Romantic Virtuoso Masterpieces
Label: Sophia Agranovich | Catalog: 50144452 | Release Date: 12/01/2010
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for Piano no 21 in C major, Op. 53 “Waldstein”
Frederic Chopin: Ballade for Piano No. 1 in G minor, B 66/Op. 23
Frederic Chopin: Impromptu for Piano no 4 in C sharp minor, B 87/Op. 66 “Fantaisie-Impromptu”
Robert Schumann: Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26: Intermezzo
Franz Liszt: Liebesträume for Piano, S 541: no 3, O Lieb, so lang
Franz Liszt: Transcendental Etudes (12) for Piano, S 139: no 10 in F minor
Alexander Scriabin: Etudes (12) for Piano, Op. 8: no 12 in D sharp minor
Listen/Buy/Download
Available on all the platforms worldwide in all the formats
Listen to the tracks on YouTube
Live Concert Videos
Reviews
” The pianist’s technique is thrilling, but it’s the boldness of her conception—her refusal to feminize the music—and the extraordinary dramatic urgency she brings to these pieces through grand Romantic gestures—probably to a greater degree than Chopin himself could or would have attempted on his Érard or Pleyel piano—that leaves one with the strongest impression of Agranovich’s playing…”
“…It’s not her speed as velocity that impresses, it’s the precision and clarity of her finger work. Also astonishing is her dynamic range breadth which ranges from the most hushed pp to the most thundering ff, and her ability to control the gradations of her crescendos and decrescendos to everything in between so that the extremes are always arrived at naturally.”
“How she does it I don’t know, but Sophia Agranovich’s alchemy of mind-bending technical prowess and heart-melting emotional expressivity add up to one of the most glorious piano recitals this side of Elysium. Urgently recommended.”
Jerry Dubins, Fanfare Read full review
“She surely knocks off the Liszt etude with panache, plays the finale of the Beethoven with impressive washes of sound, and deftly aerates the endless swirls of Schumann’s piano writing—swirls that can so easily get stuck in lesser hands.”
“Unfailingly responsive to changes in musical terrain, she refuses to coast or to scant on the details, and the result is a series of eventful performances invigorated by imaginative articulation (the Liszt etude is especially striking in this regard), sensitive treatment of dynamics, and (most notably in the Liebestraum) a fine sense of phrasing in which plasticity of tempo never degenerates into self-indulgence.”
Peter J. Rabinowitz, Fanfare