif ...... 2.53 Post-production by Julia Thomas VIII Epilogue: lent ...... 5.19 Visit www.linn.co.uk for more information Piano technician Bruno Torrens and to find your nearest Linn dealer. Photographs of Artur Pizarro 15 À LA MANIÈRE DE… BORODINE ...1.37 by Sven Arnstein LINN PRODUCTS LTD, GLASGOW ROAD, WATERFOOT, GLASGOW G76 0EQ UK 16 À LA MANIÈRE DE… CHABRIER ...... 2.06 Photograph of t: +44 (0)141 307 7777 f: +44 (0)141 644 4262 e: [email protected] courtesy of AKG Images 17 PAVANE POUR Artur Pizarro plays a Bluthner UNE INFANTE DÉFUNTE ...... 5.49 grand piano model 1 (280cm / 9’2”) supplied courtesy of the 18-23 LE TOMBEAU DE COUPERIN Bluthner Piano Centre, London I Prélude ...... 3.17 - www.bluthner.co.uk Artur Pizarro’s management II Fugue ...... 3.47 @ pa www.tomcroxonmanagement.co.uk III Forlane ...... 6.52 www.linnrecords.com ge IV Rigaudon ...... 3.08 discover the world of linn records ELEVEN two V Menuet ...... 4.55 Linn Records, Glasgow Road,Waterfoot, Glasgow G76 0EQ, UK VI Toccata ...... 3.54 t: +44 (0)141 303 5027/9 f: +44 (0)141 303 5007 e: [email protected] ge pa

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three ge pa for Ravel ch ession, evolution, sear impr transmitted s “impersonal”. Maurice TWO and juste, and fleeting Debussy’ a unexpected “cool” l’objet an than Volume as – unlike e Debussy mor quite listener RAVEL no underwent Claude the esentation that, was pr is by that re attitude that truth s MAURICE ceived ception the per OF objective Ravel’ per an impalpable often music, quest, was general and WORKS a this goal of essionist” something lingers PIANO 3 “Impr ent”, involvement course | still of aesthetic fer e the 10 dif in ther , initial intimate pillars s COMPLETE pages the e ar Ravel’ However without Although THE “something s a o in of ds for the the e The and 244) year with solo BBC Artur eative set Lisbon Pizarr Prague, Belgian chestra, and and cr the Scottish oughout Recor and CKD Chopin’ Seville, in Oleg and complete Squar with re Or in 3’ of on thr 3 in of Series’. ed Birmingham the Hall Sonatas’ Artur of on Linn the (Linn complete of another live Smith for lease with citals ‘Best better Radio Raphaël acclaim sort s, II re for Piano the re City festivals season Panomariovaite. Festival for Radio, be Foundation Rudolfium eat collection this the ta and oxonmanagement.co.uk BBC Sonatas’ John’ gr oadcast at Philharmonic a I Vi room l. violinist br music by St to Chopin Royal ‘Performance ‘Chopin hardly shimmers... with Vo no Danish at 2003-04 s .tomcr Denmark, with Piano 248), owski, rsaw citals the with 3’ performing the 293) is can re that the Nomination Gulbenkian Jur Wa at io’ duo and to www e Ravel CKD leased d Madrid, oadcast Brussels Tr chamber have CKD by re the ar br Radio the in unity ther Sonatas oughout in visit at e a piano Sonata Aw (Linn possessed Series well Thr Lisbon (Linn ‘Beethoven includes a Vladimir Piano himself say Artur BBC wer y is Arts Maurice Porto, in o Piano with as oadcast on Third ver in chestra of with Piano one br Duos’ Society Or 2006 leased information performed Pizarr rks Mackerras, Beaux re pianist e in no spond schedule Magazine). VE concerts could o Wo re dedicated has Música performs Piano mor chestra oadcast RT des performed majestic the Let and national Beethoven six ‘Artur we - br Or da ‘Reminiscences’ Denmark and Pizarr For of e the Charles also All Artur The the Piano Inter . in concert pianists 315). Palais when Philharmonic piano Bonn. wer Sir Casa sound Artur with the cycle Debussy Artur in 250). leased acclaim: (Gramophone the two CKD the citals re solo formed and musician Royal at re and 2005-06 Debussy 2003 Hall, national Fest CKD a Complete he for Philharmonic Linn corded e concerts ...the Knight. oadcast Artur critical re and inter complete br Ravel (Linn and ‘The ‘Rimsky-Korsakov chestra, Artur s 2005 chestra masterpieces eight chamber exuberance of works Or Festival, the ds oughout In 2005 Or February London Wigmor 290 ded Ravel ned All natural Beethoven s In In Artur’ gh Thr and Magazine). observing of leased the Josephine cor ear active loved CKD Recor works re the re television Grieg fine world. outstanding an live radio, has established energy performed best is solo the and London. London’ Linn the to the (Linn (Pianist works cycle cellist duo Symphony Online Chamber Aldebur

