The Complete Denon Recordings 2003-2007

Featuring

Etsuko Hirose
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Franz Liszt
César Franck
Ferruccio Busoni
Leopold Godowsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Igor Stravinsky
Maurice Ravel
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Robert Schumann
Frédéric Chopin
Charles Valentin Alkan

Did you know?

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Many of the piano works on this album are transcriptions, a practice often undertaken by pianists who were themselves exceptional composers, to demonstrate the piano's capabilities or bring orchestral music into private settings.

Performer Biography

Etsuko Hirose won First Prize at the Martha Argerich First International Piano Competition in Buenos Aires in 1999, which launched her solo career.

Compositional Technique

Franz Liszt, a composer featured on this album, often used piano transcriptions to imitate full orchestral scores or to transfer opera and concert hall music to the private living room.

Critical Reception

Martha Argerich, a renowned pianist, described Etsuko Hirose as an "extraordinary sensitive and very brilliant young musician" with "exceptional virtuosity."

Performer Biography

Etsuko Hirose, the pianist on this album, began studying piano at age three and performed Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 26 with an orchestra when she was six.

Recording & Production

The success of Etsuko Hirose's first two Denon releases in Japan, which featured predominantly shorter piano pieces, led to her recording longer, more challenging works for her third album.