CD Klassik Barock und Orgel bei ambitus Musikproduktion - Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition Modest Mussorgsky

18.00 EUR

Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition
Claude Debussy: 4 Préludes, Premier Livre - Edvard Grieg: 3 Lyric Pieces

Stefan Arnold, piano

amb 96972

EAN 4011392969727


Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881):	Pictures at an Exhibition
Claude Debussy (1862-1918):	4 Préludes, Premier Livre:
	Nr. 9 La sérénade interrompue (The Interrupted Serenade),)
	Nr. 10 La cathédrale engloutie (The Sunken Cathedral)
	Nr. 11 La Danse de Puck (The Dance of Puck)
	Nr. 12 Minstrels
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907):	3 Lyric Pieces:
	Melodie op. 47, Nr. 3
	Elegie op. 47, Nr. 7
	Notturno op. 54, Nr. 4

Un jalon monumental de la musique pour piano
Do you think the piano is merely a single instrument? It is like a hundred instruments! These words were ones that one of the truly greatest keyboard lions of the second half of the 19th century was fond of repeatedly impressing upon his piano students: Anton Rubinstein, the Russian pianist, composer, and conductor who, following Franz Liszts retirement from the concert stage, rose to become the undisputed leading international concert pianist of his time, thanks to his hyper-virtuosity and immense expressive power. In offering this advice to his students, Rubinstein was, of course, also thinking of the modern concert grand pianos of his era, instruments characterized by their vast tonal range, powerful bass registers, sonorous mid-ranges, and glittering upper registers; instruments that placed a broad palette of colors and nuances directly at the players fingertips. It was for such instruments that Modest Mussorgsky composed his only major work for solo piano: Pictures at an Exhibition, a work that exploits the full potential of these instruments to the absolute maximum, ranging from the finest tonal shadings to the most massive sonic agglomerations, and in which the solo piano truly seems to multiply itself into a hundred different instruments.
Stefan Arnold performs this work on a Steinway Model D concert grand piano built around the year 1900. The instrument has undergone a meticulous restoration, a process predicated upon the presence of an intact soundboard with balanced crown curvature, as well as a stringing configuration precisely calibrated to the internal structural forces of the instrument. Based on the pianos original specifications and measurements, a new keyboard featuring optimized leverage ratios was crafted, a fundamental prerequisite for facilitating a modern playing technique. Furthermore, a set of hammerheads, custom-modified based on historical models, was installed, as modern hammerheads sometimes tend to overpower the delicate tonal balance of historical instruments.
Thus, this grand piano offers an impressive symbiosis of modern playing technique and the instruments original tonal character and aesthetic ideal.