{"product_id":"skalkottas-piano-concerto-2-tema-con-variazione-little-suite-madge-bbc-symphony-orchestra","title":"SKALKOTTAS: Piano Concerto 2; Tema con Variazione; Little Suite - Madge, Christodoulou, BBC Symphony Orchestra","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0067\/4660\/3571\/files\/officialaboutthisrecordingsept2022_1b671117-a747-449a-9403-66663edc8519_480x480.png?v=1681155916\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn BIS’s pioneering series of Skalkottas’s orchestral music we are now releasing the sixth instalment. The main work on the present disc is the Second Piano Concerto (1937), a composition which was essential for the composer’s early posthumous reputation. In the 1950s it was championed by the legendary critic Hans Keller, who wrote: “Passionately dramatic and lyrical, heroic and tenderly submissive in turns, the Concerto is an immediately fascinating work…There is a new and incisive thought, a novel developmental idea, an unsuspected textural perspective at every corner”. Keller went on to describe its composer as follows: “the first real and great twelve-note composer since Schönberg … the anti-romantic era left him cold, or rather hot: his music is as romantic as all full-blooded music, and as classical as all great art.’’\u003cbr\u003eOn the disc is also Tema con variazioni, the very last composition Skalkottas worked on. (Its orchestration was interrupted by the composer’s death in 1949, and has been completed for this recording by conductor and Skalkottas expert Nikos Christodoulou.) The work is actually the fifth movement of the monumental, but unfinished, Suite for Orchestra No.2, of which the first movement, Ouvertüre Concertante, is available on BIS-CD-1014, and the fourth, Largo Sinfonico, on BIS-CD-904. These two works are followed by the Little Suite for Strings from 1942 – a work of almost extreme brevity – and the late, tonal, suite Four Images (1948). The latter work was intended for a ballet, and depicts rural life in a Greek village.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe interpreters on the present disc have all appeared on previous discs in the series: Geoffrey Douglas Madge has been the soloist on the three piano concertos so far released, and Nikos Christodoulou and the BBC Symphony Orchestra collaborated on the highly acclaimed recording of 36 Greek Dances (on BIS-CD-1333\/34).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0067\/4660\/3571\/files\/officialTRACKLISTINGWITHWORLD_b79a4887-e333-4cca-a4b2-e2b81d298cf5_480x480.png?v=1681155905\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNikos Skalkottas\u003cbr\u003e Concerto No.2 for Piano and Orchestra (1937) 37'07 \u003cbr\u003e01 I. Allegro molto vivace 15'41\u003cbr\u003e02 II. Andantino 11'22\u003cbr\u003e03 III. Allegro moderato 10'04\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Tema con variazioni (1949) 11'05 \u003cbr\u003e04 Theme. Andantino - attacca - 2'16\u003cbr\u003e05 Variation 1. Allegretto - attacca - 1'50\u003cbr\u003e06 Variation 2. Moderato - attacca - 3'54\u003cbr\u003e07 Variation 3. Allegro ritmato 3'05\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Little Suite for Strings (1942) 8'15 \u003cbr\u003e08 I. Allegro 2'36\u003cbr\u003e09 II. Andante 3'41\u003cbr\u003e10 III. Allegro vivo 1'58\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Four Images (1948) 12'34 \u003cbr\u003e11 I. The harvest 3'20\u003cbr\u003e12 II.The seeding 4'21\u003cbr\u003e13 III. The vintage 2'34\u003cbr\u003e14 IV. The wine-press 2'19\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Album total 70'41\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BIS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44163011870970,"sku":"7318599914848","price":6.59,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0067\/4660\/3571\/products\/4438682-origpic-05f226.jpg?v=1681389772","url":"https:\/\/classicselectworld.com\/de-de\/products\/skalkottas-piano-concerto-2-tema-con-variazione-little-suite-madge-bbc-symphony-orchestra","provider":"ClassicSelect World","version":"1.0","type":"link"}