Alessio Bax

Alessio Bax plays Brahms

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212030929
Catnr: SIGCD 309
Release date: 01 November 2012
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Label
Signum Classics
UPC
0635212030929
Catalogue number
SIGCD 309
Release date
01 November 2012
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN
NL

About the album

The Italian-born pianist and Leeds competition winner Alessio Bax returns with his third solo recital disc for Signum. His programme surveys a selection of highlights from Brahms' pianistic output, charting his development from the early lyrical collection '4 Ballades' (1854) through to the 'eight perfect gems' that are the 8 Klavierstücke Op.76 (1871-78). Bax also tackles Brahms' fiendish set of 'Variations on a Theme of Pagainini, Op.35', which Bax describes in the programme notes as one of "the most fearsome works ever written for piano".

Hoogtepunten uit het pianorepertoire van Brahms
De Italiaanse pianist Alessio Bax geeft in dit solorecital een overzicht van hoogtepunten uit de pianocarrière van Brahms. Hij brengt de ontwikkeling van de componist in kaart, van de vroege lyrische collecties 4 Ballades uit 1854 tot aan de “acht perfecte juweeltjes” die samen de 8 Klavierstücke opus 76 uit 1871-1878 vormen. Bax pakt ook Brahms duivelse set Variaties op een Thema van Paganini aan, die hij zelf beschrijft als een van “de meest afschrikwekkende werken die ooit voor de piano zijn geschreven.”

Bax schreef over de muziek van Brahms: “Ik heb Brahms’ muziek nooit bijzonder pianistisch of opzichtig gevonden, maar toch heb ik het altijd zeer bevredigend en opwindend gevonden om zijn werken uit te voeren. Brahms verbindt op een intiem en diep niveau, en staat uitvoerenden en luisteraars toe om toe te geven aan een breed scala aan emoties die tijdens de reis door zijn muziek verkend kunnen worden.”

Artist(s)

Alessio Bax (piano)

Combining exceptional lyricism and insight with consummate technique, Alessio Bax is without a doubt 'among the most remarkable young pianists now before the public' (Gramophone). He catapulted to prominence with First Prize wins at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions, and is now a familiar face on five continents, not only as a recitalist and chamber musician, but also as a concerto soloist who has appeared with more than 100 orchestras, including the London, Royal, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Boston, Dallas, Sydney, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, and the NHK Symphony in Japan, collaborating with such eminent conductors as Marin Alsop, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov, and Jaap van Zweden. Bax...
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Combining exceptional lyricism and insight with consummate technique, Alessio Bax is without a doubt "among the most remarkable young pianists now before the public" (Gramophone). He catapulted to prominence with First Prize wins at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions, and is now a familiar face on five continents, not only as a recitalist and chamber musician, but also as a concerto soloist who has appeared with more than 100 orchestras, including the London, Royal, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Boston, Dallas, Sydney, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, and the NHK Symphony in Japan, collaborating with such eminent conductors as Marin Alsop, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov, and Jaap van Zweden.

Bax explores many facets of his career in the 2019-20 season. Fall brings the release of Italian Inspirations, his eleventh recording for Signum Classics. Pairing works by Luigi Dallapiccola and Alessandro Marcello with Italian-themed pieces by Rachmaninov and Liszt, the album's program is also the vehicle for Bax's solo recital debut at New York's 92nd Street Y. A further debut follows with the Milwaukee Symphony, where he plays Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto under Han-Na Chang, and the same composer's Fourth Concerto and Choral Fantasy take him to the Santa Barbara Symphony. Placing especial focus on long-term collaborative projects, this season Bax undertakes Beethoven's complete works for cello and piano at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) and on a forthcoming Signum Classics release, both with Paul Watkins of the Emerson String Quartet; plays trios in South America with Berlin Philharmonic concertmaster Daishin Kashimoto and French horn virtuoso Radovan Vlatkovic; and embarks on multiple U.S. and European recital tours with superstar violinist Joshua Bell. After headlining the North Carolina Symphony's season-opening concerts together, Bax and his regular piano partner, Lucille Chung, give duo recitals with CMS, at Atlanta's Spivey Hall, in the Yale Piano Series, and at Sala São Paulo in Brazil. Bax rounds out the season with a full summer of festivals, highlighted by his third season as Artistic Director of Tuscany's Incontri in Terra di Siena festival, which is fast becoming a major international destination for music-lovers.

Bax revisited the two concertos heard on Alessio Bax Plays Mozart for his recent debuts with the Boston and Melbourne Symphonies, both with Sir Andrew Davis, and with the Sydney Symphony, which he led himself from the keyboard. Other 2018-19 highlights include the pianist's Auckland Philharmonia debut, concerts in Israel, a Japanese tour featuring dates with the Tokyo Symphony, U.S. collaborations with Miguel Harth-Bedoya and Edo de Waart, and two solo recitals marking his return to the prestigious Mozarteum Argentino series at Buenos Aires's Teatro Colón. Recent seasons have also seen Bax make his solo recital debut at London's Wigmore Hall, which aired live on BBC Radio 3, and give concerts at L.A.'s Disney Hall, Washington's Kennedy Center, and New York's Carnegie Hall. In 2009, he was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and four years later he received both the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award and the Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists.

