Stravinsky: Music for Piano Solo and Piano & Orchestra Peter Donohoe, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra & David Atherton

• Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971): 3 Movements from Petrushka:
• 13 Movements from Petrushka: No. 1, Russian Dance02:26
• 23 Movements from Petrushka: No. 2, Petrushka's Cell05:12
• 33 Movements from Petrushka: No. 3, The Shrove-tide Fair09:11
• 4 Études, Op. 7:
• 44 Études, Op. 7: No. 1 in C Minor01:33
• 54 Études, Op. 7: No. 2 in D Major03:07
• 64 Études, Op. 7: No. 3 in E Minor01:43
• 74 Études, Op. 7: No. 4 in F-Sharp Major01:55
• Piano Sonata in F-Sharp Minor:
• 8Piano Sonata in F-Sharp Minor: I. Allegro10:45
• 9Piano Sonata in F-Sharp Minor: II. Scherzo05:07
• 10Piano Sonata in F-Sharp Minor: III. Andante07:13
• 11Piano Sonata in F-Sharp Minor: IV. Allegro - Andante06:09
• Piano Sonata (1924):
• 12Piano Sonata (1924): I. Quarter Note = 11202:58
• 13Piano Sonata (1924): II. Adagietto04:44
• 14Piano Sonata (1924): III. Quarter Note = 11202:35
• Serenade in A:
• 15Serenade in A: I. Hymne03:25
• 16Serenade in A: II. Romanza02:55
• 17Serenade in A: III. Rondoletto02:33
• 18Serenade in A: IV. Cadenza finale02:49
• Piano-Rag-Music:
• 19Piano-Rag-Music03:34
• Tango
• 20Tango03:13
• Concerto for Piano & Wind Instruments:
• 21Concerto for Piano & Wind Instruments: I. Largo - Allegro07:23
• 22Concerto for Piano & Wind Instruments: II. Largo - Più mosso07:01
• 23Concerto for Piano & Wind Instruments: III. Allegro - Agitato04:53
• Movements:
• 24Movements: I. Eighth Note = 11002:47
• 25Movements: II. Quarter Note = 5201:25
• 26Movements: III. Eighth Note = 7201:09
• 27Movements: IV. Eighth Note = 8001:59
• 28Movements: V. Eighth Note = 10402:08
• Capriccio:
• 29Capriccio: I. Allegro06:34
• 30Capriccio: II. Andante rapsodico04:37
• 31Capriccio: III. Allegro capriccioso ma sempre giusto05:23
• Total Runtime02:08:26

Info for Stravinsky: Music for Piano Solo and Piano & Orchestra

Peter Donohoe’s compelling journey through the complete Prokofiev and subsequently the complete Scriabin Piano Sonatas for SOMM has led him almost irresistibly to the piano music of Stravinsky whose exuberance and many technical challenges he seems to relish. He begins with three movements from Petrushka for solo piano, drawn directly from the ballet by the composer ten years after the completion of the orchestral score.

Stravinsky’s goal (together with the jazz-like Piano-Rag-Music) was to encourage pianist Arthur Rubinstein to play his music. His intention was to make the arrangement not only technically challenging but also musically satisfying. Such are its demands however, that even the composer himself only played it once, confessing that he lacked the technique. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring earned him the fame of an iconoclast who showed utter disregard for the beautiful colours and gentle rhythms of the impressionists. He created instead, a fresh and exciting wave of music for a new age which inevitably divided opinion. His tongue-in-cheek remark during an interview in The Observer that his music was only understood by children and animals also serves to describe its true essence — music of genuine poetic delicacy allied to technical sleight of musical hand. A good example are the Four Etudes, Op. 7 which focus on heightened chromaticisms together with difficult and irregular rhythmical structures for the pianist.

This set also includes Stravinsky’s early, charmingly delicate F-sharp minor Sonata which he completed in 1904 but it was only published in 1973. The Piano Sonata of 1924, also included here, was composed during his neo-classical period and pays tribute to the 18th century containing characteristic splashes of baroque brilliance as well as latent romanticism. 1940’s Tango, originally conceived as a song, was composed soon after Stravinsky emigrated to the United States.

