SKU: FG.55011-642-9

ISBN 9790550116429.

Kalevi Aho's Piano Concerto No. 2 is scored for a string orchestra comprising just twenty players. The first performance took place at the concluding concert of the 2003 Mantta Music Festival, in Vilppula Church on 29th June. The soloist was Antti Siirala and the strings of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra were conducted by Osmo Vanska. The demanding piano writing is primarily a consequence of Siirala's remarkable command of the 'Beethovenian-Lisztian-Brahmsian' pianistic tradition. At times the piano part is lean and linear, but the work also contains multi-layered, full-toned piano textures and massive rolling octaves. The concerto requires great artistry on the part of the performer. The Second Piano Concerto lasts roughly half an hour and comprises three untitled movements played without a break. The first movement and the finale are extremely fast; these outer movements contain plenty of playful music. The slow second movement is more serious in tone, and its piano texture is very ample. The difficult cadenza at the end of the finale brings more serious emotions to the coda as well.

SKU: SU.12800062

Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (3-page Preface, 63 pages, edited for piano, no fingerings). This attractive Urtext of Bach’s popular variation cycle is not only extremely user-friendly and extra-legible, but in addition, presents groundbreaking performance practice research that explains Bach’s never-before-revealed plan of tempo relationships between variations. This discovery is highly significant with regards to the tempi chosen for the 30 variations in a complete performance. The first edition from 1741, engraved by Bach himself, shows fermatas after some, but not all, variations. Most editors assume this was an oversight by Bach, and thus, add fermatas where they do not belong. Virtually all editions of our time add fermatas where Bach did not indicate them. Perhaps the only edition that correctly reproduces Bach’s fermata indications is Peters (ed. Kurt Soldan, 1937). Mapping out Bach’s fermata plan for the complete cycle reveals an ingenious and fascinating symmetrical arrangement of pairs and groups of variations unified by direct tempo relationships. Bach’s tempo plan has never yet been honored by commercial artists because they have been steeped in false, 19th-century tempo traditions, they have been too influenced by Glenn Gould, and they have never been made aware of Bach’s use of fermatas due to faulty editions. Bach’s master plan is beautifully laid out and all the tempo relationships are explained in the three-page Preface, which also contains a tempo hierarchy matrix relevant to Bach performance as well as Bach’s well-known Table of Ornaments. This edition is ideal for pianists from the late-intermediate levels and higher as well as concert artists, scholars, and teachers who seek an informative edition of the Goldberg Variations for the concert hall or teaching studio. Piano/Keyboard Published by: BachScholar.