Alena Baeva, Vadym Kholodenko – Fantasy (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:15 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
2013 Van Cliburn Gold Medalist, Vadym Kholodenko, has twice given suberb solo recitals in the Series. This time, we welcome him back with his longstanding duo partner, renowned violinist Alena Baeva.
Their programme starts in the land of make-believe. Schumann’s Fairy Tale Pictures is a work of four distinct movements, though Schumann gives no clue in the score as to which tales, or which fairy happenings, he had in mind for each one. Schubert’s Fantasie in C major for violin and piano stands out for the virtuosity that it asks of both instruments. Based around a simple song melody yet highly complex, it is a joyful piece with a wonderful celebratory finish.
Following the interval, Vadym performs Schubert’s ‘Wanderer Fantasy’ for solo piano. So called for its many connections to his ‘Der Wanderer’ lied, the work’s beautiful melodies and intricate themes conceal treacherous technical demands. And to end, we are back with make-believe. Le Baiser de la Fée is a one-act ballet that Stravinsky wrote as homage to Tchaikovsky. He later made an orchestral version and also a transcription for violin and piano alone. It is with this that Alena and Vadym close tonight.
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Vadym Kholodenko – Beethoven, Rzewski & Kurbatov: The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:32 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Quartz Music
The present release is a mind-blowing rendition of a contemporary classic by amazing Ukrainian pianist, past winner of Van Cliburn competition. “Recordings usually start to live their own lives after their release. However, this one happened to be very special since it acquired its very meaning long before getting to the publishing phase. Recorded in September 2021, this project survived February 24, 2022 – the date marking for me the end of a fragile balance between humanity and medieval darkness. This recording is dedicated to the people of a free and independent Ukraine, whose unshakable spirit will never be defeated.”
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Vadym Kholodenko – Tchaikovsky: Piano Sonatas, Opp. 37 & 80 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:03 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi Area: Russie
After Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Prokofiev, Vadym Kholodenko continues his exploration of the Russian repertory with a pair of rarely recorded works: Tchaikovsky’s two solo piano sonatas. Imaginative, colourful and dreamy, capable of an infinite range of emotions, he reveals both the masterly architecture and the subtleties of the writing that are often sacrificed to mere demonstration of virtuosity.
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Vadym Kholodenko – Scriabin: Preludes, Etudes & Sonatas Nos. 4 & 5 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:11:59 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
It’s on a big Fazioli piano, recorded in a public concert in 2017, that Vadym Kholodenko – gold medallist at the prestigious Van Cliburn Competiton – offers us a journey through the fascinating, sometimes unsettling, always vivid, world of Scriabin. The programme follows the compositions in chronological order: we start with some harmonically almost “well-behaved” works, which still bear the marks of Chopin and Rachmaninov, moving gradually towards total liberation from any audible tonality in the form of Vers la flamme from 1914 – one of Scriabin’s last pieces – a hair-raising firework display on the piano in the form of an inexorable, almost orgasmic, crescendo. Between these two poles, Kholodenko offers several series of Preludes and Études, two Sonatas – the 4th from 1903 and the 5th from 1907, representing the transition in the composer’s style – and isolated piece with evocative titles such as the Poème tragiqueand the Poème satanique. It’s a fine journey, at the end of which the listener will feel both full and emptied-out!
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Vadym Kholodenko – Prokofiev: Sonata No. 6 & Visions fugitives (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:18:08 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Following up on his acclaimed recordings of Prokofiev’s piano concertos, Vadym Kholodenko offers more music by his favorite composer. The solo works assembled here reveal several facets of Prokofiev. He was an outstanding melodist – a ‘classicist’ on the fringes of the avant-garde and eventually the herald of a Soviet realism that was anything but servile. The freedom peculiar to the composer-pianist ‘with fingers of steel’ is brought out in all it’s vitality by the subtle, yet never showy, playing of this Ukrainian artist.
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Vadym Kholodenko – Prokofiev: Piano Concertos No. 1, 3 & 4 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:10:31 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
2013 Cliburn Gold Medalist Vadym Kholodenko became the first-ever “Artistic Partner” with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra beginning in 2014/2015. He now concludes his complete cycle of Prokofiev piano concertos, which opened with Nos. 2and 5. The three works heard here were composed over a span of two decades (1911 to 1930) and met with widely uneven reception, which ranged from the great popularity and critical acclaim in the case of No. 3 – to incomprehension and neglect, when it came to No. 4 (the ‘other’ concerto for the left hand alone).
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Vadym Kholodenko – Liszt: Transcendental Études (2013/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 59:33 minutes | 535 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
A cornerstone of piano literature, Liszt’s set of 12 ‘Transcendental Études’ needs a performer who is up to the challenge: able to rise above the work’s fearsome technical difficulties and to bring out all its uniqueness and compositional refinement. Gold Medal winner of the Van Cliburn International Competition, Kholodenko delivers a performance of rare sensitivity and stunning virtuosity: transcendent, as Liszt would have wished it to be.
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