Gorgeous and very lush composition, Alfred.  Congratulations that this beautiful piece won 1st prize by The Franz Liszt Foundation of Paris, International Competition.

Miscellaneous works by contemporary composers

Toccata Opus 42 composed and played by Alfred Watson

Opera Digest 9thAug FullProgram

LISZT - finale of the Piano Concerto No.2 in A major S.125

On her Navona Records release PERSONAE, pianist Beth Levin presents works from Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), Anders Eliasson (1947-2013), and Robert Schumann (1810-1856) that highlight each composer’s unique voice and style. Praised by Jeremy Eichler of the New York Times for her “boldly inflected readings and impressive ability to convey emotion without exhibition,” Levin animates the personalities of each composer with aplomb, passion, and elegance.

Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 35 (1839), featuring the well-known funeral march of the third movement, opens with stormy arpeggiations and moves into calmer and lyrical moments, closing with the unremitting whirlwind of unison notes during the finale. Eliasson, considered one of the great twentieth-century composers, heavily influenced by jazz, Bach, and the legacy of Western music culture, creates an unpredictable organic unity in his Disegno No. 2 (1987). The piece is characterized by self-organized harmonic mobility, rhythmic vitality, and the complete absence of schematic development, emblematic of Eliasson’s writing. Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6 (1837) is one of his most personal works, in which the composer incorporates his passionate love for Clara Wieck, anxieties, longings, visions, dreams, and fantasies. This intimate character piece progresses with sudden changes in mood and Schumann’s unconventional approach to tonality and rhythm. 

Levin’s performances refreshingly showcase three unique yet relatable figures in the Western music tradition, three voices which have shaped our understanding of the piano repertoire, humanity, and art. Her warm technique and “rare percussive audacity” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker) allows each note and phrase to stand out as a deep expression of each composer’s experience.

Levin - Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor- I. Grave - Doppio movimento - Personae

I.J. Paderewski - Polish Fantasy For Piano And Orchestra Op. 19

F.Chopin - Fantasy in F minor op.49

F.Chopin - Scherzo nr 1 in B minor Op.20

F. Liszt - Mephisto Polka S.217 
Sofja Gülbadamova (piano)

Franz Liszt - Mephisto Polka S.217

Original composition by Emil Awad with poetry by Octavio Paz (used by permission).  World Premier by Karol Bennett and the Webster Trio, with Max Geissler cello, Rice University and FICA21 2017 Universidad Veracruzana. ©2017 by Emil Awad; Publishing license granted to American Composers Edition (BMI).
I- FLOR; II- DAMA; III- BIOGRAFÍA; IV- CAMPANAS EN LA NOCHE; V- ANTE LA PUERTA; VI- VISIÓN; VII- PAISAJE; VIII- ANALFABETO.
Score and parts: 
https://composers.com/composers/emil-awad/paisaje

Buy Score

Paisaje

Live at Werner Recital Hall, University of Cincinnati, USA
Timothy Ka-Ho Kwok, Piano
November 9, 2011

Sebastian Currier: Brainstorm (1994)

This is a live performance I did at the Salle Cortot in Paris. The most beautiful
Hall I have ever performed in.
The arrangement was done in 1954 by the brilliant Stan Freeman.
I was so thrilled to play this for him at home in Studio City about six months
before he passed away.

Someone To Watch Over Me

Sorina Aust-Ioan - piano

Recording from the conecert on 24. November 2019,
"Nuevas Tribus 1.0"
Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico-City

Klaviersonate in Form einer Fantasie op. 24 mit Sorina Aust-Ioan - Klavier

https://www.innova.mu/albums/paul-schoenfield/cafe-music

Paul Schoenfield: Hopfrog

Having attended a recital of musical portraits by Virgil Thomson in Boston back in the 1980s (with the composer present, whom I briefly met), I have decided to embark upon a similar pilgrimage. This musical portrait of my old friend, the composer and conductor Michael Rosenzweig (born 1951), is a delicately sculpted, multi-layered comprovisation. At the time of this writing I have completed musical portraits of the novelist, essayist and poet Alexander Theroux (Gary-noland – Portrait-of-novelist-essayist-poet-alexander-theroux-for-piano) and playwright David Hirson (Gary-noland – Musical-portrait-of-playwright-david-hirson). I am planning on painting more musical portraits of various artists, writers, and musicians who emanate powerfully luminous auras in their work. When time permits.…