The works for piano and orchestra on Disc 2 are earlier recordings recorded and released by GMN Inc., about 20 years ago with David Atherton conducting the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Peter Donohoe as soloist: These are Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, cast in three contrasting movements and rooted in the composer’s concerto grosso form teeming with fully modern idioms. 1959’s Movements for piano and orchestra written in 5 short movements, shows Stravinsky’s later preoccupation with serialism and his undiminishing appetite for pioneering music which pushed new boundaries. Peter Donohoe ends with the effervescent Capriccio for piano and orchestra. Its composition followed his Ballet Le baiser de la fée and it shares that work’s graceful rhythms and refined melodic style.

Peter Donohoe, piano
Hong Kong Philharmonic
David Atherton, conductor

Peter Donohoe
In the years since his unprecedented success as Silver Medal winner of the 1982 7th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Peter Donohoe has built an extraordinary world-wide career, encompassing a huge repertoire and over forty years’ experience as a pianist, as well as continually exploring many other avenues in music-making. He is acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility and commanding technique.

During recent seasons Peter Donohoe’s performances included appearances with the Dresden Staatskapelle with Myung-Whun Chung, Gothenburg Symphony with Gustavo Dudamel and Gurzenich Orchestra with Ludovic Morlot. He also performed with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and played both Brahms Concertos with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Last season his engagements included appearances with the City of Birmingham Symphony and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestras and an extensive tour o South America. He also took part in a major Messiaen Festival in the Spanish city of Cuenca, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

Peter Donohoe played with the Berliner Philharmoniker in Sir Simon Rattle’s opening concerts as Music Director. He has also recently performed with all the major London Orchestras, Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Philharmonic, Swedish Radio, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Vienna Symphony and Czech Philharmonic Orchestras. He was an annual visitor to the BBC Proms for seventeen years and has appeared at many other festivals including six consecutive visits as resident artist to the Edinburgh Festival, eleven highly acclaimed appearances at the Bath International Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron in France, and at the Ruhr and Schleswig Holstein Festivals in Germany. In the United States, his appearances have included the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit Symphony Orchestras. Since 1984 he has visited all the major Australian Orchestras many times, and since 1989 he has made several major tours of New Zealand with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. He has recently returned from a highly acclaimed tour of Argentina with the National Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela.

He has worked with many of the worlds’ greatest conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Neeme Jarvi, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Andrew Davis and Yevgeny Svetlanov. More recently he has appeared as soloist with the next generation of excellent conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Robin Ticciati and Daniel Harding.

He is a keen chamber musician and performs frequently with the pianist Martin Roscoe. They have given performances in London and at the Edinburgh Festival and have recorded discs of Gershwin and Rachmaninov. Other musical partners have included the Maggini Quartet, with whom he has made recordings of several great British chamber works.

In 2001 Naxos released a disc of music by Gerald Finzi, with Peter Donohoe as soloist, the first of a major series of recordings which aims to raise the public's awareness of British piano concerto repertoire through concert performance and recordings. Discs of music by Alan Rawsthorne, Sir Arthur Bliss, Christian Darnton, Alec Rowley, Howard Ferguson, Roberta Gerhard, Kenneth Alwyn, Thomas Pitfield, John Gardner and Hamilton Harty have since been released to great critical acclaim.

Peter Donohoe has made many fine recordings on EMI Records, which have won awards including the Grand Prix International du Disque Liszt for his recording of the Liszt Sonata in B minor and the Gramophone Concerto award for the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no. 2. His recordings of Messiaen with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble for Chandos Records and Litolff for Hyperion have also received widespread acclaim. His recording of Brahms’ 1st Concerto with Svetlanov and the Philharmonia Orchestra was voted best available recording by the US magazine Stereo Review.

He studied at Chetham’s School of Music for seven years, graduated in music at Leeds University, where he studied composition with Alexander Goehr, and the Royal Northern College of Music, studying piano with Derek Wyndham. He then went on to study in Paris with Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. His prize-winning performances at the British Liszt Competition in London in 1976, the Bartok-Liszt Piano Competition in Budapest in the same year, and the Leeds International Piano Competition in 1981 helped build a major career in the UK and Europe. Then his activity in the competitive world culminated in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1982, which shot his name into world-wide prominence. In June 2011 he returned to Moscow as a jury member for the 14th International Tchaikovsky Competition.

He is vice-president of the Birmingham Conservatoire and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates of Music from the Universities of Birmingham, Central England, Warwick, East Anglia, Leicester and The Open University.

Peter Donohoe was awarded a C.B.E. for services to music in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List.

This album contains no booklet.