Tag: Fazil Say

Fazil Say – Say Plays Say 3 (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Published November 29, 2021

Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say presents a programme of his works, performed by the artist himself!

“The piano pieces you are about to listen to in this CD and which I have been performing throughout my professional career, truly represent a pianists piano music. There are also some vivid allusions to Turkey and Anatolia. In my younger days, I was also extremely fond of composing jazz variations of famous classical works, and we have included a few examples here. Throughout the years, I have always made a point of playing these pieces in my concerts, sometimes as an encore piece, sometimes as part of a themed performance or even as an adaptation. Music connoisseurs who know me also know many of these works. Film-maker and writer Andrei Tarkovsky made an observation which I greatly admire: Art is born out of an ill-designed world. So here are some humble examples as my attempt to explain a life though music.”
– Fazil Say

Comments closed

Fazil Say – Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Published August 30, 2021

“Beethoven was my idol and my mentor”

“I began this project in May 2017. At the time I had only ever played 14 of Beethoven’s sonatas, so I had 18 more to learn from scratch. 2020 is Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, and I aimed to complete the project by that date.

Comments closed

Fazil Say – Debussy: Preludes, Book 1 – Satie: 3 Gymnopedies & 6 Gnossiennes (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Published August 30, 2021

Fazil Say – Debussy: Préludes, Book 1 – Satie: 3 Gymnopédies & 6 Gnossiennes (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:39 minutes | 999 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Perhaps because their piano music was so different, Satie and Debussy were close friends from the time of the Gymnopédies onwards and whereas Satie’s titles here look back to ancient Greek civilisation, Debussy derived the individual preludes in his first collection from more contemporary literature, art or nature. But, like Satie, he wanted to make them look different in publication and placed their titles at the end, although he must have realised that once played, their titles would never be forgotten.

Comments closed

Fazil Say – Ulvi Cemal Erkin (Türk Bestecileri Serisi, Vol. 6) (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Published August 30, 2021

Fazıl Say (Turkish: [faːˈzɯɫ saj]; born 14 January 1970 in Ankara) is a Turkish pianist and composer.

Fazıl Say was born in 1970. He was a child prodigy, who was able to do basic arithmetic with 4-digit numbers at the age of two. His father, having found out that he was playing the melody of “Daha Dün Annemizin” (Turkish version of Ah! vous dirai-je, maman) on a makeshift flute with no prior training, enlisted the help of Ali Kemal Kaya, an oboist and family friend. At the age of three, Say started his piano lessons under the tutelage of pianist Mithat Fenmen.

Comments closed

Fazıl Say, Friedemann Eichhorn, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie & Christoph Eschenbach – Fazil Say: Violin Works (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Published September 13, 2020

Fazıl Say, Friedemann Eichhorn, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie & Christoph Eschenbach – Fazil Say: Violin Works (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:10:20 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Naxos

Fazıl Say is one of the world’s most prominent pianists but he is also a much-admired composer with a substantial catalogue of works. He combines both these accomplishments in his two Violin Sonatas, the first of which is suffused with Turkish motifs and dances, such as the horon. The Second Sonata takes as its theme the abuse of nature and the need to resist despoliation. His Violin Concerto is subtitled ‘1001 Nights in the Harem’ and is full of rich melodies and atmosphere, and features an array of Turkish percussion instruments.

Comments closed

Fazil Say – Troy Sonata – Fazil Say Plays Say (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Published June 25, 2019

The centrepiece of this album of piano works by Fazıl Say is his Troy Sonata. Say gave its premiere in August 2018 in the Turkish city of Çanakkale, near the historical site of Troy itself. “There are not many purely musical works on the subject of Troy,” explains Say, “so I have endeavoured to express all the dramatic features of this magical legend through the language of music.” As the Turkish magazine Andante wrote, the 10-movement sonata “is composed around a structure just as epic as its subject”.

Comments closed

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Complete Piano Sonatas – Fazil Say (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Published January 19, 2018

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Complete Piano Sonatas – Fazil Say (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 06:14:25 minutes | 5,63 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Qobuz | Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Recorded: 27.VI.–3.VII.2014*; 15–17.IX.2014 & 13–16.III.2015, Great Hall, Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg, Austria

With his extraordinary pianistic talents, Turkish pianist Fazıl Say has been touching audiences and critics alike for more than twenty-five years, in a way that has become rare in the increasingly materialistic and elaborately organised classical music world. He is a pianist, composer and director with firm reputation in Europe, Asia and the US. After spending five years under David Levine at the Robert Schumann Institute in Düsseldorf and further studies at the Berlin Conservatory he came to international attention 1994 when he was the winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. Since then he has become a regular guest artist with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony, the St Petersburg Philharmonic , the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, and the Orchestre National de France.

This release sees him return to Mozart, a composer with whom he has a great affinity, and a recording of his complete piano sonatas. The sonatas here are grouped by key, revealing Mozart’s unique approach to tonality.

Comments closed

Fazil Say – Chopin: Nocturnes (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Published September 27, 2017

Fazil Say, who made his debut on this label with a very, very well-received work on Mozart’s Complete Piano Sonatas, is now turning his attention to Chopin, but a more confidential side of Chopin, much less virtuoso, the Chopin Nocturnes, the almost complete work of which he recorded in the Mozarteum Salzburg in March 2016. An “almost complete work” because the Nocturne in C-Sharp minor Op. 71/1 is missing, most likely due to CD running time restrictions as the total exceeded the limit by just a handful of seconds… Regardless the interpretation is dazzling and almost symphonic, taking these Nocturnes out of the hyper-romantic state of torpor they are so frequently plunged in by musicians. In addition to Chopin’s music, a few of Say’s short-lived grunts can also be heard who, much like Gould (albeit to a lesser extent), sometimes enjoys humming in the background

Comments closed

Fazil Say & Nicolas Altstaedt – 4 Cities (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Published June 18, 2017

This bracingly eclectic recital opens with Fazıl Say’s Four Cities, a musical celebration of four Turkish locations the composer describes as “full of personal memories”. Originally a BBC commission, it was premiered in June 2012 during the City of London Festival by Nicolas Altstaedt and José Gallardo.