Kapustin Piano Music

Nonchalant aplomb and magical dexterity, as you would expect, from Hamelin

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Nikolai Kapustin

Label: Hyperion

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 78

Mastering:

Stereo
DDD

Catalogue Number: CDA67433

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Variations Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
Marc-André Hamelin, Piano
Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
(8) Concert Etudes Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
Marc-André Hamelin, Piano
Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
Suite in Old Style Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
Marc-André Hamelin, Piano
Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
(10) Bagatelles Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
Marc-André Hamelin, Piano
Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
Sonata for Piano No 6 Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
Marc-André Hamelin, Piano
Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
(5) Etudes in Different Intervals Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
Marc-André Hamelin, Piano
Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
Sonatina Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
Marc-André Hamelin, Piano
Nikolai Kapustin, Composer
With typical generosity and enterprise Hyperion follows its earlier Nikolai Kapustin disc by Steven Osborne (8/00) with one from Marc-André Hamelin (not forgetting Hamelin’s performance of the Op 36 Toccatina included on his ‘Kaleidoscope’ album – 12/01). As Osborne reminded us, ‘crossover’ is an old rather than recent tradition, whether the jazz elements are peripheral as in Ravel or central as in Kapustin. Jed Distler, writing for Hamelin’s disc in a style as witty and engaging as the music itself, speaks of a Chick Corea-based language that lifts a romantic virtuoso tradition into a beguiling quasi-improvisational style and holds it up to a fun-house mirror.

Such high-pitched claims arguably fail to account for too many family likenesses (be they variations, studies or sonatas) or a style that too often suggests composition as a facile rather than arduous process (like Saint-Saëns, Kapustin ‘produces music as an apple-tree produces apples’). Nonetheless, there are many scintillating surprises. The Variations’ gawky theme blossoms into the sort of elaboration that would have made Bill Evans envious, while the second of the Op 40 Etudes ends with a passing memory of Liszt’s Au bord d’une Source, reminding you of Kapustin’s work as a virtuoso pianist with Alexander Goldenweiser. No 6, Pastoral, a dream encore, sends a tiny cell-like motif spinning through a variety of guises.

The Bagatelle’s perky tune would not be out of place ‘in a Brazilian Chorino’ (Distler) and everything on this remarkable disc is played with a nonchalant aplomb and magical dexterity hard to imagine from any other pianist. Hamelin, whom I once heard devoting the whole of the second half of a recital in America to Kapustin, is in his element, and he has been immaculately recorded.

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