That 1963 release was my intro in Mozart’s music as a young man. I wore out my first copy on my crummy stereo console I had as a teenager and still have the one bought after that when I could afford a real turntable. Still one of my favorite recordings of those symphonies.
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Fabulous combination…
I just find it really cool that a star like Menuhin was perfectly fine to play second fiddle. Very generous.
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Not only is Katelyn Bouska, who teaches at the Curtis Institute, a superb pianist, not only does this Pure DSD256 recording capture superbly the sound of her New York Steinway in the Samueli Theater at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, with it’s marvelous acoustics, not only are these compelling musical compositions, these are works by composers whose lives and stories need to be shared.
One of the best and most natural sounding recordings of a grand piano in a large hall in my collection. Writing up a dedicated article review for PF now because this is an important release, imo.
More information and download here.
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Yes I saw this yesterday, looked interesting.
Thanks for the recommendation Photon46 - excellent recording, interesting music!
This is a strange collection of music. You have pieces by only one highly regarded composer (Kapralova) and performer/muse (Szymanowska), with national identities including Czech, Polish and Ukrainian. The premise is difficult to understand, as most of these ladies may have been affected by war (difficult to avoid in Europe over the last centuries if you lived a decently long life), but the music is not “war music” or even the case that their music reflected their displacement. Indeed the opposite sometimes seems the case.
This is claimed in the booklet (“contemplating the perils of war and human aggression while celebrating our survival and creative response”). Unfortunately the booklet is deep on biography and wafer thin on the music’s context. The only well-known piece, “Spring Preludes” by Kapralova, was written at a time of personal optimism before she was to move to Paris to study, some years before Czechoslovakia was annexed.
Szymanowska may have died of cholera (not uncommon), but she was an acclaimed and successful society pianist, apparently court pianist to the Empress of Russia when she died. Yurina may be Ukrainian, but her piece was written in 1999, when Ukraine was newly independent and relatively posperous.
The opening piece by Caroline Shaw is rather monochromatic, until it bursts into Chopin after about 4 minutes, and then descends into thrashing chords and lost my attention.
“Spring Preludes” is credited on HighResMusic and hence Qobuz to Ivana Loudova. The booklet says Loudova composed “Prague Imaginations”, but HighResMusic and Qobuz credit it to Schontal. The booklet says Schontal composed “Fragments from a Woman’s Diary”, but HighResMusic and Qobuz credit it to Szymanowska. The booklet says Szymanowaska composed “Fantasie”, but HighResMusic and Qobuz credit it to Kapralova.
Without trying to sort out this mess, it does appear that the track listed as “Fragments of a Woman’s Diary” is “Fantasie for Pianoforte” by Szymanowska. Incidentally, whilst Beethoven relied on Thomas Broadwood to gift him a pianoforte and ship it to Vienna, Mme Szymanowska could afford to buy her own and get it shipped to Moscow.
I think the only one of these composers who should be widely shared for posterity is Kapralova, and that has already been done. She was admired by her contemporary Raphael Kubelik, who performed her work. He continued to perform in Czechoslovakia during the war, I remember him guest conducting the London Symphony at the end of his career. There seem to be quite a lot of recordings.
Incidentally, the track listed as Fantasie would seem to be Spring Preludes.
Good luck with doing a review!
Reminds me of a true story about a cousin who’s parents has a little antique shop in Brighton, where not everything would be assumed genuine. When he was a little boy, his mother had gone out to get some bread and a wealthy looking lady came in and enquired about a painting. “It’s a Grodzinski!”, he announced, and he sold it to her. This story is lost on anyone who has not heard of the chain of kosher bakeries called Grodzinski, that started over 100 years ago and still exists today. My cousin, unsurprisingly, went on to make a very large fortune in the art world.
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I was listening to the recording again this morning, and enjoying it immensely. 
As I’ve commented before, I’m not a musicologist or a music critic. I’m a listener who enjoys well played and well recorded (as this most certainly is) music of most any stripe. And I love it when an artist, like Katelyn Bouska, is passionate about the composers whose works she records. And Kate is nothing but passionate about these pieces. For me, it is just a time to sit back and enjoy them – for I do. Others should try them. Glad you at least gave them a listen.
Oh, and such a pleasure to hear music that is NOT from among “the well known.” They get so tiresome to hear over and over again.
@stevensegal, here may be an album more in line with your requirements of music more reflective of the hardships the composers faced in their lives (should this be the claimed “theme” of the album), though once again, not entirely. And for me yet another album of lesser known composers and very well recorded and played. Enjoy!
I’ve written to Bob Attiyeh, producer of the album, to see what he may have to share about this.
The first piece starts with a rather discordant rhythm, thinks about become Satie and quickly diverts to pure Chopin. The pleasant lightness in the upper registers becomes rather morose and it then drifts back into the monotony opening theme. From 9:00 it changes completely and after half a minute it seems to be thrashing around for a melody, never finding one, wandering around like it’s lost in a forest. Thankfully it ends, mid sentence. Once is enough.
Then a pleasant enough Mazurka. OK, it’s a Polish folk dance. Pleasant, not exactly sublime. Not Chopin.
Track 3 is not Fantasie, it’s Dubnova Preludia, and it’s a lovely piece, sounds very Czech, lots of hints at Janacek, given she studied in Brno, always a good thing.
Track 4 is Fantasie, written in 1819, dedicated to a Polish Princess, is of interest because its clearly very Polish, not in the Classical idiom at all, with a level of colour and virtuosity that would only have been possible with her Broadwood piano, and is an interesting insight into what became the Romantic period.
The next two tracks gave me. headache and the final one sounded like the soundtrack of one of those horror movies where they go round with handheld cameras and torches and dodge thing being thrown at them by poltergeist.
I have no idea if it was well played or well recorded (I listen through my ceiling speakers), the bum notes were more likely the composition, and I’d honestly rather listen to Chopin than Szymanowska.
I listen to a lot of newly composed music because a lot is composed for dance and ballet - like all those Copland pieces discussed earlier. Some are great pieces by composers I’ve never heard of, and some rubbish by famous ones, even the great Steve Reich. Like the vast majority of music, they are not written for posterity and in my view of lot of mediocre music written for commissions, practise pieces etc. are best left uncovered. And a lot just aren’t very interesting.
That said, the programming (War and Peace) seems complete nonsense and the tracks aren’t what they say. Could do better.
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Are you listening via Qobuz? I just looked at their download page for this album and, for whatever reason, they have cross-listed tracks 3 and 6. Qobuz doesn’t match what is in my copy the booklet or in the metadata for the album file downloaded from NativeDSD.
Those NativeDSD downloads match to your descriptions and seem to be correct.
So, good attention to catch the error! I’ll let Yarlung know so they can work with Qobuz on correcting this.
Update: Just as I posted this I heard from Yarlung who write: “The NativeDSD files and your booklet are correct. Naxos made an error with the PCM composers’ names that is being corrected, probably later this week. Sorry about the confusion!”
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It seems that on Qobuz the tracks were in the wrong order as well as the names being wrong. Didn’t look at NativeDSD. Looked at HighResAudio and that was wrong as well.
Taking the booklet as correct, on Qobuz track 6 is at track 3, track 3 is at track 4 and tracks 4 and 5 have moved down to 5 and 6.
Are they in Tibet? In the Yarlung Valley? Maybe that’s the problem.
Good thought! No, they are in California. But the name likely references that valley.