Peter Donohoe - Rachmaninoff: Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 22 - Chopin: Piano Sonatas, Opp. 35 & 58 '2023

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 22: Theme - Vars. 1-10
02. Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 22: Vars. 11-14
03. Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 22: Vars. 15-18
04. Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 22: Vars. 19-21
05. Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 22: Var. 22
06. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35, B. 128: I. Grave - Doppio
movimento
07. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35, B. 128: II. Scherzo
08. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35, B. 128: III. Marche funèbre.
Lento
09. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35, B. 128: IV. Finale. Presto
10. Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58, B. 155: I. Allegro maestoso
11. Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58, B. 155: II. Scherzo. Molto vivace
12. Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58, B. 155: III. Largo

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce the return of pianist Peter Donohoe to
the label following his acclaimed complete survey of Mozart’s Piano
Sonatas with a dazzling new recital coupling Rachmaninoff – on the 150th
anniversary of his birth in 1873 – and Chopin.

“Rachmaninoff is unimaginable without Chopin,” asserts Russian music
expert Marina Frolova-Walker in authoritative booklet notes that point to
Rachmaninoff’s long engagement with Chopin’s music in the concert
hall and recording studio.

Donohoe’s recital explores the intricate connections between the two
composers, beginning with Rachmaninoff’s Op.22 Variations on a Theme of
Chopin. They embrace “a broad array of styles and genres, in a kind of
theatrical quick-change routine that leaves us marvelling at the extreme
contrasts in music that still embraces the same theme”.

A work Rachmaninoff played at both his graduation recital in 1892 and his last
public recital, six weeks before his death in 1943, Chopin’s Second Piano
Sonata (Op.35) boasts a lowering funeral march and a groundbreaking finale.

Chopin’s Third Piano Sonata (Op.58) is a work of exhilarating contrasts,
intensity balanced by poetry, its high-Romantic style making formidable
virtuosic demands of the piano.

Peter Donohoe’s previous SOMM releases include the widely-praised six-
volume set of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas. Musical Opinion declared of Volume
1 (SOMMCD 0191) “no finer accounts of these still neglected masterpieces
will have been offered to the public”. BBC Music Magazine’s
five-star review of Volume 6 (SOMMCD 0660) hailed Donohoe for finding “a
playing style that feels exactly right”.

His other discs include Stravinsky’s Music for Solo Piano and Piano and
Orchestra with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and David Atherton (SOMMCD
266-2), “a splendid and engrossing issue” (International Piano), and
Scriabin’s Complete Piano Sonatas (SOMMCD 262-2), The Guardian praising
Donohoe as “a masterly guide, his playing both unearthly and
earthy”.



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