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New Bronfman CD worthy of a Grammy
Here are two new classical releases that bridge this past season and the next season:
Schubert's "Trout" Quintet and Mozart's Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, K/ 493. Yefim Bronfman and others (Sony/BMG).
If you enjoyed pianist Yefim Bronfman, who performed Prokofiev's dazzling Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major at the season-closing concert of the Madison Symphony Orchestra in late April, you might like to sample his new CD.
Bronfman, a powerhouse virtuoso, is best known for tackling the knuckle-busting Russian repertoire, with its lush, athletic works. But Fima, as Bronfman is known to his friends, also is a devoted chamber musician as well as a titan recitalist and concerto soloist. (He recently played on a New York street to help raise money for a food bank.) And he shines in these two famous classical and early Romantic works, which have many subtleties and are distinctly non-Russian.
To acknowledge his non-Russian, non-virtuoso side, Bronfman also has recorded three CDs of Mozart violin sonatas with Isaac Stern, the complete violin sonatas of Brahms with two different violinists and Faure's two violin sonatas with Shlomo Minz. He also has made nearly definitive recordings of the five Beethoven piano concertos, with conductor David Zinman and the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, for the budget label Arte Nova, which should have him record all the Beethoven piano sonatas.
The piano here remains upfront without losing the clarity and subtlety of interplay with other instruments, which is in fact spotlighted. It is a recording that I expect will be nominated for, and may well win, a Grammy.
Bronfman is backed up not by an established string quartet, as typically happens, but with unaffiliated first-raters including another Madison favorite, violinist Pinchas Zukerman, plus cellist Amanda Forsyth (otherwise known as Mrs. Pinky Z.), violist Jethro Marks and Joel Quarrington on double bass in the Schubert.
This is great music for spring and summer, greatly performed with brisk, sprightly playing. Even the colorful and wispy trout flies on the cover suggest the bubbly and upbeat major-key music that awaits you.
Pianist Ingrid Fliter, All-Chopin recital (EMI).
Looking forward to next season?
No pianist in the world is generating more buzz right now than Ingrid Fliter, who will make her Madison debut next spring with a recital at the Wisconsin Union Theater.
Fliter won the prestigious Irving S. Gilmore Competition in 2006. That's the one where there is no competition in the usual sense. Instead, the judges anonymously seek out pianists who deserve recognition from all over the world, go to their concerts and then choose the winner, who gets $300,000 and a lot of press.
Fliter was the fifth winner and the first female recipient. Argentinian by birth and a protegee of her fellow countrywoman Martha Argerich, Fliter had won her share of prizes, including a first at the Busoni Competition and second prize at the International Chopin Competition.
But the Gilmore put her on the map, and she is now in great demand.
Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra maestro Andrew Sewell recently worked with Filter in Wichita, Kansas, where he heads the Wichita Symphony Orchestra. They performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 (really his first, but published second). Sewell said she was a great talent to work with, a very discerning and powerful musician.
You can decide for yourself when Fliter comes here and performs Beethoven (an unspecified early sonata), Chopin (24 Preludes, Op. 28) and Schumann ("Symphonic Etudes").
Her recently released EMI debut is an all-Chopin program that features big and small works: the Sonata No. 3 in B Minor; the Barcarolle; Three Mazurkas, Op. 59; Three Waltzes, Op. 18 and Op. 64, Nos. 2 and 3.
The performances justify all the buzz.
Fliter is a powerful, no-nonsense player with a big sound and a stupendous technique. Sometimes certain details seem to escape her, especially inner voices in the sonatas and certain subtleties that seem mannered. But her tempi are upbeat and her tone lyrical while her overall playing exudes contagious confidence.
I have to be honest. These are not revelatory readings, nor even my favorite performances of these works. I prefer Arthur Rubinstein in the Barcarolle, Alexandre Tharaud in the waltzes, Maurizio Pollini and Yundi Li in the sonata.
But Fliter's performances are forceful and very, very good. And she is still only at the beginning of her career.
This CD bodes well for her future, and for our listening.