page TEN quite illuminative of his character. In 1922 he opined: “The most important quality of a ARTUR PIZARRO composer, in my view, is sincerity”. Only five years later, in 1927, he said: “I don’t particu- larly care about this ‘sincerity’. I try to make art.” Some time later, Ravel declared to the Born in Lisbon, in 1968, Artur Pizarro Swiss composer Frank Martin: “The greatest of all dangers for an artist is sincerity. Had first played the piano on Portuguese television we been sincere we would have written nothing but Wagnerian music”. His contradictions at the age of three. He had been introduced to were completed by posing a – probably rhetorical – question: “Doesn’t it occur to these the instrument by his maternal grandmother, people that I can be ‘artificial’ by nature?” pianist Berta da Nóbrega, and her piano-duo One can find traces of the “unnatural” polish and definitiveness sometimes felt partner, Campos Coelho, who was a student in his pieces as early as his student days. When he was twenty-three, a comment by a of Vianna da Motta, Ricardo Viñes and Isidor teacher already included the qualification “overly refined”. He was consciously in search Philipp. From 1974 to 1990 Artur studied with of emotional balance and perfection and declared: “If I ever did a perfect piece of work I who had also been a student would stop composing immediately”. As for the “emotional detachment” often attributed to of Vianna da Motta, Mark Hamburg, Edwin Ravel, he was quick to refute it: “That’s wrong. I am Basque. Basques feel things violently, Fischer, Marguerite Long and Jacques Février. but they say little about it and only to a few”. It appears, however, that his attachment was This distinguished lineage immersed Artur in the more sentimental and acquired rather than factual (his mother was Basque and his father tradition of the “Golden Age” of pianism and Swiss), since the family had moved to Paris when he was four months old. In the aftermath gave him a broad education in both the German of his World War I experience as a truck driver, in 1924 Ravel evolved from his Basqueness and French piano schools and repertoire. and declared himself “above all a French composer” echoing, less than a decade later, After initial studies in Lisbon, Artur moved to Debussy’s signature on his last three works: “musicien français”. Lawrence, Kansas in the USA and continued The piano held particular importance in Ravel’s compositional process, as almost working with Sequeira Costa who is Professor all of the new trends in his style appeared first in his piano music. He preferred Erard pianos, of Piano at the University of Kansas. because the company was still straight-stringing pianos even into the 20th century,thus Artur began performing publicly again at the age of 13 with a recital début at the keeping the action light and facilitating repeated notes and glissandi. Incidentally,Ravel Sao Luíz Theatre in Lisbon and made his concerto debut with the Gulbenkian had never considered himself a concert pianist and, although frequently solicited, played later in the same year. While still under the tutelage of Costa, Artur won first prizes in the comparatively few of his own pieces in public. However, he did take a favourable view to 1987 Vianna da Motta Competition, the 1988 Greater Palm Beach Symphony Competition recording technology and signed a contract with the Aeolian Company of London in 1920 and won first prize at the 1990 Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, which marked to make ten recordings over two years. In the end, five recordings (between 1922 and the beginning of an international concert career. 1928) were autographed by Ravel, but of those only Toccata and Le Gibet wereactually Artur Pizarro performs internationally in recital, and with the

pa recorded by the pianist Robert Casadesus. All in all, over 250 recordings of Ravel’s music world’s leading and conductors including , Sir , ge were issued up to 1939, making him probably the most recorded living Classical composer Jean Fournier, , , Sir , Esa-Pekka nine four before World War II. Curiously, the first all-Ravel piano recital was given by a seventeen- Salonen, Yuri Termikanov, Vladimir Fedoseev, , Tugan Sokhiev, Yakov Kreizberg,

year old pianist by the name of Henriette Fauré in Paris on January 18, 1923. Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Libor Pešek, and Sir . Artur ge pa

