I’ve blogged here a few times now about a classical music subscription service I’m on. It shouldn’t be easy figuring out which pieces you’d like to listen or buy. You’ve got many tens if not hundreds of thousands of compositions across the spectrum. There are recordings of classical music from works as early as the 15th century to today, and multiply it with the large number of performers and orchestras who each lend their individual perspectives to the composition.
That said, I don’t quite have the wide-ranging interest in all classical music eras nor composers either. I’m less interested in contemporary compositions than say the baroque or early classical ones. And over the years I’ve listened and collected I’ve accummulated a large number of versions for pieces in what listeners consider the ‘central’ repetiore of any collection.
So, I was really pleasantly surprised and then amazed when I stumbled on recordings by German pianist Fumiko Shiraga‘s piano concerto recordings. Yep you heart that right; Shiraga’s born Japanese but is German in nationality.
Ok, what’s so special about her recordings of Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin piano concertos? Well, She’s gone off the well-walked track and instead used rearrangements of those works by Beethoven’s contemporary Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Instead of an orchestra accompaniment for each piano concerto, each arrangement uses a very small chamber ensemble e.g. a string quartet.
The result of her efforts is like a fresh air to works I’ve listened to over 20 years now. Her performance is crisp and sharp. Without a large or even mid-sized orchestra accompaniment muddying things and with the piano now taking absolute center stage, one hears details that just weren’t obvious before. Like for instance, Mozart’s very well-known Symphony No. 40 in G minor that I’ve never quite liked that much. In Shiraga’s hands I can see textures that I’ve completely missed before, and just marvel at the genius Mozart was.
Shiraga’s discography here.
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