Alexandra Dariescu plays Schumann, Liszt & Chopin by Alexandra Dariescu

Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt

Alexandra Dariescu

Alexandra Dariescu plays Schumann, Liszt & Chopin

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Champs Hill
UPC: 5060212590367
Catnr: CHRCD 035
Release date: 01 September 2012
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Label
Champs Hill

UPC
5060212590367

Catalogue number
CHRCD 035

Release date
01 September 2012

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Alexandra Dariescu makes her debut recording for Champs Hill Records in a recital of Schumann, Chopin and Liszt. A hugely popular communicator, Alexandra is a former YCAT artist, a Laureate of the Verbier Academy and has been awarded the Romanian Ambassador's prize

All three composers on this album contributed to the foundations and development of Romantic piano composition, and this set of works forms one of Alexandra's most popular piano recital programmes.

Schumann published his Opus 1, Variations on the name Abegg at just 20 years old, playfully translating the last name of the dedicatee - Mademoiselle Pauline Comtesse d'Abegg - into musical pitches [A-Bb-E-G-G] from which his theme begins.
Of the three composers here, Liszt became the most idolized pianist-composer of the nineteenth century. His Ballade No. 2 in B minor recalls works by Chopin and Schubert, while his transcription from Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, demonstrates his influence by the composers he admired.

Chopin's Grande Polonaise was originally written for piano and orchestra and was premiered coupled with the opening Andante Spianato: but two years later Chopin re-arranged the work for piano solo, which we hear here. Also featured on the album is Chopin's Ballade No. 4, Op. 52, one of his most profound compositions. Chopin wrote this melancholy masterpiece at a time when he was in a state of precarious health.

This season, Alexandra made her Carnegie Hall debut in New York and appears in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing both Rachmaninov and Greig concertos. Born in Romania, Alexandra subsequently studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, completing further studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where was made a Piano Fellow.

Artist(s)

Alexandra Dariescu (piano)

Alexandra Dariescu, the creator of 'The Nutcracker and I,' is a trailblazing pianist who demonstrates fearless curiosity and groundbreaking innovation. As part of her artistic journey, Dariescu has achieved gender equality in her concerto programming for three consecutive seasons, reviving and premiering important works by both male and female composers, championing inclusion and diversity. In demand as a soloist worldwide, she has performed with eminent orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras, BBC NOW, all UK Royal Orchestras (RPO, RNS, RLPO, RSNO), the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Hallé, Manchester Camerata, Orchestre National de France and the Royal Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestras. Further afield, Dariescu has performed with the Detroit, Houston,...

Alexandra Dariescu, the creator of "The Nutcracker and I," is a trailblazing pianist who demonstrates fearless curiosity and groundbreaking innovation. As part of her artistic journey, Dariescu has achieved gender equality in her concerto programming for three consecutive seasons, reviving and premiering important works by both male and female composers, championing inclusion and diversity.

In demand as a soloist worldwide, she has performed with eminent orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras, BBC NOW, all UK Royal Orchestras (RPO, RNS, RLPO, RSNO), the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Hallé, Manchester Camerata, Orchestre National de France and the Royal Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestras. Further afield, Dariescu has performed with the Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Vancouver, Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, whilst the conductors she has worked with include Adam Fischer, Cristian Măcelaru, Alain Altinoglu, Fabien Gabel, Jun Märkl, Vasily Petrenko, Ryan Bancroft, James Gaffigan, Andrew Litton, Tianyi Lu and JoAnn Falletta.

Important recent milestones in Dariescu’s career include opening the 2023/24 season for the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Sakari Oramo at the Barbican Centre in the UK premiere of Dora Pejačević’s Phantasie Concertante and giving the world premiere of a new piano concerto written for her by James Lee III - ‘Shades of Unbroken Dreams’, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a Dream” speech with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

In 2022, Dariescu made the world premiere recording of a newly discovered piano concerto by Leokadiya Kashperova (1900) with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for BBC Radio 3’s acclaimed programme ‘Composer of the Week’. Further discoveries and important premieres of unjustly neglected concertos Dariescu has given include Nadia Boulanger’s Fantaisie Variée, the recently unearthed piano concerto by George Enescu, Concierto argentino by Alberto Ginastera, Dora Pejačević’s Phantasie Concertante and four piano concertos written for Dariescu: Emily Howard’s “Mesmerism”, Daniel Dhondy’s “In Touch”, Iris ter Shiphorst’s “Sometimes” and James Lee III’s “Shades of Unbroken Dreams”.

