Grigory Sokolov BEETHOVEN - BRAHMS - MOZART

 

BEETHOVEN - BRAHMS - MOZART

 

Grigory Sokolov BEETHOVEN - BRAHMS

                                                        BEETHOVEN - BRAHMS

Grigory Sokolov MOZART - RACHMANINOV Concertos

This release is a piece of history: it is a combination of unreleased and historic audio and visuals. It allows a unique view of the enigmatic maestro Grigory Sokolov's life because it offers an opportunity to hear authentic performances from over ten and even twenty years ago accompanied by a brand-new film by Nadya Zhdanova. 

On Sokolov's performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto K 488, the Salzburger Nachrichten noted: "Such is his intensity that Sokolov sweeps everything and everyone along with him". Similarly, The Times wrote that "Sokolov swept through the concerto like a hurricane" with Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto. 

These historic performances will be published in combination with a unique documentary, which looks back on both Sokolov's artistic and private biography. Whilst Sokolov is well known for being reclusive and rarely giving interviews, filmmaker Zhdanova achieved the impossible: she spoke with his friends and colleagues and eventually was allowed to use private material from Sokolov's archives. Ultimately, Zhdanova discovered rare and unreleased video footage which offers an intimate insight into the life of Sokolov.

Sokolov SCHUBERT - BEETHOVEN

Grigory Sokolov is recognised as a titan among classical musicians. The Russian pianist’s interpretative insights and visionary musicianship arise from absolute dedication to his art and total immersion in every piece he performs. His Deutsche Grammophon debut album of works by Mozart and Chopin, The Salzburg Recital, ended an extended period during which he issued no new recordings. It drew worldwide critical acclaim, received a coveted ECHO Klassik Award, and became one of the Yellow Label’s best-selling core classical titles of 2015. Sokolov’s new album, to be issued a year after the first, is poised to join its predecessor as a major landmark of the piano catalogue. Sokolov: Schubert/Beethoven, scheduled for release on 15 January 2016, confirms why audiences are prepared to queue overnight for a chance to hear the maestro’s peerless artistry.

Sokolov’s new two-disc set comprises interpretations of such late masterworks by Schubert as the Four Impromptus D899 (including a spellbinding account of the Impromptu No. 3 in G flat major) and Beethoven’s monumental “Hammerklavier” Sonata. It also presents beguiling readings of a generous selection of encores: five sparkling miniatures by Jean-Philippe Rameau and Brahms’s Intermezzo in B flat minor Op. 117 No. 2. The Beethoven and the encore pieces, recorded live at the 2013 Salzburg Festival, were greeted with ecstatic press reviews. The Salzburger Nachrichten described Sokolov’s music-making as “a miracle of pictorial pianism”, while Seen and Heard International was convinced that “no one alive, and perhaps ever, on whatever instrument, has played Rameau with such distinction”.

Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” makes extreme technical and musical demands on the artist, as it probes the limits of the keyboard and piano writing. The four-movement work, written in 1817–18 and lasting 52 minutes in Sokolov’s interpretation, was completed at a time of great emotional turmoil in the composer’s life. Sokolov’s approach to the piece counterbalances its heroic striving with rare glimpses into the score’s underlying lyricism and intense poetic spirit. In its review of Sokolov’s Salzburg recital, Der Tagespiegel noted that the pianist “possesses not only a superior technique and a more refined sense of style than others, but also a whole added dimension. In the last movement of the ‘Hammerklavier’ one usually hears the conversation of different voices, but he also creates the space in which that dialogue is taking place.”

Sokolov’s Schubert was recorded live at Warsaw’s Philharmonic Concert Hall in May 2013. It opens with the Four Impromptus D899 and is crowned by readings of the Three Piano Pieces D946, sublime works completed not long before the composer’s death in 1828.

Next April Deutsche Grammophon will release a concert film by award-winning director and documentary-maker Bruno Monsaingeon – Live from the Berlin Philharmonie – featuring the same repertoire as Sokolov’s new album.

Grigory Sokolov will perform all over Europe in the first half of 2016 including 12 recitals in Germany and concerts in Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, Austria, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland and The Netherlands. (Deutsche Grammophon)

Sokolov THE SALZBURG RECITAL

Good news for pianophiles everywhere that Grigory Sokolov has, as DG put it, now signed an exclusive contract. This is of course not taking him into the studio or anything as workaday as that. No, he has allowed them to release a live recital from the 2008 Salzburg Festival. But let’s not knock that: it’s difficult to imagine just how much negotiation that must have taken. Comparisons are irrelevant (except perhaps with himself): this is Sokolov we’re talking about. But in this cult of celebrity, his very aversion to the notion has turned him into one – a bit like Glenn Gould in an earlier era.

Of course, all of this would be beside the point if he didn’t produce the goods. It’s an overused word, but he is inimitable. His Chopin Preludes, for example, have no time for the notion of a freely Romantic melodic line being kept in check by a Classical accompaniment. Sokolov’s reading as a whole is remarkably consistent with that of his live 1990 recital released on Opus 111. In both, he begins unhurriedly, as if the music were gently rousing itself into life. But whereas in less imaginative hands the results could seem mannered or overly drawn out, here it’s mesmerising. In the Sixth Prelude, for instance, the upward curling arpeggio has a rare poignancy, while the Tenth glistens but also has an unexpected hesitancy about it. In No 13, the glorious melody of the middle section is given with a freedom that would simply not work in a lesser musician; while in the infamous ‘Raindrop’, Sokolov replaces the constant dripping with a shifting pulse that has a real urgency, albeit an unconventional one. No 19 is a particular highlight, its delicacy quite heart-stopping. He ends as he began, with a tempo for No 24 that has gravitas (not to be confused with heaviness), the effect granitic, magisterial.

The Mozart is treasurable too, though – of course – you have to take it on its own terms. What he does with the slow movement of K280, for instance, gives it a kind of operatic reach and breadth, though never does it lapse into histrionics. And in the finale he brings out the main theme’s stuttering quality superbly, lending the music not just a mercurial quality but a dramatic one too. His delight in the chewy harmonies of the opening movement of K332 is palpable, his phrasing iridescent in its range.

The Salzburg audience (who are generally reasonably silent except for the tumultuous applause) were lucky enough to get six encores. The Scriabin Poèmes are more than usually clear descendants of Chopin in Sokolov’s hands and the filigree is out of this world. By contrast, Rameau’s Les Sauvages is unexpectedly playful and whimsical, and we end with a clear-sighted Bach chorale prelude that is all the more moving for its apparent simplicity. As Sokolov says in the booklet: ‘I play only what I want to play at the current moment.’ Perhaps that’s what gives this set such integrity. (Gramophone)