Stravinsky: Tango

Kathryn Stott writes: ‘This year is very much a celebration for me – a fiftieth birthday and thirty years on the concert platform! When Ralph Couzens and I started to discuss plans for a solo CD, I was very keen to record repertoire which would reflect my wide taste in music from around the world. The subject ‘dance’ was in my head from the start and so here we have a musical journey encompassing South American countries, Romanian and Hungarian folk music, and dances from the Polish Mazurka to the Russian Polka, via Finland, France and Spain, to name but a few! Piazzolla sits alongside Satie as do Sibelius and Albéniz… dances both joyous and sad. I’m particularly excited to include the world premiere of Old Style, a birthday present from one of my favourite British composers, Graham Fitkin.’

South American music is a great love of Stott’s and so the inclusion of Villa-Lobos, Piazzolla, Ginastera, Guarnieri and Lecuona was essential: ‘Valsa da dor I find both touching and passionate, whereas Ginastera’s Danza has a distant sadness, which is almost untouchable.’ Stott has previously worked with the members of Piazzolla’s original Quintet, and has remained an avid fan ever since. Here she performs Milonga del ángel, a work that recreates the haunting sound of the bandoneón.

This eclectic repertoire of dances is completed by the premiere of Old Style by Graham Fitkin, written for Kathryn Stott in celebration of her landmark anniversaries this year: ‘For the past ten years, Graham has been writing the most fantastic music for me – always challenging but with such a fantastic energy. This piece is no exception and I feel its inclusion is an important part of this international and rather special journey.’

Kathryn Stott’s birthday celebrations culminate in a concert at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on 4 December, at which a total of twenty-five colleagues will perform with her, including Yo-Yo Ma, Natalie Clein, the Hermitage String Trio and Martin Roscoe.

Since winning the Arthur Rubinstein Competition and the Sidney Piano Competition, Alexander Korsantia’s career has taken him to many of the world’s major concert halls, collaborating with renowned conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Christoph Eschenbach, Yuri Bashmet and Paavo Jarvi and orchestras as the Chicago Symphony, the Kirov, Israel Philharmonic and Oslo Philharmonic. He has also given many recitals with renowned violinist Vadim Repin. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Korsantia has lived in the United States since 1992. He now resides in Boston where he is Professor of Piano at the New England Conservatory. Enjoying great popularity in his country of birth, he performed at the inauguration of Georgian President Saakashvili in 2004.

Korsantia’s live recordings, on two discs, present an attractive programme carefully chosen from recitals he has given since 1995 in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Toulouse, Boston and New York. The first CD features arrangements of Bach by Busoni, Egon Petri and Myra Hess’s famous version of the chorale Jesu, Joy of Men's Desiring, two Piano Sonatas by Haydn and Mozart’s Sonata in C major, KV330 and 20th century Russian and Georgian music. Korsantia has rearranged Gwido Agosti’s magnificent 1934 piano transcription of the last three pieces from The Firebird Suite to reflect more of Stravinsky's original orchestral sound. Stravinsky’s Tango is followed by Giya Kancheli’s Instead of Tango originally written in 1996 for violin, piano, bandoneon and double bass. Kancheli’s own piano arrangement is dedicated to three Georgian pianists, one of them Alexander Korsantia. The second disc is devoted to Sergei Prokofiev: his Pastoral Sonatina and Vision Fugitive, No 11, Op 22 bookend the Piano Sonata No 7 in B flat major and the substantial Piano Sonata No 8.