Michael Tippett: Klavierkonzert on 2 CDs

Obwohl Sir Michael Tippett (1905–1998) in Großbritannien und den USA nahezu Kultstatus genießt, ist in Deutschland sein Name eigentlich nur durch sein zutiefst humanes Oratorium »A child of our time« bekannt. Die vorliegende Doppel-CD bietet somit eine wunderbare Gelegenheit, die Musik dieser eigenständigen, pazifistischen und schillernden Komponistenpersönlichkeit näher kennen zu lernen.

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The musical and intellectual exuberance of Tippett’s music is fully demonstrated in his piano works, recorded here in their entirety on a double CD. The sonatas and concertante works recorded here offer a more compact survey of the various stages of his composing career than any other of the traditional genres he favoured: symphony, opera, and string quartet.

Every one of Tippett’s six piano works is substantial, if not in length then in compositional ambition. By temperament he conceived music on a large scale and was more attracted to the sonata than the short genre piece typical of the famous pianist-composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Being only a moderate pianist himself his piano writing speaks of an imagination directed not by virtuosity or routine movements of the fingers or the blandishments of the sustaining pedal but one set free to explore the contrapuntal style and fascination with rhythm it was heir to.

This is full-blooded, dramatic, joyful music. Steven Osborne is a celebrated interpreter of Tippett’s piano music, making the works his own and dealing with their considerable technical difficulties with ease and aplomb. In a recent interview with International Piano magazine, he wrote ‘I can’t think of any late 20th-century music that is more gripping to perform’. He is joined by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins.

Rezensionen

'Steven Osborne is a young pianist who seems completely at home in this wide-ranging and challenging music … the best case for the music I’ve ever heard' (American Record Guide)

'Osborne is at the top of his game in his unmistakable mix of liberated pianism and steel-tempered discipline… His playing, never better, is stamped with an immaculate sense of organisation and structure, married to a freewheeling joy at grappling with music he is committed to' (The Herald)

'I cannot imagine a finer recording of the emotionally restrained and stucturally tight Tippett Piano Concerto than from Steven Osborne … Any older recording of this very important British piano concerto is safely ousted from the market. Osborne also does justice to Tuippett's sontatas here' (Pianist Magazine)

'The Scottish pianist demonstrates the driving energy behind Tippett's solo piano music. The four sonatas dance nimbly over the keys … Nothing beats the hungry Vivace of the Piano Concerto, however, for sheer palpitating excitement' (The Times)

Reviews