Review By Steve Holtje,Culture Catch,January 2013
Best New Classical Albums of 2012
This was certainly the most intriguing new cycle of 2012 based on the criterion of revival of little-known yet often high-quality music. Weinberg’s…sonatas are impressive. There’s no question…that the most significant works here are the Sonatas…they are excellent works, and Franzetti’s bravura performances make an emphatic case for their artistic significance. Vol. 2 is even more powerful, its works mostly weightier and more mature… © 2013 Culture Catch
Review By Scott Noriega,Fanfare,September 2012
This, the first volume in an anticipated cycle of the complete piano works of Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919–96), is a project for which some have waited a long time. This recital alone has three premiere recordings of his works: the Lullaby, op. 1, the Mazurkas, op. 10, and the Sonata, op. 49bis. As Weinberg was a virtuoso of the instrument…his music needs a performer who is not only technically capable of handling some of the inherent difficulties in his writing, but one who can at the same time make sense of his dense modernist language. It is fortunate that Allison Brewster Franzetti has taken on this project, as she has proven herself up to the task with her noteworthy recording of 20th-century piano sonatas recorded for Naxos…
The recital here opens with the Piano Sonata No. 1, op. 5, a tense and dramatic work made up of a slow introduction, a quirky Shostakovich-like second movement reminiscent of the Polka from The Age of Gold , a slow intermezzo, and a frenzied rhapsodic toccata. Throughout the work, Franzetti finds just the right balance between the severe character of the dissonant and virtuosic passages and the gentle ebb and flow of the more lyrical ones. Franzetti relishes the simplicity of [Piano Sonata No. 2, op. 8], from the first movement’s continuous wandering figuration to its more subdued and mesmerizing second movement (here reminiscent of a Shostakovich prelude of sorts).
Weinberg’s very first published work, the Lullaby, is mesmerizing; its unrelenting rhythmic impulse provides a sense of stasis, while its turbulent harmonies provide a feeling of anxiety…a charming work and one that would no doubt appeal to many. Franzetti throughout proves a fine guide to this too-little-played music. If one enjoys the music of Prokofiev or Shostakovich, then one would also enjoy the music of Weinberg. In very fine performances here, and in adequate sound (a bit reverberant for my taste), this is a fine release. © 2012 Fanfare Read complete review
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Review By Clara Berea,Ritmo,September 2012
Este polaco emigrado a Rusia fue una figura típica de las contradicciones del mundo musical soviético. Encarcelado e ignorado durante un tiempo, no llegó a guardar rencor hacia el régimen, lo que le granjeó una cierta animadversión en el mundo de la disidencia. Sus obras reflejan a menudo un contenido programático de carácter político, aunque en el fondo reconocía su aspiración a una armonía universal a la que llegaba musicalmente por criterios racionalistas y clásicos. El valor de su producción bien merecía que se desempolvara y esta primera entrega de su obra pianística es un primer paso en esa dirección. El disco incluye partituras de su primera etapa, presidida por la influencia de Shostakovich, lo que se nota claramente en la acidez neoclásica de su Sonata núm.1 aunque en la deliciosa Berceuse, hasta ahora inédita, se respira un claro aire impresionista. Siempre dentro de un armazón clásico, los modos punzantes y angulosos de Prokofiev predominan en la Sonata núm. 2, lo que permite a la veterana pianista neoyorkina Allison Brewster Franzetti exhibir su afinidad con la música rusa, desplegando todas sus capacidades técnicas en los movimientos extremos, enérgicos y contundentes, para darnos en el Adagio una versión muy expresiva del Weinberg más íntimo. © 2012 Ritmo
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Review By Mario-Felix Vogt,Fono Forum,July 2012
GP603_Fono-Forum_072012_gr.pdf
Review By Stephen Estep,American Record Guide,July 2012
Grand Piano is a new label, launched in March of this year and distributed by Naxos, dedicated to recording rare works and complete cycles. This is Volume 1 of Moisei Vainberg’s piano music…and contains the first recordings of the Lullaby, Op. 1, the Two Mazurkas, Op. 10, and the Sonata, Op. 49b. Sonata No. 1, Op. 5, from 1940, is a four-movement piece that clocks in at 15 minutes. III, an Adagio, has a lot of beauty and emotional variety. The playing is good…Excellent notes in English and German. © 2012 American Record Guide Read complete review on American Record Guide
Review By Colin Clark,International Piano,July 2012
Franzetti’s playing in the Second Sonata is outstanding; layered and clearly the result of much thought. The Adagio plumbs the greatest depths of the disc, ending with tolling bells that lead into the dancing finale.
Franzetti’s Naxos disc of 20th-century piano music has been warmly welcomed by the critical press; this disc is just as successful. © 2012 International Piano
Review By Roger Knox,The WholeNote,June 2012
Carolyn Weichert brilliantly captures the idioms of both modernism and jazz in Partita (1922) where 1920s dances replace Bach-era ones. Transcending clichés of decadent Weimar Germany, the depth and seriousness of its jazz scene during the 1920s and ‘30s are evident; I love the charm, quirky humour, fleeting pensive moments and glimpses beyond the ordinary in the Tango-Rag. Schulhoff’s harmony is never just “bi-tonal” or “wrong-note.” Weichert balances chords and brings out subtle voice-leadings in music evocative of the era and more. The Third Suite for the left hand is a work of pianistic genius. Weichert’s fingers crawl “multi-legged” over the keyboard; as her thumb sings out one of Schulhoff’s exquisite long melodies in the Air, fingers carry on a canonic invention below! After the harmonically-adventurous Improvisazione, she delivers the mixed-metres perpetual-motion Finale with flair but without bombast. © 2012 The WholeNote Read complete review
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Review By Ernst Hoffmann,Piano News,May 2012
GP603_Piano-News_052012_gr.pdf
Review By Joshua Kosman,San Francisco Chronicle,April 2012
Interest in the music of the Polish-born Russian composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg has revived over the past couple of years, since the emergence of his 1968 Holocaust-themed opera “The Passenger.” Now comes a new collection of gritty and fascinating works—the first installment of a projected complete cycle of Weinberg’s piano music—that can only accelerate the process. Weinberg, who died in 1996, was a friend and protege of Shostakovich’s, and the influence of the older composer suffuses this music—especially the Sonata No. 1, which boasts some of the same angular rhythms, tart dissonances and mournful expressivity. But Weinberg’s harmonic language, as well as his taste for spirited fantasy, is distinctive, and there is an ambitious quality to the last piece here—a sonatina expanded 25 years later into a full-scale sonata—that is irresistible. Completeness means we also get some teenage works that are slim but utterly charming. Allison Brewster Franzetti plays it all with fervor and appealing commitment. © 2012 San Francisco Chronicle
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Review By SteveHoltje,Culture Catch,April 2012
Much of this album features premiere recordings…Harmonically slippery, by turns ironically wry or darkly elusive, they are excellent works, and anyone who diminishes them by comparison to Shostakovich and/or Prokofiev, as some do, is being too harsh—and is missing out on some dramatically effective music. Allison Brewster Franzetti, whose modernist bona fides are certainly in order, gives us bravura performances that make an emphatic case for the numbered sonatas’ artistic significance. Of the Grand Piano releases I’ve heard, this is the most crucial and satisfying. © 2012 Culture Catch Read complete review
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