Alkan: Concerto pour piano seul, Esquisses, Toccatino & Étude alla barbaro Schaghajegh Nosrati

• Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813 - 1888): Esquisses, Op. 63:
• 1 Esquisses, Op. 63: No. 1. La Vision 02:49
• 2 Esquisses, Op. 63: No. 2. Le Staccatissimo 01:11
• 3 Esquisses, Op. 63: No. 48. En Songe 01:31
• Toccatino, Op. 75:
• 4 Toccatino, Op. 75 02:01
• Esquisses, Op. 63:
• 5 Esquisses, Op. 63: No. 31. Début De Quatour 01:06
• 6 Esquisses, Op. 63: No. 43. Notturnino-Innamorata 01:23
• Étude alla barbaro, WoO:
• 7 Étude alla barbaro, WoO 03:02
• Esquisses, Op. 63:
• 8 Esquisses, Op. 63: No. 26. Petit Air. Genre Ancien 00:50
• 9 Esquisses, Op. 63: No. 6. Les Soupirs 02:14
• 10 Esquisses, Op. 63: No. 12. Barcarollette 01:24
• Concerto pour piano seul, Op. 39:
• 11 Concerto pour piano seul, Op. 39: I. Allegro asai 32:05
• 12 Concerto pour piano seul, Op. 39: II. Adagio 12:14
• 13 Concerto pour piano seul, Op. 39: III. Allegretto alla barebarseca 10:47
• Total Runtime 01:12:37

Info for Alkan: Concerto pour piano seul, Esquisses, Toccatino & Étude alla barbaro

Schaghajegh Nosrati on her encounters with Charles-Valentin Alkan. I started to become fascinated with composer Charles Valentin Alkan when I was very young. The groundwork was laid by my teacher Rainer M. Klaas, whose curiosity and commitment in favor of a seldom-performed and unjustly forgotten repertoire I still regard as an unrivaled source of inspiration. Klaas played a decisive role. At a time when few had ever listened to Alkan’s music or had even heard the composer’s name, I had already assimilated and learned to appreciate many of Alkan’s works thanks to his teaching. My brother Shafagh had also cultivated an interest in Alkan and performed several of his pieces. I found a further source of inspiration in pianist Marc-André Hamelin, who recorded Alkan’s piano music in an unprecedented quality and helped make them known to a much wider audience.

Apart from my intense exploration of the music of J. S. Bach, I also began to learn and perform compositions by Alkan when I was still quite young………

Last not least, Alkan’s music is at times so unconventional and sarcastic that audiences may have experienced more irritation than enthusiasm. His style feeds on abrupt contrast; it features a great deal of counterpoint and is thus more akin to the so-called “German School” than to French salon music. Even today, Alkan’s music poses great challenges to listeners and performers, but I find those barriers by no means impossible to overcome. Anyone who dares to explore Alkan’s music more closely will be richly rewarded: these are works capable of displaying the utter extremes of the human condition alongside one another: seriousness and humor, intellect and emotion, tradition and modernity.“

Schaghajegh Nosrati, piano

Schaghajegh Nosrati
was born in Bochum in 1989. She has become known as an extremely versatile musician; that she could establish herself as a concert pianist in early years is due to her excellent reputation as an interpreter of Bach´s music. Her International breakthrough came in 2014 as an award winner at the International Bach Competition in Leipzig and particularly through her increasing musical collaboration with Sir András Schiff who praised the "astonishing clarity, purity and maturity" as well as the musical comprehension associated with it when she plays Bach.

After many years of working with Rainer M. Klaas, Schaghajegh Nosrati was admitted to the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media as a young student of Einar Steen-Nökleberg. She completed her master´s degree under Christopher Oakden in 2015 and her artist diploma under Ewa Kupiec in 2017. Robert Levin, Murray Perahia and Daniel Barenboim gave her further artistic inspiration.

Between 1998 and 2016, she performed as a guest at international music festivals such as the Festival International Echternach, the Schumannfest Düsseldorf and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad. Further performances followed at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the NDR Kleine Sendesaal in Hannover, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr in Bochum, the Beethovenhaus Bonn, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Tonhalle Zurich, 92nd Street Y in New York as well as at the Berliner Philharmonie (with the Mitteldeutsches Kammerorchester, the Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin and the Bochumer Symphoniker). In 2017, she had her first concert tour in China including debut performances in Shanghai and Beijing.

Furthermore she was invited to play a concert tour with Sir András Schiff and Capella Andrea Barca in 2018 with performances in Dortmund (Konzerthaus), Düsseldorf (Tonhalle), Luxembourg (Philharmonie), Brussels (Palais des Beaux Arts), Vienna (Musikverein), Baden-Baden (Festspielhaus), Salzburg (Stiftung Mozarteum), Bratislawa (Philharmonic Concert Hall), Lucerne (KKL) and Hamburg (Elbphilharmonie).

In 2015 she recorded her first album with Genuin classics (J.S. Bach: "The Art of Fugue"). Her second album (released in autumn 2017 with Genuin classics and Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin) is a recording of Bach´s piano concertos BWV 1052-1054.

Since october 2015, Schaghajegh Nosrati has been teaching at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media.

Booklet for Alkan: Concerto pour piano seul, Esquisses, Toccatino & Étude alla barbaro