Barry Douglas TCHAIKOVSKY PLUS ONE - VOL. 2

Tchaikovsky’s Grande Sonate, or ‘Grand Sonata’ (Bolshaya Sonata), in G major was dedicated to Karl Klindworth, a pupil of Liszt, and first performed at a private hearing, on 21 October 1879, by Nikolay Rubinstein, founder of the Moscow Conservatory. Composed in the autumn of 1896, the Six Moments musicaux of Rachmaninoff adopt musical forms from previous eras: the nocturne, song without words, barcarolle, virtuoso étude, and theme and variations. Written in haste in order to meet the commission deadline (the twenty-three-year-old Rachmaninoff was desperately short of funds), the set evidences his virtuosity, and is full of portent of the music to come. 

Barry Douglas writes: ‘This recording project with Chandos Records is a personal salute from me to great masterworks of the Russian repertoire. I am an Irish pianist who, nevertheless, feels a deep affinity with Russian culture, and felt it even before I had the good fortune to win the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1986. Our own Irish composer and virtuoso pianist John Field, who invented the Nocturne and taught a whole generation of Russian musicians, fermented the linkage between Ireland and Russia, and I feel very proud to help keep this synergy alive!’

Barry Douglas TCHAIKOVSKY PLUS ONE - VOL. 1

Two of the most popular romantic Russian piano works from the mid-1870s are heard on this new album from the celebrated Barry Douglas. Lyricism lies at the heart of the twelve movements of Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Seasons’ (1875-76), commissioned by the periodical Nouvelliste to appear monthly, accompanied by poetic epigraphs. Tchaikovsky got his servant to remind him of his duty on a certain day in the month, and composed each piece in a single sitting. Each reflects characteristics of a different month, the style is simple, the mood introspective. While the poetic aspect of The Seasons was prompted by the individual musical contributions, ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ (1874) was provoked by a visit which Mussorgsky made to an exhibition of sketches and paintings by his late friend Viktor Hartmann. The technically demanding memorial, a popular genre in Russian romanticism, is here played thoughtfully and sympathetically by Barry Douglas.

Barry Douglas TCHAIKOVSKY PLUS ONE VOL. 1

Two of the most popular romantic Russian piano works from the mid-1870s are heard on this new album from the celebrated Barry Douglas.

Lyricism lies at the heart of the twelve movements of Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons (1875 – 76), commissioned by the periodical Nouvelliste to appear monthly, accompanied by poetic epigraphs. Tchaikovsky got his servant to remind him of his duty on a certain day in the month, and composed each piece in a single sitting. Each reflects characteristics of a different month, the style is simple, the mood introspective.

While the poetic aspect of The Seasons was prompted by the individual musical contributions, Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) was provoked by a visit which Mussorgsky made to an exhibition of sketches and paintings by his late friend Viktor Hartmann. The technically demanding memorial, a popular genre in Russian romanticism, is here played thoughtfully and sympathetically by Barry Douglas.

Barry Douglas SCHUBERT Works for Solo Piano - Volume 3

Barry Douglas’s Schubert series has reached Volume 3 with this unique programme, featuring two of the composer’s masterpieces as well as two ingenious transcriptions of his Lieder by his friend and admirer Liszt.

Occasionally echoing Beethoven’s Variations in the same key (WoO 80), the Sonata in C minor melts into one of Schubert’s most daring, lyrical, and unpredictable developments, alternating unexpected harmonic variations, pulsating rhythms, and purely dramatic passages.

With no sort of organic unity or cyclic intent across the set, the late Six Moments musicaux display many of Schubert’s compositional elements: from the elegant and the folkloristic to the pathetic and the anxious.

The album ends in homage, with two arrangements by Liszt, paying tribute to the melodic and harmonic detail of Schubert’s music, and creating new, busy, and varied textures from Schubert’s ingredients, finally unleashing the resources of the virtuoso to convey the poet’s (and composer’s) metaphysical exaltation.

Barry Douglas SCHUBERT Works for Solo Piano - Volume 2

After launching his Schubert cycle in bold fashion with the final sonata, D960, Barry Douglas continues with two other works from the last year of Schubert’s life. This is big, bold Schubert-playing, an approach that he applies equally to the Impromptus and the A major Sonata. I have to say right at the outset that I’m not mad about Chandos’s recording, which seems over-resonant. That might account for why the ‘fingeriness’ of the Second and Fourth Impromptus doesn’t really come across. Just the briefest of comparisons with Imogen Cooper (Avie, 7/10) or Maria João Pires (DG, 5/98) takes you into a completely different world. But Douglas does lend the C minor Impromptu plenty of rhetoric, while the G flat major has a fine eloquence and sense of line. Others colour it more tellingly, though, not least Lupu (Decca, 2/84) – superbly inward – and Zimerman (DG, 5/91), who imbues it with a rare depth of sorrow.

