featured books & recordings "Twentieth-century music history cannot be recounted without mentioning the works of Bartók," remarks Pierre Boulez. This central role played by Bartók is revealed through the stylistic breadth in his works that Boulez habitually puts on display: "The French composer pays homage to the Hungarian composer's universal spirit, and that means that the impressionism born of Bartók's fateful encounter with Debussy and the unrelenting toughness of his Stravinskian rhythms flow together to create a portrait of astonishing unity", asserted the daily Tagesspiegel in reviewing a Boulez conducting engagement in Berlin. Universal spirit can even be found within a single CD, the new release featuring Bartók's three piano concertos, with three great pianists and three of the world's great orchestras: Krystian Zimerman and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Leif-Ove Andsnes and the Berliner Philharmoniker, Hélène Grimaud and the London Symphony Orchestra. "We went through a very rough period, the early 1950s. That was the time after the war, and we wanted to make a brand-new start, a clean slate," says Pierre Boulez, looking back over his "rebellious" years with other enfants terribles like Stockhausen and Berio. Boulez's three early piano sonatas give a sense of just how hair-raising these years were when the young Frenchman was experimenting with serial and aleatoric techniques. That may explain why the composer wanted an interpreter who now is around the same age as Boulez when the sonatas were written. After the young Finnish pianist Paavali Jumppanen auditioned for him, Boulez recommended him for the recording. His enthusiasm for Krystian Zimerman's former pupil was shared by The New York Times, which praised Jumppanen's playing after his New York début in 2001 as "fresh and exciting . . . he performs with immense power and an extraordinary range of colors." Ever since Hyperion started working with pianist Stephen Hough in 1996, recording these concertos had been on the agenda: it's probably been the project closest to his heart. But it took several years before they found the orchestra and conductor that they felt would do justice to this important project. The combination of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Litton offers a conductor who adores Rachmaninov (he has recorded all the symphonies) and understands the works from a pianist's perspective, an orchestra with a glorious and old-fashioned string sound of the kind with which the composer would be familiar, a hall to record in which is one of the best in the world, and Hough, who has already won two Gramophone 'Record of the Year' accolades for his concerto recordings. Apart from the 'Paganini Rhapsody', recorded after a concert performance, these are essentially 'live' recordings. Over a period of eighteen days eleven concerts were given, with each concerto being played several times. From these Hyperion has pieced together an 'ideal' performance - free of coughs, noises and the few musical mishaps which occurred, but still capturing the excitement of what was, by common consent, a sensational series of concerts. These days a new recording of the Rachmaninov concertos has to be very special for it to be worth doing at all and it was not lightly that Hyperion proceeded with this project. Hough consciously returns to the fast and lean performance tradition of the composer himself, avoiding the sentimental 'Hollywood' approach that has become so prevalent. A showcase for Marc-André Hamelin, this disc focuses on the work of a group of composers, all virtuoso pianists themselves, who were fascinated by the possibilities of sound and color inherent in the piano which could be realized by the transcendentally-equipped executant. Hamelin himself composes in this tradition; the disc includes three brilliant studies of his own. While much of the music is thrillingly virtuosic, there is also much which is haunting, such as the Berceuse by Samuel Feinberg. The emotional heart of the recital is surely Busoni's Fantasia nach J.S. Bach, written to commemorate the death of his father. There is also a strong element of wry humour (a characteristic of the performer!) which runs from the Haydn/Alkan to the Rossini/Hamelin via Sorabji. All in all, a kaleidoscopic recital that has become a classic. Published by Amadeus Press [340 pages (hardcover); ISBN: 1-57467-072-7]. In The Composer-Pianists: Hamelin and The Eight, Robert Rimm portrays eight legendary, enigmatic, and interrelated composer-pianists of the instrument's golden age and goes on to consider their present-day advocate, virtuoso pianist Marc-André Hamelin. Rimm regards The Eight — Alkan, Busoni, Feinberg, Godowsky, Medtner, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, and Sorabji — as "the piano's aural sensualists" and explores the relationships among their music, their music-making, their ideas and ideals, and their lives. Despite disparate backgrounds, cultures, nationalities, and personalities, The Eight for the most part knew one another personally, published articles about each other, or played one another's music. They communed daily with the piano; it was the center of their creative lives. Rimm's long-standing interest in The Eight led him to a collaboration with Hamelin, which resulted in this book and the bestselling Hyperion recording Marc-André Hamelin Plays The Composer-Pianists. Readers will find within these pages vivid and unusual portraits of the enigmatic, iconoclastic men who conceived some of the most challenging piano music ever written. Chapters on music criticism, virtuosity, eroticism and transcription further explore their ingenious creativity. The volume includes rare photographs and concludes with an extensive bibliography, listings of the complete solo piano works of The Eight, and discographies of their solo piano recordings. In exploring the art of those who knew their instrument both as composers and as pianists, this book serves, in the words of pianist Stephen Hough, "both as a fascinating, exhaustive study of the riches of the past and as a stimulating inspiration for the future." This book is currently available in bookstores worldwide and through amazon.com; a book individually signed by Marc-André Hamelin and inscribed by the author on an antique book label (requests from France, Italy, Germany and Russia will be inscribed in their respective languages) is also available through 88keys by contacting us. Copyright © 2010 88keys. All rights reserved.