Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra ANDERS HILLBORG Eleven Gates

ELEVEN GATES

Inon Barnatan / Academy of St. Martin in the Fields / Alan Gilbert BEETHOVEN Piano Concertos - Part 2

PIANO CONCERTOS - PART 2

Berliner Philharmoniker THE JOHN ADAMS EDITION

                                                       THE JOHN ADAMS EDITION

Inon Barnatan / Academy of St. Martin in the Fields / Alan Gilbert BEETHOVEN Piano Concertos - Part 1

One of the most admired pianists of his generation, Inon Barnatan kicks off his complete Beethoven piano concertos cycle with this double album, together with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and maestro Alan Gilbert. Ranging from the classical First and romantic Third to the experimental Fourth Piano Concerto, and closing with the festive Triple Concerto, Barnatan and his colleagues display the exceptional expressive range and stylistic diversity of Beethoven’s musical language. For the Triple Concerto, Barnatan joins forces with violinist Stefan Jackiw and cellist Alisa Weilerstein. This recording project bears the fruit of longstanding and profound musical friendships, and – surprisingly – offers the first integral recording of Beethoven piano concertos by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, one of the most-recorded ensembles in the world of classical music.
Inon Barnatan is one of the most admired pianists of his generation (New York Times), now making his PENTATONE debut, to be followed by another Beethoven piano concertos album in 2020. The Academy of St Martin in the Fields has built a consistent repertoire with the label throughout the years, whereas Alisa Weilerstein presented the first result of her exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE in 2018 with Transfigured Night. Stefan Jackiw and Alan Gilbert make their PENTATONE debut.

Anne-Sophie Mutter / New York Philharmonic RIHM Lichtes Spiel / CURRIER Time Machines

Time and again she seeks out the challenge of a first performance – perhaps, too, because she regards the chance to engage in a dialogue with living composers as a form of refuge before she returns to a repertory she has known for thirty years and which she nonetheless feels each time is a terra incognita. Above all, however, Anne-Sophie Mutter is motivated by the desire to keep on rediscovering the violin. That is why she seeks out composers who can coax new sounds from her instrument, finding new musical languages and awakening a new sensuality.

She also enjoys returning to musicians she knows. “In the life of a soloist there’s more than just one facet. After premiering a concerto, I generally want a chamber work. This was the case with Krzysztof Penderecki’s Metamorphosen and would also have been the case with Witold Lutosławski if he hadn’t died first.” Wolfgang Rihm’s violin concerto from 1991, Gesungene Zeit, was initially followed by a second orchestral work, Lichtes Spiel, which received its first performance in New York in 2010. But this last-named work was followed almost at once by a piece of chamber music: Dyade. The differences between the two orchestral works are clear for all to hear and see. For Lichtes Spiel, Anne-Sophie Mutter wanted a Mozart orchestra. “For years I’ve been conducting Mozart’s concertos from the violin. I wanted to compare and contrast these wonderful pieces with an alternative work that would be similarly orchestrated but which would contain new markings for the violin.” She had hoped that the resultant restrictions would inspire her, and in this she was to be proved right. “The decision to forgo a vast body of percussion instruments and an elaborate brass department leads necessarily to a greater concentration on the innermost quality of the principal instrument, which is the violin’s singing tone.” This singing tone is central to Rihm’s work, which is subtitled “A Summer Piece”. For Anne-Sophie Mutter, the “light game” conjures up associations of a summer night, a midsummer night’s dream, while the flashing accents of the score recall Shakespeare’s will-o’-the-wisps. “Time and again the flickering lights illuminate an almost romantic in-between state. Perhaps this is where the idea for Lichtes Spiel originates. I find these flickering accents typical of Rihm’s work in general – they were already present in Gesungene Zeit. The manner in which an emotion suddenly flares up and an interval abruptly comes to the forefront of our attention, only for it to withdraw again, is characteristic of Rihm’s musical language in Dyade, too.” (Oswald Beaujean)