Rhetoric is to the fore in the A major Sonata too, with Douglas enjoying the contrast between chordal and triplet-writing in the opening movement. But what is sometimes obscured is an underlying sense of journeying that comes from a regular pulse; Shai Wosner’s recent account (Onyx, 1/15) is impressive in this regard. The slow movement proceeds at a heavy tread, weighted with emotion. Perhaps too much so; by comparison Perahia (Sony Classical, 8/03) and Andsnes (EMI, 8/02) are pacier. And in the peace-shattering outburst, Douglas doesn’t reach the same degree of intensity as Wosner. After a scherzo that is less precision-engineered than Perahia and Andnses, Douglas paces the finale well, but again I find some of the rubato a touch self-conscious. All of those mentioned above proceed with greater naturalness, and for haloed sound, coupled with incident, none compels more than Lupu. Brian Newbould’s notes are a fine addition, however. (Harriet Smith / Gramophone)

Barry Douglas SCHUBERT Works for Solo Piano - Volume 1

How do you interpret Molto moderato as a tempo in the first movement of D960? Awkward question, which probably explains why basic speeds vary, 85 beats per minute from András Schiff down to 63 from Sviatoslav Richter. Barry Douglas settles for 79, volatile in outlook too. He repeats the exposition, too, but a touch more impetuously the second time round. It’s another view, as it ought to be. Douglas yields to content as he feels it, the C sharp minor beginning of the development ruminative, the build up to D minor vehement. An emotive slow movement – C sharp minor once more – isn’t treated as a mawkish swansong. Andante sostenuto is taken at face value, the A major middle section no lingering farewell, the finale carefully managed so as not to sound an anticlimax as it sometimes does.

Awkward too is Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo for the first movement of D760: ‘not too fiery’ or ‘not too lively’? Douglas straddles both, neither the clarion onslaught of Richter nor the gentler approach of Schiff. Occasionally forte and fortissimo could be better differentiated; but tempo changes to reflect contrasts between heroics and yielding grace, for example in the second subject, are finely graded. A strong left hand grounds the harmony of the Adagio’s deep opening melody, passion rising as rhythms change and notes get smaller, the final Allegro controlled yet celebratory. Douglas stands alongside the most distinguished in both works, the smaller pieces accorded similar care. An excellent disc. (Nalen Anthoni / Gramophone)

Barry Douglas BRAHMS Works for Solo Piano Volume Six

This is the sixth and final volume in Barry Douglas’s survey of Brahms’s output for solo piano, which started four years ago. The recital completes a project that over 441 minutes has represented a ‘triumph of Brahmsian thoughts’ and in which ‘every sound is resonantly Brahmsian’. According to BBC Music, ‘Douglas’s tone is a deep velvet cushion, the legatos full of affection and the rhythms galvanised with great energy’. 

The music recorded here spans the entirety of the composer’s creative career, from March 1852 (the Study after Weber) – eighteen months before the life-changing meeting between Brahms and Robert and Clara Schumann – to August 1893 (the Intermezzo, Op. 118 No. 6) – less than four years before his death, on 3 April 1897. 

The selection of works offered here invites us to consider Brahms under many aspects – arranger, virtuoso, pedagogue, historicist, and above all pianist – which Barry Douglas embraces perfectly.

Barry Douglas BRAHMS Works for Solo Piano Volume Five

This album is the penultimate in what BBC Music has described as a ‘triumph of Brahmsian thought’, namely the survey by Barry Douglas of the composer’s complete works for solo piano.
Three years after the release of Volume 1, the winner of the 1986 Tchaikovsky Competition is now performing this repertoire in the finest international venues, such as the Wigmore Hall in July 2015 and Concertgebouw in 2016, when the series will come to a highly anticipated climax with the final volume. Taking a big step further in his career with this achievement, Barry Douglas is gaining a reputation of one of the few accomplished world-class piano virtuosi of the romantic repertoire.
This fifth volume is probably the most virtuosic to date, as it includes the transcendent Scherzo in E flat minor (among Brahms’s earliest surviving compositions), technically demanding variations (especially Book II of the famous Op. 35; see Volume 4 for Book I), as well as several intermezzi, strongly marked by Brahms’s love of metrical complications.
The album also features three tuneful Hungarian Dances, arranged by the composer for solo piano, repertoire new to Barry Douglas’s Brahms exploration. (Chandos)

Barry Douglas BRAHMS Works for Solo Piano Volume Four

Barry Douglas’s critically acclaimed series continues into its fourth volume. A celebration of Brahms’s solo piano works, each disc has been praised for its artistry and integrity. From Volume 1, heralded from the outset by BBC Music as “a triumph of Brahmsian thought, with playing that gets right to the heart of the composer”, to Volume 3, of which The Guardian described Douglas’s performances as “first-rate, with a real Brahmsian mix of toughness and slightly gruff charm about them”, the discs explore Brahms’s works in unexpected and creative ways. 

