Recordings: Maria João Pires

What a joy it is to listen to Maria João Pires!

At 70, the Portuguese pianist seems to have decided to take a new turn in her career by leaving her long-time recording company, Deutsche Grammophon, and signing on to the much smaller but very active Onyx, and by recently changing management agency.

Pires is undoubtedly one of today’s foremost pianists. Her approach is simple and understated, her playing of admirable clarity and humanity. With her, it is always all about the music, not about the performance, nor the show. This can, at times, seem almost disconcerting in a business usually eager to promote the latest star. At the very least, it is unusual.

A short guide to CD shopping in Vienna

For anyone visiting or living in Vienna, the historical capital of western classical music, the following question (essential for many) might pop up at a certain time: “where can I buy classical music and jazz recordings?”

Here is a short guide directed at those looking for traditional CD stores in the central areas of the city; it will not explore the specific market for used or old records/vinyls, which is somewhat extensive in the Austrian capital. It might not be complete also, so feel free to comment and add more options to the list!

Forbes: Claudio Abbado’s best recordings

Forbes has just published an article about Claudio Abbado’s recording legacy and what they and others (Michael Haefliger and Alex Ross) consider to be his best.

The late Abbado was one of the world’s most important musical figures of the last decades, not only, of course, due to his musical ability and artistic qualities, but also due to the number of prestigious institutions he was associated with.

Patricia Kopatchinskaja

 

The Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja has, in the past couple of years, gained a considerable amount of popularity. Despite being around for quite a while now, and having previously issued some exciting recordings, some of which with pianist Fazil Say (see here), it seems that now everyone is talking about her (here, here or here for instance). She is on the top of her game and is presently one of the most requested violinists in the industry. But let’s face it, she definitely is one of the most exciting musicians around!

At ease in the traditional repertoire (Beethoven and Mendelssohn are part of her current concerto schedule), she is however especially interesting in modern and contemporary pieces, such as the violin concertos be Peter Eötvös, or the Ligeti (with which she has been touring regularly), among others. Her more recent recording projects include the latter composers, Bartók, Prokofiev, Stravinksy, Mansurian, and Galina Ustvolskaya, a Russian composer, close to Shostakovich, who is now slowly emerging from obscurity. One of her other projects is the recently founded quartet-lab, with fellow adventurous violinist Pekka Kuusisto, violist Lilli Maijala, and cellist Pieter Wispelwey (responsible for two of the most thrilling recent accounts of J. S. Bach’s Cello Suites – see here), which promises to shake-up the string quartet repertoire.