Bax is a staple on the international summer festival circuit, and has performed at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland; the Aldeburgh Festival, Bath Festival, and Southbank Centre's International Piano Series in England; the Risør Festival in Norway; the Salon-de-Provence Festival in France; the Moritzburg Festival, Ruhr Klavier-Festival, and Beethovenfest Bonn in Germany; and Le Pont International Music Festival in Japan. In the U.S., he makes regular appearances at Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and New York's Bard Music Festival. As a chamber musician, Bax has collaborated with Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Ian Bostridge, Lucille Chung, Sol Gabetta, Steven Isserlis, Daishin Kashimoto, Emmanuel Pahud, Lawrence Power, Paul Watkins, Jörg Widmann, and the Emerson String Quartet, among many others.

Bax's celebrated discography for Signum Classics includes Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" and "Moonlight" Sonatas (a Gramophone "Editor's Choice"); Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto; Bax & Chung, a duo disc with Lucille Chung that includes Stravinsky's original four-hand version of the ballet Pétrouchka as well as music by Brahms and Piazzolla; Alessio Bax plays Mozart, comprising Piano Concertos K. 491 and K. 595 with London's Southbank Sinfonia and Simon Over; Alessio Bax: Scriabin & Mussorgsky (named "Recording of the Month . and quite possibly . of the year" by MusicWeb International); Alessio Bax plays Brahms (a Gramophone "Critics' Choice"); Bach Transcribed; and Rachmaninov: Preludes & Melodies (an American Record Guide "Critics' Choice 2011"). Recorded for Warner Classics, his Baroque Reflections album was also a Gramophone "Editor's Choice." He performed Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata for maestro Daniel Barenboim in the PBS-TV documentary Barenboim on Beethoven: Masterclass, available as a DVD boxed set on the EMI label.

Alessio Bax graduated with top honors at the record age of 14 from the conservatory of Bari, his hometown in Italy, where his teacher was Angela Montemurro. He studied in France with Francois-Joël Thiollier and attended the Chigiana Academy in Siena under Joaquín Achúcarro. In 1994 he moved to Dallas to continue his studies with Achúcarro at Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts. In fall 2019, Bax joins the piano faculty of Boston's New England Conservatory. A Steinway artist, he lives in New York City with Lucille Chung and their five-year-old daughter, Mila. Beyond the concert hall he is known for his longtime obsession with fine food; as a 2013 New York Times profile noted, he is not only notorious for hosting "epic" multi-course dinner parties, but often spends his intermissions dreaming of meals to come.


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Composer(s)

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the 'Three Bs' of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.   Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become...
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Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Within his meticulous structures is embedded, however, a highly romantic nature.

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Press

Play album
01.
4 Ballades, Op. 10: No. 1 in D minor, ‘Edward’
04:22
02.
4 Ballades, Op. 10: No. 2 in D major
06:20
03.
4 Ballades, Op. 10: No. 3 in B minor
03:39
04.
4 Ballades, Op. 10: No. 4 in B major
09:14
05.
8 Klavierstucke, Op. 76: No. 1 Capriccio in F-sharp minor
03:39
06.
8 Klavierstucke, Op. 76: No. 2 Capriccio in B minor
03:21
07.
8 Klavierstucke, Op. 76: No. 3 Intermezzo in A-flat major
02:13
08.
8 Klavierstucke, Op. 76: No. 4 Intermezzo in B-flat major
01:56
09.
8 Klavierstucke, Op. 76: No. 5 Capriccio in C-sharp minor
03:03
10.
8 Klavierstucke, Op. 76: No. 6 Intermezzo in A major
04:42
11.
8 Klavierstucke, Op. 76: No. 7 Intermezzo in A minor
02:57
12.
8 Klavierstucke, Op. 76: No. 8 Capriccio in C major
03:58
13.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35: Theme
00:24
14.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 1
00:22
15.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 2
00:25
16.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 3
00:28
17.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 4
00:53
18.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 5
00:46
19.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 6
00:22
20.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 7
00:24
21.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 8
00:22
22.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 9
01:13
23.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 10
01:17
24.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 11
01:16
25.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 12
01:03
26.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 13
00:30
27.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 1: Variation 14
01:41
28.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 1
00:47
29.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 2
00:35
30.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 3
00:35
31.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 4
00:45
32.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 5
00:22
33.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 6
00:21
34.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 7
00:19
35.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 8
00:31
36.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 9
00:50
37.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 10
00:40
38.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 11
00:28
39.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 12
01:25
40.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 13
00:47
41.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35 Book 2: Variation 14
01:16
42.
Hungarian Dance No. 5
03:42
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