Prokofiev & Ravel: Piano Concertos

Listen on Presto Music. Free thirty day trial. Find out more.

Anna Vinnitskaya has a dry, clear sound which I think [Prokofiev] would rather have admired...Gilbert Varga's direction is precise and detailed...I certainly want to hear more from this phenomenally... — BBC Music Magazine, Febuary 2011, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 24th Jan 2011
Catalogue No: V5238
Label: Naive
Length: 54 minutes

No digital booklet included

Naive - up to 30% off

Special offer ends: 20/11/2024

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16

Work length33:26

$9.00

$11.60

Anna Vinnitskaya (piano)
Berlin Deutsches Symphony Orchestra
Gilbert Varga

I. Andantino - Allegretto

Track length12:07

$3.00

$3.85

II. Scherzo: Vivace

Track length2:26

$1.00

$1.30

III. Intermezzo: Allegro moderato

Track length7:50

$2.00

$2.60

IV. Finale: Allegro tempestoso

Track length11:03

$3.00

$3.85

Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major

Work length21:12

$5.00

$6.50

Anna Vinnitskaya (piano)
Berlin Deutsches Symphony Orchestra
Gilbert Varga

I. Allegramente

Track length8:22

$2.00

$2.60

II. Adagio assai

Track length8:52

$2.00

$2.60

III. Presto

Track length3:58

$1.00

$1.30

About
Reviews
Explore

About

Following a much-praised first recording dedicated to the Russian piano sonata, the second release by Anna Vinnitskaya is of two of the most significant concertos of the 20th century, Prokofiev’s Second, in G Minor, and Ravel’s Concerto in G Major. The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin is conducted by Gilbert Varga.

Anna Vinnitskaya was born in 1983 in the Russian city of Novorossiysk. She began piano lessons at the age of six with her mother, and played her first solo recital at the age of nine. She has won several international awards, most notably first prize at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels in 2007, and the Leonard Bernstein Award at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in 2008. Still only 27, she has been compared to legendary performers such as Martha Argerich and Sviatoslav Richter. For her first concerto recording, she has selected two masterpieces from the early 20th century, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, and Ravel’s Concerto in G. Anna Vinnitskaya’s debut CD, a programme of works by Rachmaninov, Gubaidulina, Medtner and Prokofiev (V5238), was released on Naïve in April 2009. It was awarded the ‘Diapason d’Or Découverte’, and was nominated for a Midem Classical Award in the Solo Instrumental category.

Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor was written in 1913 and dedicated to a friend of the composer who had recently committed suicide. It was revised in 1923, and this version remains one of the most technically challenging works in the standard repertoire. Following a highly successful tour of America as piano soloist, Maurice Ravel finished his Piano Concerto in G Major in 1931. The concerto is heavily influenced by jazz, which at the time was highly popular in Paris as well as the USA.

Reviews

Febuary 2011

Anna Vinnitskaya has a dry, clear sound which I think [Prokofiev] would rather have admired...Gilbert Varga's direction is precise and detailed...I certainly want to hear more from this phenomenally equipped pianist.

April 2011

The Prokofiev concerto can sound flashy and empty, but Vinnitskaya's more fantastical and demented view reveals its hidden depths. She rips through the fiercely tough first-movement cadenza like a force of nature...Exemplary, high-wire Prokofiev.

April 2011

She is a wholly exceptional artist, the possessor of a fabulous technique, and her musical understanding is a very rare quality...Her playing of the Ravel Concerto is breathtaking...I am sure that this is just what Ravel wanted - it really crackles with electricity, her passagework as light and as brilliant as quicksilver...These concertos are very different works, but this young pianist has the measure of them both - in spades.

28th January 2011

The opening whiplash of Ravel's "Piano Concerto in G major" portends the virtuosic fireworks to follow...But the concerto's real achievement lies in the final two movements, whose fantastical twists grow more unsettling by the minute.

Special offer. Prokofiev & Ravel: Piano Concertos

Downloads

Contents

Download queue