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Alessio Bax plays Brahms
Johannes Brahms

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 150 orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Boston, Dallas, Cincinnati, 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...
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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 150 orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Boston, Dallas, Cincinnati, 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.

Since 2017, he has been the Artistic Director of the Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival, a Summer Music Festival in the Val d’Orcia region of Tuscany. He appears regularly in festivals such as Seattle, Bravo Vail, Salon-de-Provence, Le Pont in Japan, Great Lakes, Verbier, Ravinia, and Music@Menlo.

Bax constantly explores many facets of his career. He released his eleventh Signum Classics album, Italian Inspirations, whose program was also the vehicle for his solo recital debut at New York’s 92nd Street Y as well as on tour. He has also toured Spain with violinist Joshua Bell and cellist Steven Isserlis. Bax and his regular piano duo partner, Lucille Chung, gave recitals at New York’s Lincoln Center and were featured with the St. Louis Symphony and Stéphane Denève. He has also presented the complete works of Beethoven for cello and piano with cellist Paul Watkins in New York City. Further highlights of previous seasons were his debuts with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra Belfast, Polish Baltic Philharmonic Gdansk and his return for the fourth time for two recitals at the historic Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires festival as well as return appearances at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival with the Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi conducting.

Bax revisited Mozart’s K. 491 and K. 595 concertos, as heard on the recording Alessio Bax Plays Mozart, for debuts with the Boston and Melbourne Symphonies, both with Sir Andrew Davis, and with the Sydney Symphony, which he led from the keyboard. Other highlights include his Auckland Philharmonia debut, concerts in

Israel, a Japanese tour featuring dates with the Tokyo Symphony and a high-profile U.S. tour with Berlin Philharmonic principal flautist Emmanuel Pahud. Previous seasons also saw Bax make his solo recital debut at London’s Wigmore Hall, which aired live on BBC Radio 3, and gave concerts at L.A.’s Disney Hall, Washington’s Kennedy Center, and New York’s Carnegie Hall.

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’s celebrated Signum Classics discography includes Beethoven’s Hammerklavier and Moonlight Sonatas (a Gramophone “Editor’s Choice”); Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, Bax & Chung, a duo disc with Lucille Chung; Alessio Bax plays Mozart, recorded with London’s Southbank Sinfonia; 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 Daniel Barenboim in the PBS-TV documentary Barenboim on Beethoven: Masterclass, available on DVD from EMI.

At age 14, Bax graduated with top honours from the conservatory of Bari, his hometown in Italy, and after further studies in Europe, he moved to the United States in 1994. A Steinway artist, he lives in New York City with pianist Lucille Chung and their daughter, Mila. He was invited to join the piano faculty of Boston’s New England Conservatory in 2019.


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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

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