Ravel stated that his Mother Goose Suite, originally for piano four-hands, was designed to 'conjure up the poetry of childhood' and led him to simplify his style.
Performer Biography
Vadym Kholodenko, one of the pianists on this album, won the Maria Callas Grand Prix competition in Athens in 2004 at the age of 18.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Debussy believed music was 'a sympathetic transposition' of the invisible in nature, starting where words and sight ended, and found inspiration in natural phenomena like sunsets.
Performer Biography
Andrey Gugnin, the other pianist on this album, toured as a featured soloist and recorded two Shostakovich Piano Concertos for Delos with Constantine Orbelian and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra.
Composition History
Rachmaninoff's Six Morceaux, Opus 11, were written at 'breakneck speed' in April 1894, as the composer later admitted, to 'balance the books.'
Compositional Technique
Rachmaninoff's concluding piece, 'Slava!' (Glory!), is a bravura work based on Russian folk themes with church-bell effects, unique in four-hand piano literature.
Recording & Production
This recording was made possible in part by a grant from the Guzik Foundation, which also provides a scholarship to Andrey Gugnin.
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