Oleg Maisenberg, the pianist on this album, won second prize at the International Schubert Competition in Vienna in 1967 and also won the 'Music of the 20th Century' competition in the same year.
Composer Biography
Edvard Grieg, one of the few Scandinavian composers to achieve global fame, believed his music had a "flavour of cod" due to his inspiration from the smells at the quay in Bergen.
Composer Biography
Franz Schubert felt intimidated by the works of Mozart and Beethoven, questioning his own ability to create anything significant after them.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Grieg found his compositional freedom in orchestral suites, incidental music, and fantasias, as the rigid forms of opera and symphony did not suit his free-thinking nature.
Compositional Technique
Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor shows clear parallels to Robert Schumann's piano concerto, including the A minor key, the cascade-like chords at the beginning of the first movement, and the attacca transition between the second and third movements.
Critical Reception
The Wanderer Fantasy is renowned for its immense technical demands, with Schubert himself allegedly saying, 'Just let the devil play that stuff'.
Compositional Technique
In the Wanderer Fantasy, Schubert develops every theme from a single melodic key idea, a technique he also used in his 1816 song 'Der Wanderer'.
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MacDowell: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 etc. (Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto 25)
Franck: Variations Symphoniques / Les Djinns
Martha Argerich Plays Prokofiev
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No.2 (Arrangement for Piano & Orchestra by Alexander Warenberg)
Henryk Melcer-Szczawinski: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto 44)
Field : Piano Concertos Nos 2 & 3
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concertos No. 1 & 2
Schumann, C.: Piano Concerto in A Minor / Weber, C.M.: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2