In 2017, Dariescu took the world by storm with her successful piano recital production “The Nutcracker and I”, an original groundbreaking multimedia performance for piano solo with live dance and digital animation. It has since enjoyed international acclaim every season, and has drawn thousands of young audiences into some of the most prestigious concert halls across Europe, Australia, China, the Emirates and the US, realising Dariescu’s vision of building bridges and making classical music more accessible to the wider public.

Alexandra Dariescu is the first ever female Romanian pianist to perform at the Royal Albert Hall and performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Musikverein, Staatsoper Vienna, Konzerthaus Vienna, BOZAR Brussels, Staatsoper Berlin, Hamburg Laeiszhalle, Sydney Opera House, Beijing National Centre for Performing Arts, Shanghai Grand Opera, Tokyo Musashino Hall, Dubai Opera, Wigmore, Royal Festival Hall, Cadogan Hall, Barbican amongst many others.

Dariescu has released eight albums to critical acclaim, the latest disc being her Decca recording with Angela Gheorghiu. The discography includes a Trilogy of Complete Preludes series consisting of Chopin, Dutilleux, Shostakovich, Szymanowski, Messiaen, Faure and Lili Boulanger as well as Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Darrell Ang (Signum Records), in addition to “The Nutcracker and I” audio book.

Mentored by Sir András Schiff and Dame Imogen Cooper, Dariescu studied at the Royal Northern College of Music with Nelson Goerner, Alexander Melnikov, Dina Parakhina, Mark Ray; at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Ronan O’Hora; and in her hometown Iasi with Mihaela Constantin and Cornelia Apostol. She was a Laureate of the Verbier Festival Academy, receiving the UK’s Women of the Future Award in the Arts and Culture category. Dariescu holds many special accolades including Cultural Ambassador of Romania, Officer of the Romanian Crown from the Royal Family and Young European Leader by Friends of Europe. In 2020, Dariescu received the Order 'Cultural Merit' in the rank of Knight from the Romanian President and became an Associated Member of the Royal Northern College of Music, where she also holds the distinguished position of Professor of Piano.

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Composer(s)

Franz Liszt

If you would open any biography of Franz Liszt, you would probably mostly read about his disquiet life as a piano virtuoso, his passionate love life, and the return to his catholic roots at the end of his life. Although all of this might be true, it only scratches the surface of his comprehensive musical personality. Liszt was a pianist, conductor, teacher and organiser, but above all he was a composer of a voluminous, capricious body of work. Even though his piano works formed his core business, he gave rise to the symphonic poem, got rid of the organ's stuffy appearance, and reinvigorated the oratorio. Moreover, with his piano transciptions of Bach's organ works and Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, he was an...

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Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann was a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. He had been assured by his teacher Friedrich Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing.
Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many Lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Works such as Carnaval, Symphonic Studies, Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, and the Fantasie in C are among his most famous. His writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music), a Leipzig-based publication which he jointly founded.
In 1840, Schumann married Friedrich Wieck's daughter Clara, against the wishes of her father, following a long and acrimonious legal battle, which found in favour of Clara and Robert. Clara also composed music and had a considerable concert career as a pianist, the earnings from which, before her marriage, formed a substantial part of her father's fortune.
Schumann suffered from a mental disorder, first manifesting itself in 1833 as a severe melancholic depressive episode, which recurred several times alternating with phases of ‘exaltation’ and increasingly also delusional ideas of being poisoned or threatened with metallic items. After a suicide attempt in 1854, Schumann was admitted to a mental asylum, at his own request, in Endenich near Bonn. Diagnosed with "psychotic melancholia", Schumann died two years later in 1856 without having recovered from his mental illness.

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Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin is one of the greatest composers of the Romantic piano tradition. He was a master in making the small form great. His ballades, mazurkas, polonaises, preludes, etudes and nocturnes all belong to the most popular standard works for piano ever written. As a child prodigy, Chopin grew up in a middle class family, who lived among the literati of Warsaw. When in 1830 the November Uprising broke out in Poland, the twenty year old Chopin stayed in Vienna. He became an exile and never returned to his mother country. He eventually settled in Paris. He avoided public concerts, but he did like performing in small settings, such as salons and at home for his friends. This way, Chopin built a reputation as an exceptional pianist, teacher and composer.
Chopin brought a unique synthesis between the Viennese bravado and the French/English lyric style. Even though his pieces often are technically very demanding, the focus was always on creating a lyric expression and poetic atmosphere. He invented the instrumental ballade, and brought salongenres to a higher level with his many innovations and refinements.

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