OCTOBER RELEASES

World premiere recordings and piano impromptus

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PIATTI QUARTET: ALBION REFRACTED

The Piatti Quartet present British music for string quartet, including two world premieres by Joseph Phibbs and Mark-Anthony Turnage alongside works by Britten and Bridge.The inspiration for the album began with their commission of Joseph Phibbs’ String Quartet No 1 in 2014, premiered at the Rye Arts Festival, where audiences were enthusiastic to hear the work again.  

The finale to this British-themed compendium owes its inclusion to the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, where the Piatti Quartet won a special prize in 2015 for a performance of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s piece Contusion. This is the world-premiere recording of Twisted Blues with Twisted Ballad, premiered in 2010 by the Belcea Quartet.  In this piece the outer movements draw on themes by Led Zeppelin, from Dazed and Confused and Stairway to Heaven and the central movement is dedicated to Fausto Moroni, long-term partner of the composer Hans Werner Henze with whom Turnage studied. 

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KATYA APEKISHEVA: IMPROMPTUS

Well-known for her chamber collaborations and piano duo with Charles Owen – with whom she is artistic director of the London Piano Festival –  this is Katya’s first solo disc on Champs Hill Records, on which she brings her artistry to Impromptus by Scriabin, Faure and Chopin.  She says: “In the last few years I have been drawn to Fauré’s music with its rich textures and sensuous, dark, hypnotic harmonies. I discovered his Impromptus which are
rarely performed, perhaps partly because of their very virtuoso writing.”

The Scriabin Impromptus are similarly underrepresented in the discography and are programmed here alongside jewels in the piano repertoire, the Chopin Impromptus. 

“These very different composers’ styles complement each other yet there is a common romantic thread running through; and I thought that, together, they would make a very beautiful programme centred around the Impromptu form.”

“Apekisheva has fabulous technique, with lovely rounded sound and deeply wrought legato…” — BBC Music Magazine