page 4| 9 considered as the definitive version which was then used for a ballet in 1920 (further omitting PRÉLUDE the Prélude). The composer indicated that, “the homage is directed less in fact to Couperin The Prélude consists of only twenty-seven lyrical measures and was composed in himself than to French music of the eighteenth century.” It is worth mentioning that Ravel 1913 as a sight-reading test for the Concours de Piano of the Paris Conservatoire. It himself was not involved in editing or promoting performances of the music from that era. was subsequently dedicated to Jeanne Leleu (“a souvenir from an artist who has been The inclusion of a Forlane, a relatively obscure dance, was Ravel’s bemused sincerely touched by your musical qualities”) who did so well in reading it. reaction to Pope Pius X’s attack on the lasciviousness of tango and his efforts to revive MENUET SUR LE NOM D’HAYDN forlane, a dance that originated in Venice between the 17th and 18th centuries. Ravel made a reference to the episode in a letter: “I’m working on something for the Pope. You know Marking the centenary of Joseph Haydn’s death in January 1910, La Revue Musicale of the that this august personage has just launched a new dance, the forlane. I am transcribing Société Internationale de Musique published a collection of tributes, commissioned from one by Couperin…I will see about getting it danced at the Vatican by Mistinguette and Debussy, Ravel, Dukas, d’Indy, Hahn and Widor. Although Durand published the second Colette Willy in drag”. edition just a month later, the first performance didn’t take place until March 1911 in the The circumstances behind the dedication of the movements in this Suite do not Salle Pleyel. All six tributes were based on the translation into pitches of the HAYDN motif, correspond to the tone of the above reference: although most of the music had been B-A-D-D-G, (where German H=B natural, and Y and N are obtained counting alphabetically written before, each of the six pieces were dedicated to the memory of a friend fallen in from A). This technique, known as soggetto cavato (a subject “carved out” from the letters WWI. However, because of the spirit that emanates from the music, Ravel was at the time of the name), was quite common in the Renaissance. In spite of Debussy’s affirmation that, criticised for having written “merry music” for such a sombre occasion. apart from the homage, the piece on the whole is so insignificant that “it will disappear Overall, the Suite’s formal construction seems to have been influenced by in a puff of smoke”, time has been kind only to his own contribution and Ravel’s Menuet Malayan pantun poetry (as was his Piano Trio). In Western literature this form was made sur le nom d’Haydn. Consciously implementing some common Renaissance composition famous through Baudelaire’s Harmonies du soir. Briefly, a four-line stanza is made up of procedures that Haydn was also fond of, Ravel – albeit in a concealed fashion – used the main motif in retrograde and inversion as well. two contrasting couplets, and the 2nd and 4th line reappear as the 1st and 3rd of the next stanza, that being the procedure that Ravel seems to have particularly followed. SONATINE The first movement, Prélude, was originally entitled Prologue and is followed by Begun in 1903 and finished in 1905, Sonatine was Ravel’sfirst piece in Auguste and Jacques the Fugue. In spite of his satirical remark, Ravel was serious about composing, and to Durand’s catalogue. Its first movement is a neo-classical exercise written in response to a prepare for writing Forlane he transcribed for piano a forlane from Couperin’s Concerts competition sponsored by a short-lived Anglo-French periodical, The Weekly Review.Ravel royaux. Rigaudon opens as a pièce croisée, employing a rapid hand-crossing technique said about the Menuet movement, which continues the tradition of the Menuet antique, that gave it the name, particular to clavecinistes. Menuet’s middle section is a Musette, a “Generally, it is played too spikily”. The movement’s second theme is derived from the opening typical folk-like dance imitating the sound of bagpipes. Although Ravel had indicated that of the first movement and unfolds simultaneously with its own augmentation. Its end resembles the ending of Toccata was “pure Saint-Saëns”, probably wanting to impart some irony to a broad gesture, somewhat like a deep curtsey. The Animé finale unfolds almost in aperpetual pa the comment, the reference turned out to be an artistic tribute, as the piece’s texture and motion and Perlemuter relates that Ravel required “great exactitude of rhythm”. However, ge structure exhibit remarkable clarity and balance and thus make the best possible case for Ravel’s 1913 recording shows quite a degree of flexibility. Although Ravel was not appreciative five eight the neo-classical style. of his own early works, he did choose this one to play on his American tour,instead of the © 2008 robert andres Concerto in G, which he himself judged too difficult for his own pianistic abilities. ge pa

