Artist: Martin Klett
Album: Guastavino & Rachmaninoff
Genre: Classical, Piano
Release Date: 2018
Audio Format:: FLAC (tracks) 24 bit, 48 kHz
Duration: 58:35
Total Tracks: 17
Total Size: 489 MB

Tracklist:

Carlos Guastavino (1912 – 2000)
01. Bailecito: Allegretto non troppo
02. Sonatina for Piano: I. Allegretto
03. Sonatina for Piano: II. Lento muy expresivo
04. Sonatina for Piano: III. Presto
05. 10 Cantos Populares: No. 1
06. 10 Cantos Populares: No. 2
07. 10 Cantos Populares: No. 3
08. 10 Cantos Populares: No. 5
09. 10 Cantos Populares: No. 6
10. 10 Cantos Populares: No. 8
11. 10 Cantos Populares: No. 10
12. Tres Romances Nuevos: No. 1. La Niña del Río dulce
13. Tres Romances Nuevos: No. 2. El Chico que vino del Sur
14. Las Niñas

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943)
15. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 36: I. Allegro agitato (Version 1931)
16. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 36: II. Non allegro-Lento (Version 1931)
17. Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 36: III. L’istesso tempo-Allegro molto (Version 1931)

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Harmonies and virtuosity: that is what the two composers Sergei Rachmaninoff and Carlos Guastavino have in common. “Even though the geographical distance between them was immense, their approach to the piano was strikingly similar”, remarks Martin Klett. In both composers the Romantic element is paired with apparent attractive simplicity and ambitious piano artistry. Klett begins his album with a brief piece by the Argentinian composer Guastavino (1912-2000), one of the country’s most outstanding composers. In the course of his travels to Europe, the U.S.S.R., and China, he often presented his own piano works and songs in public – as well as his orchestral works, profoundly imbued with folklore. The listener will discover among others the Sonatina in three movements, where the composer associates folklore elements with the Romantic sonatina form. Klett continues with a selection of Guastavino’s Cantos Populares, Argentinian “Songs Without Words” so to speak. This cycle consists of ten brief aphorisms – often a short tango, a zamba, or a chacarera. The programme’s section dedicated to Guastavino closes with Las Niñas (The Girls, written 1953), where the link towards Rachmaninov seems rather obvious. A perfect transition to introduce Rachmaninoff’sSecond Sonata, which was composed in Rome in 1913 and helped consolidate his reputation as Russia’s last great Romantic. Once Rachmaninoff had performed the Second Sonatamany times in public, he decided to revise it thoroughly in 1931, and Klett plays this definite version. Klett, a former student of Elisabeth Leonskaja, Leon Fleisher and Pascal Devoyon, won the International Johannes Brahms Competition and the German National Music Competition, and has become a welcome guest at the prestigious music festivals of Lucerne, Schleswig-Holstein, Heidelberg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schwetzingen to name just a few.