MUSICAL PORTRAIT OF COMPOSER/CONDUCTOR MICHAEL ROSENZWEIG

Resides in Portland, Oregon. Grew up in Berkeley, CA. Born in Seattle.  PhD, Harvard. “Gary Noland is one of the great composers of the 21st century.”—JACK RUMMEL, KGNU 88.5 FM, Boulder CO, “...iconoclastic, stylistic potpourri standards of giddy humor, no holds barred soup to nuts and high spirits.”—ROBERT LEVIN, pianist, musicologist, composer, "...a fleet-fingered, ebullient performer ... bright, witty and engaging.”—CHRISTIAN CAREY, SPLENDID MAGAZINE, “...distinctive, inventive ... subversive ... You can hardly be indifferent to Noland’s music and so I would urge you to try it.” —ROGER BLACKBURN, MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL, “...set in a dizzying harmonic language that loops uncontrollably through a wide-ranging gamut of possible and impossible tonalities ... The general effect is like watching wet paintings of 19th Century musical memorabilia drip into frazzled 21st Century oblivion...” —ALLEN GIMBEL, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE, “Mr. Noland writes as a ‘time traveler’ in styles long abandoned by most composers as well as styles so new as to not have been imagined but by him. This he accomplishes naturally, convincingly, with originality and true passion. His command of all musical languages and his ability to traverse musical time is nothing less than remarkable. Listen!”—DONALD MARTINO, Pulitzer Prize winning composer, “...mind-bending spiraling of focus which is truly breathtaking ... spectacular...”—CHARLES AMIRKHANIAN, composer, sound poet & radio producer, “I'm amazed at your harmonic skill. Haven't seen or heard anything like it from any one else—except yours truly—certainly not from your generation. It falls somewhere between Strauss and Mahler. Especially like how you are able to slip in and out from the tonal to the atonal—or near atonal...”—GEORGE ROCHBERG, American composer, Pulitzer Prize finalist, “...court jester to the classical establishment...”—PAYTON MACDONALD, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE, “...florid and juicy...” —RICHARD BUELL, THE BOSTON GLOBE, “...an incredible aural web ... a great ostinato of American kitsch. Sul pont never sounded so good.”—RUSSELL STEINBERG, composer, conductor of the LOS ANGELES YOUTH ORCHESTRA, “...I am bowled over by the expertise of your music: you use certain elements from the 19th century and from jazz, etc., and just at the moment when I am about to say, OK, what else is new?, you do a number of things, such as speeding up, becoming wildly dissonant, modulating to a distant continent, stopping completely and throwing some kind of total surprise ... you seem to know exactly when to do what and how much. I don’t know anybody else who can do it!” —ANDREW IMBRIE, American composer, Pulitzer Prize finalist, “... remarkable stuff...”
—MAX MORATH, American ragtime pianist, composer, actor & author, “...a loony composer from Oregon...” —MAX SHEA, WMUA 91.1FM, Amherst, MA, “Gary Noland is one of those 21st Century composers seeking to forge a new aesthetic based on older models that do not traffic in serialism or minimalism ... Zany waltzes, ragtime riffs, chorales, toccatas, and much else romp and tear through these depictions of superheroes and villains from his ‘chamber novels’; other pieces spoof serial music ... to grand operas ... and Jewish guilt.” —JACK SULLIVAN, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE, “...Paranoid Ravel...”—ALEX DUNN, KZSU FM90.3, Stanford, CA, “...It’s a romantic romp, rhythmically robust yet melodically flirting with the nostalgia of cabaret, minus the sleazy diminution of spilled drinks and smelly ashtrays. Its elegance recalls Elgar, and the serious sides, a synthesis of those strange bedfellows Schubert and Ives. Composers hate it when their music reminds you of someone else’s, but writing within a tradition, Noland has incorporated divergent styles that, woven together, work. Cosmopolitan without snobbery, it’s intelligent, pleasurable and convincing.” —ROCKY LEPLIN, THE BERKELEY VOICE

Toccata Opus 42 composed and played by Alfred Watson

alfred watson

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