page 8| 5 MENUET ANTIQUE PAVANE POUR UNE INFANTE DÉFUNTE Sharing (with the Habanera for two pianos) the distinction of being among Ravel’s first Pavane pour une infante défunte, one of Ravel’s most popular pieces, was composed in published pieces, Menuet antique was written in 1895 and published in 1898 by Enoch 1899, published by Demets in 1900 and premiered by Viñes in 1902. It became particularly (Chabrier’sold publisher). Its first performance was given by Ricardo Viñes in April 1898. The popular through Ravel’s 1910 orchestration. Ravel once said that its title is meaningless, but opening chord of the work appeared in the main section of Sérénade grotesque and the whole elsewhere he also commented that it is “an evocation of a pavane that a little princess might, opening phrase contrasts modal and diatonic harmonies. Jankélévitch described the piece as in former times, have danced at the Spanish court”. In contrast with the public, Ravel had the twin of Chabrier’s Menuet pompeux (1881), which was orchestrated by Ravel in 1918. a rather poor opinion of the piece, writing in 1912: “By an irony of fate, the first work which Imust review is my own Pavane… Inolonger see its good points… But, alas, Iperceive its VALSE NOBLES ET SENTIMENTALES faults very clearly: the glaring influence of Chabrier and the rather poverty-stricken form”. “The title Valses nobles et sentimentales adequately indicates my intention of composing a Ravel even declined to give any advice to the pianist Vlado Perlemuter when he performed series of waltzes in imitation of Schubert. The virtuosity which forms the basis of Gaspard de the piece for the composer. However, there is a tempo-related implication in the comment la nuit is succeeded by writing which is distinctly more transparent, giving more firmness to he made to a young pianist, Charles Oulmont: “Listen, dear boy, remember another time the harmonies and showing up the contours of the music in more relief. The Valses nobles et that I wrote the Pavane for a dead princess and not a dead Pavane for a princess.” sentimentales werefirst performed amid protestations and boos at aconcert of the Société Musicale Indépendente, in which the names of the composers were not revealed. The À LA MANIÈRE DE… BORODINE / À LA MANIÈRE DE… CHABRIER audience voted on the probable authorship of each piece. The authorship of my piece was When the Italian composer Alfredo Casella encouraged Ravel to write two pastiches recognised –byaslight majority.” Thus wrote Ravel in his never-published autobiographical based on the styles of Borodin and Chabrier, he had already issued an album entitled sketch from 1931, drafted by Roland-Manuel and intended for the recording project with In the style of… emulating styles of Wagner, Debussy, Faure and other composers. The Aeolian. The epigraph to the piece, “le plaisir délicieux et toujours nouveau d’une occupation first one is a fast waltz related to the Intermezzo in Borodin’s Petite Suite. The second inutile,” comes from Henri de Régnier’s novel Les Rencontres de Monsieur de Bréot (1904). one, bearing all the appearance of a jotted down improvisation, is a double pastiche and The premièrewas given by Louis Aubert in May 1911 at aconcert of the Société purports to demonstrate how Chabrier would have paraphrased Gounod’s music, more Musicale Indépendente. The following year Ravel orchestrated it in fifteen days for a ballet precisely Siebel’s flower song, Faites-lui mes aveux, from Gounod’s Faust (Act III). The retitled Adélaïde, ou le langage des fleurs.The piece was quickly pronounced among Ravel’s inclusion of Gounod is indicative of Ravel’s view that Gounod represented a link between least accessible, not the least because its highly stylised and harmonically complicated the celebrated composers of the 18th century and the present (“Without Gounod, perhaps approach did not conform to general expectations for a popular dance. However, Roland- there wouldn’t be any modern French music”). Both pieces were premièred by Alfredo Manuel declared that the piece had seminal importance for Ravel, for whom it served as Casella in 1913 in Salle Pleyel at a concert of the Société Musicale Indépendente. akind of reservoir from which he would draw frequently in his later works. Ravel’s1913 recording for the Welte piano roll, if such recordings can be trusted, is characterised by LE TOMBEAU DE COUPERIN pervasive spreading of the chords and desynchronised entries of the left and the right hand The suite Le tombeau de Couperin was written at the same time as Ravel’s Trio, between 1914 in slow tempi, with the left hand entering first and arpeggios taking place individually in each and 1917. It was premièred by Marguerite Long in Salle Gaveau at a concert of the Société pa hand. The suite’seight waltzes unfold in acontinuous manner and areformally balanced Musicale Indépendente in 1919, in what was her first public appearance since the end of ge seven by the introductory character of the first waltz and the epilogue function of the last one, in the war and Debussy’s death. It elicited a warm and enthusiastic reception. In the same six which the composer brings together all of the previous waltzes apart from the fifth. year, Debussy made a partial orchestration of it (omitting the Fugue and Toccata), that Cortot ge pa

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