SKU: FG.55011-512-5

ISBN 9790550115125.

Ilmari Hannikainen (1892-1955) was the most important Finnish pianist during the first decades of the 1900s. In his lifetime he also was one of the country's most famous composers. Hannikainen studied composition with Erkki Melartin, Franz Schreker and Maximilian Steinberg. His piano techers include Elli Rangman-Bjorlin and Alexander Siloti. Piano Sonata C minor Op. 1 was completed in 1912, and is one of the largest-scale romantic piano compositions in the Finnish piano repertoire. The work is a joyride of flowing national romanticsm filled with youthful energy. Some technical influence from Chopin and Liszt is evident, as is from master Sibelius, the major figure in Finnish music at the time. The Piano Sonata is published now for the first time - and directly as an Urtext edition. Pianist Dmus Risto-Matti Marin and music engraver Jani Kyllonen have studied all surviving manuscript sources, resulting in a worthy edition of this great work for piano.

SKU: HL.14028008

ISBN 9788759852521. English.

The Dante-Sonata was composed in 1970, inspired by two quotations from Dante's La Divina Comedia, Inferno, each in its turn forming the program of the two movements. Movement 1: Wandering through Inferno Dante sees all those who during their life on earth were ill-tempered and discontented, and who are now doomed for all eternity to stand in mud up to their necks, fighting each other, tearing and scratching each other's flesh. Movement 2: Here the doomed wretches recollect life on earth - the blessed sun and the green meadows; but it is too late to repent. Apart from having this connection with La Divina Comedia the title: Dante-Sonata has a dialectical and music-historical reference, a reference to Franz Liszt's Dante Sonata, without quoting from it in any way. An elusive air of the music of bygone days can be percieved in the second movement, which with its many types of graces is reminiscent of a slow movement of a Baroque dance. Dante-Sonata is dedicated to Elisabeth Klein.

SKU: BR.EB-9386

ISBN 9790004188569. 0 x 0 inches.

The Violin Sonata No. 1 in E minor, op. 73, a Grand Sonata for Violin and Piano, occupies an important position in Joachim Raff's oeuvre: it reflects numerous artistic, aesthetic, biographical, and reception-historical aspects characteristic of Raff. The work was composed in Weimar in 1854, when Raff was going through a process of artistic self-discovery. He increasingly distanced himself from his mentor Franz Liszt and intensively explored Wagner as well as the ideal of absolute music - this is also reflected in the music of the sonata. While Raff described the first two movements as objectified, he perceived the last two movements as a piece of him, that is, not free of extra-musical influences.The 1st movement, with its expansive main theme, is reminiscent of Mendelssohn; the 2nd movement reveals the refinement of classical-romantic work with musical material. The 3rd movement, with its partly rhythmic, virtuoso accompanying figures and harmonically advanced passages, allows a deeply romantic, almost tormented insight into a soul life a la Sturm und Drang. The partly irascible last movement revisits already familiar themes and thus creates a musical framework.In collaboration with the Joachim-Raff-Archiv Lachen (CH)

First Urtext Edition of the Grand Sonata for Violin and Piano.