Horowitz proves on this CD why he was/is recognized as one of the greatest performers of all time. This CD has a collection of music that ranges from soft and serene to vigorous and powerful. Horowitz himself adds more emotion to each piece, and this CD displays both his talent as a piano player and Chopin's wide variety of composition. Chopin wrote some of the hardest music to play, and very few people can play it well and consistent. Horowitz does both at an extraordinary level. If you like either Chopin or Horowitz, this is a MUST.

8 CDs, Capbox. Maurizio Pollini's Beethoven Sonatas cycle has reached completion after nearly 40 years. The Beethoven cycle began in June 1975 with opp. 109 and 110, and reached completion this year with the final CD, of the three sonatas op. 31 and the two of op. 49. This latter recording will appear as a single CD simultaneously with the box set. This is the first Beethoven cycle on DG since those of Barenboim and Giles in the 1980s.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s vivid and personal interpretations of Debussy’s complete works for piano are available for the first time in an attractive five-volume set, this is the series that put Bavouzet on the map, and established him firmly as a leading and internationally acclaimed pianist.

Michael Nyman came of age as a classical composer in the radical London of the late '60s. His work embraces multiple vernaculars (jazz, avant garde, conceptual art) and helped cement the foundation of what came to be known as minimalism. Decades into his career, Nyman's score to Jane Campion's film The Piano made him a star. The movie's themes of colonialism and silence (its protagonist, portrayed by Holly Hunter, cannot speak) were perfectly aligned with his longtime interests in world and ambient music. Horn players assist members of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in fleshing out Nyman's stately, hymn-like motifs. On the more heavily orchestrated cues, sentimentality wins out over minimalist restraint; the best tracks feature Nyman on solo piano, playing the rudimentary, faux period repertoire of Hunter's character.

Uchida's performances seem completely natural as if that is the way the performances were intended. Not a point of cunning escapes her. Yet there is never a trace of self-consciousness in her point-making, not even in the heightened intensity of the tragic B minor Adagio. It is Mozart at his purest.

The second album in Lars Vogts Johannes Brahms concerto series with the Royal Northern Sinfonia includes Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto combined with a solo piano work, Handel Variations Op. 24, which was dedicated to Clara Schumann by the composer. Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 is a romantic 4-movement concerto written two decades after its predecessor and one of the cornerstones in the concerto repertoire. This remarkable opus with a great number of beautiful solo passages and with a duration of over 45 minutes has been interpreted by numerous pianists since its premiere in 1881. In this album, Vogt performs the concerto conducting from the keyboard.

Thomas Rajna completed his cycle of Granados’s solo piano music within a year – 1976. As if to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of their original appearance on CRD LPs Brilliant Classics has returned the cycle to the market-place. It’s in one slim box containing six nicely filled CDs and with extensive notes from Bryce Morrison. Nothing could be finer. Rajna was an expert advocate for Granados’s music and though recordings since have come – and gone – his have maintained an honoured place in the memory; and now, thankfully, in the disc drawer. And this is all the more so as so few are performed in public with any great conviction, beyond the obvious Goyescas and maybe Escenas Poeticas and Escenas Romanticas.

"Beautiful Music" used to be a genre in the realm of popular music. It's also been called "easy listening" and then morphed into "adult contemporary". But today's adult contemporary is really just soft rock (albeit today's soft rock is harder than a lot of Top 40 was in the late 70s and early 80s). There used to be stations that played "beautiful music" exclusively: Stanley Black, Ray Conniff, Percy Faith, Frank Chacksfield, etc. Most of the playlist would be recent contemporary hits covered by choral groups, pianists, and orchestras. During that time, London Records sold a lot of their patented Phase 4 Stereo LP records and reel-to-reel tapes. The series was renowned for it's technical brilliance, using state of the art recording, mixing and mastering techniques. Ronnie Aldrich was among London's best selling artists and Tony D'Amato produced many albums using Aldrich's twin pianos backed by The London Festival Orchestra. These albums were not only known for their technical brilliance (which is still quite impressive even in the 21st century) but also for their glossy, gatefold covers featuring colorful artwork and graphics and maybe a sexy model or two. The two LPs featured on this CD were originally released in 1973 and 1972, respectively.

The music of Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov is a unique and delicate tapestry of dramatic and emotional textures, that freely alludes to the entire history of music. "I do not write new music. My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists," Silvestrov has said. Beginning his creative career in the radical Soviet Avant-Garde, Silvestrov demonstrated an almost painful sensitivity to the intimacy that music can create between performer and listener. Silvestrov would later refute his modernist roots, saying “the most important lesson of the Avant-Garde is to be free of all conceived ideas, particularly those of the Avant-Garde” and began composing a series of works entitled “Postludium” that initiated the elegiac, poetic and highly personal relationship with silence which has come to characterize his most recent music. Haenssler Classic is proud to present pianist Jenny Lin in the World Premiere Recording of Silvestrov’s “Three Postludes”, a work composed especially for her.

A rarity only available at her shows since 2006, Halie Loren's debut CD Full Circle is finally available nationally. Original songs combined with a stirring Joni Mitchell cover, Full Circle is a great addition to anyone who is a fan of Tori Amos or Norah Jones.

With this new volume, Alexandre Melnikov has chosen to delve into three distinct periods of the composer’s career, ranging from the dazzling though seldom-heard No. 4 to the magisterial No. 9. In between those two, the sonata no. 7 once again evokes the troubled atmosphere characteristic of the three so-called ‘war sonatas’. Sviatoslav Richter claimed to have learned the piece in a mere four days.

Alexandre Tharaud pays tribute to composers associated with the courts of the French kings Louis XIV, XV and XVI. Lully, Rameau, Charpentier and François Couperin stand beside lesser-known masters: d’Anglebert, Forqueray, Royer, Duphly and Balbastre. “I’ve always been attracted by French music of this period,” says Tharaud, adding that when he plays the album’s initial Rameau prelude, “It’s like being alone at Versailles, opening the doors and entering those huge, imposing rooms.”

Fifteen years before Chopin wrote his first “nocturne”, Irish pianist/composer John Field composed his Nocturne No. 1 in E-flat major, followed by at least 15 more pieces in the same style. In these short works for solo piano, Field–who was one of the most celebrated pianists in the world during the first quarter of the 19th century–put form to the idea of a contemplative, lyrical composition, specifically tailored to the piano’s expressive capabilities. These “night” pieces are primarily characterized by a dominant, gracefully flowing melody, with most of the harmonic activity in the pianist’s left hand. Although other pianists have recorded at least some of Field’s Nocturnes–most notably John O’Conor (Telarc) and Miceál O’Rourke (Chandos)–Benjamin Frith’s own uniquely inflected, poetic readings have a satisfying aura of intimacy cast in the warm colors of his well-tempered, expertly recorded piano. Although O’Conor’s playing is more lyrical, with more fluid legatos, Frith generally takes more time–and these invariably lovely pieces blossom just as fully and brilliantly.

The challenges of Prokofiev’s ‘War Sonatas’ trilogy may be fearsome, but Steven Osborne is one of those rare musicians who can bring light and clarity (as well as phenomenal reserves of power and concentration) to bear on some of the most ferociously volatile and brilliant piano music written in the twentieth century.

Following the success across Europe of his eight ‘Grand Suites’ for harpsichord in 1720, albeit in a doctored and pirated edition, Handel resolved to make good on his promise of a sequel, ‘reckoning it my duty with my small talent to serve a Nation from which I have received so generous a protection.’