Programmed as a stand-alone recital, Volume 4 begins with the monumental C Major Sonata; a work that Brahms published as his first opus despite the objection of Robert Schumann, who was in the process of recommending Brahms’s works to Breitkopf & Härtel for publishing. Schumann’s works also feature on the disc in Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 9, and the structure is repeated in Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35, Book I. 

Shorter character pieces intersperse these larger works, including the dramatic Ballade Op. 10 No. 1, composed after the Scottish ballad “Edward” from Herder’s “Voices of the Peoples”; two contrasting capriccios, Op. 76 No. 1 & 2; and three Intermezzi from Op. 76, 117 and 119.

Barry Douglas BRAHMS Works for Solo Piano Volume Three

Barry Douglas returns for the highly anticipated third volume in his series devoted to Brahms’s solo piano music, the first two volumes having been met with widespread critical acclaim. Of Vol. 2, International Record Review wrote, ‘this is indeed Brahms playing of the utmost integrity and authority… this cycle looks set to become a benchmark’.

The selected Intermezzi performed here come from the collections of short piano pieces which Brahms published in 1892 – 93, his last works for piano. A sense of wistful, melancholic reflection pervades these exquisitely crafted masterpieces of Brahms’s late maturity. Composed at the other end of his life, at the age of twenty, the Piano Sonata in F sharp minor is full of a youthful, strident energy. It was among the pieces that, when he heard them privately, convinced Robert Schumann of Brahms’s genius. It was dedicated to Robert’s wife, Clara, who was to remain a key figure in Brahms’s life. Indeed it was Clara who, having heard the movement, begged Brahms for a piano transcription of the noble Andante from the String Sextet in B flat major, the Theme with Variations in D minor heard here.

Brahms’s set of sixteen Waltzes, Op. 39 were originally conceived for piano four hands and were arranged, by popular demand, for solo piano soon after, in 1867. They capture the sense of joyful abandon often associated with the genre but their romanticism and nostalgia are uniquely Brahmsian.

Barry Douglas BRAHMS Works for Solo Piano Volume Two

Following the varied programming of Johannes Brahms: Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 1, Barry Douglas presents a mix of early and late pieces to give the second volume emotional balance, and sets a series of short pieces against a monumental masterpiece. Douglas is a thoughtful and eloquent performer, and his Brahms has the hallmarks of serious consideration and introspection; nothing here is superfluous or simply offered for show. The sensitive selection of three Ballades and three Intermezzi to frame the muscular Rhapsody Op. 119/4, gives the first part of the program an internal unity and feeling of logical organization, even though the shifting moods feel as effortless and unplanned as clouds passing on a sunny afternoon. The Sonata No. 3 is placed at the end of the recital, as befits its stature, and Douglas' interpretation gives it the feeling of gravitas and inevitability. Yet it also partakes of the fleeting moods that were carefully prepared in the early part of the program, so Douglas' shaping of this album shows great care in preparation. Chandos provides a pleasant recorded sound that makes the piano sound close enough for intimate passages but big and spacious enough for the grand statements. (Blair Sanderson)

Barry Douglas BRAHMS Works for Solo Piano Volume One

The first thing to say about the first instalment in Barry Douglas’ new Brahms series for Chandos is that the programming alone makes it one the most engaging Complete Works piano discs you could hope to own. Douglas, rather than grouping pieces in their entire published sets as is the recording norm, has instead chosen to mix things up. So, an intermezzo from one book might sit next to a capriccio from another. Where pieces from the same set do make it onto this disc, such as the two Opus 79 Rhapsodies, they're split apart. The result is a massively engaging running order.

Topped and tailed with concert platform panache by the Rhapsody Op.79 No.1 and the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel (Op.24), the middle meat of the disc contains more reflective representations ranging from Opus 10, composed as a 21-year-old, through to three of the mature sets, Opuses 116, 117, 118, published near the end of his life. The ear is naturally led to compare and contrast the enormous breath of musical thought and style that spans Brahms' career.

Getting down to the playing itself, these are interpretations that feel as if they get right to the heart of Brahms the man and the musician with the impression they weave of Romantic expression melded with deference to classical form and sensibilities. From the introspection of Intermezzo Op.118 No.2 with its gorgeous washes of sound, to the crisp, virtuosic homage to past masters that is the ‘Handel Variations’, his articulation is deft and colourful, and his overall style expansive. The multifarious strands of Brahms' dense, complex and contrapuntal writing are beautifully balanced, with a sure structural grasp that carries the ear and sustains the musical argument equally convincingly across individual phrases and long, multi-sectioned pieces. (Charlotte Gardner / BBC Music)