Divine Art Records

Genre: Piano

  • Porgy, Preludes & Paris – Gershwin arrangements for piano duo

    Porgy, Preludes & Paris – Gershwin arrangements for piano duo

    Husband and wife team Robert and Linda Ang Stoodley are an adventurous duo with a very wide range of repertoire from the pops to major classical works which they present to appreciative audiences all around the world, spending much time as recitalists on cruise ships. They are also accomplished arrangers, as demonstrated by the brilliant transcriptions on their recordings.

    Following their well received Divine Art debut album ‘France Revisited’ they present superb new arrangements of George Gershwin works from the serious (Porgy & Bess) to tin pan alley songs, often interwined and merged. Purists may frown but such arrangements, sampling and “medleying” were well known to Gershwin himself.

    This album is not only performed with great virtuosity, it is immensely entertaining too. See Piano-a-Deux performing on YouTube

    “The Stoodleys are fine, often exuberant, pianists well tuned to each other’s phrasing and occasional subtleties.” – Michael Ullman (Fanfare)

  • Jonathan Östlund : Voyages (Download album)

    Jonathan Östlund : Voyages (Download album)

    Jonathan Östlund is a composer from Sweden who has pursued his passion for music with a BA and MA in Composition at the LTU, in Sweden. He has so far completed more than 100 works, including several orchestral pieces, a Piano Concerto and a Violin Concerto, and has been awarded many prizes in international competitions.

    ‘Voyages’, his second release under Divine Art (after ‘Lunaris’, in 2016), is a double album (issued in digital form only), featuring vocal, instrumental and chamber music, as on ‘Lunaris’, while in addition also featuring two orchestral recordings and works for organ. This new album with a focus on nature, enigmatic atmospheres and introspective journeys, is presented by top international soloists, some of whom have given the world premieres of these works.

    Östlund writes music with natural poetic melodies and highly sophisticated harmonies, blending tradition with contemporary expression.

    This album can also be obtained as a double CD (two tracks omitted in order to fit on 2 discs) HERE

  • Galuppi Piano Sonatas, volume 4

    Galuppi Piano Sonatas, volume 4

    Peter Seivewright was amongst the first musicians to seriously research (in 1994) the 100 keyboard sonatas by Venetian composer Galuppi, also famed as a pioneer of opera buffa. While others have since come to appreciate and record the fine variety and novelty of these works, for many personal and career reasons, Seivewright’s series was held up after volume 3 was released in 2004 but is now back on track with this intermediate album which includes also the G major Piano Concerto. Many of the sonatas have had to be reconstructed from single movement manuscripts. They show amazing diversity, from single-movement works to two- and three-movement pieces, and from traditional baroque style to a Romanticism prescient of Schumann. Seivewright strongly believes that the works were specifically written for the pianoforte rather than harpsichord due to their frequent need for sostenuto and other factors.

    Peter Seivewright studied at Oxford then at the Royal Northern College of Music. He has performed extensively as recitalist and concerto soloist and has taught in colleges around the world, from Scotland to Trinidad to Afghanistan and most recently in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
    Find Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3

  • Gershwin and Ravel: Music for Piano Duo

    Gershwin and Ravel: Music for Piano Duo

    With over forty CDs to their credit and a busy concert schedule stretching back more than thirty years, the British piano duo of Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow was firmly established as a leading force. Their recordings are not only brilliant performances but usually innovatively programmed, leading to rave reviews for every album. Sadly Goldstone died in January 2017 but their legacy lives on.

    This album was originally released in 2007 (dda 25057) but withdrawn due to complex issues regarding one track. Now available again (without that track!) this is a superb rendition of music inspired by jazz and popular idioms, including the original piano duo versions (not transcriptions) of several of the pieces. The combination of these two great composers and one of the world’s best-ever duos makes for a stunning recital album.

  • Artyomov: The Way to Olympus and other works

    Artyomov: The Way to Olympus and other works

    Vyacheslav Artyomov is considered by many to be Russia’s greatest living composer. After the fall of the Soviet regime his music has travelled the world to great acclaim. It is deep, ultimately spiritual and brilliantly crafted, with influences from the Russian symphonic tradition colored by Mahler, Scriabin, Honegger and Messiaen to name a few – but melded into a unique voice.

    The Divine Art Artyomov Retrospective continues with the magisterial symphony The Way to Olympus, chamber orchestral works and Preludes to Sonnets, Artyomov’s only solo piano work.

    Recorded at the height of achievement of the major Soviet orchestras, conducted by major figures including the universally acclaimed Rozhdestvensky.

  • Chopin – Piano Works (audiophile 2-LP set)

    Chopin – Piano Works (audiophile 2-LP set)

    Divine Art’s first vinyl release is a selection of tracks from the Burkard Schliessmann triple SACD ‘Chronological Chopin’ which won a silver medal at the Global Music Awards 2017 as well as glowing reviews from music critics the world over.

    An audiophile two-disc set recorded and mastered at 24-bit quality, this is a very rare opportunity to obtain new recordings of Chopin’s masterpieces in the best sound and by a compelling interpreter.

    German pianist Burkard Schliessmann is a performer with a passion and vision – to seek out and interpret the forms, colours and textures, indeed the soul and expression: the poetic impact, of works we believe have already been fully explored. His previous recordings have received worldwide acclaim – “Schliessmann is too good a pianist for anyone to pass on this” – American Record Guide; “without equal” – Fanfare. Chopin is above all his composer of choice to whom he has devoted endless hours of study and appreciation.

    Pressed in 180-gram blue vinyl by Pallas of Berlin in luxury gatefold sleeve – pressing will be limited to make this a true collector’s edition.

  • France Revisited

    France Revisited

    Piano-a-Deux – Husband and wife team Robert and Linda Stoodley are an adventurous duo with a very wide range of repertoire from the pops to major classical works which they present to appreciative audiences all around the world, spending much time as recitalists on cruise ships.

    This new album features a programme of French music, including Debussy’s well known Petite Suite and the superb First Sonata for Piano Duet by George Onslow, contemporary of the young Mozart and on this showing an equal in compositional skill. Add to that Poulenc’s ‘Songs of Love and War’ arranged by Linda into a new suite of pieces, and we have a very entertaining and instructive album beautifully played.

  • The Operatic Pianist: Volume II

    The Operatic Pianist: Volume II

    In the mid to late 19th century, piano transcriptions allowed access to the classics for the majority of people who could not attend opera or orchestral performances. In the area of ‘grand opera’ specialists included of course Franz Liszt – and also composers such as Sigismund Thalberg. Andrew Wright is a rarity in the current day being an expert interpreter and also arranger of operatic themes, and as well as an astonishing virtuosity enabling the drama of the scene to be preserved, he also keeps alive the tradition by which opera tunes became popular.

    Following the critical praise given to the original ‘Operatic Pianist’ album, this set includes transcriptions and fantasies by Wright, Thalberg, Liszt, Kullak, Leschetizky and Jaëll and amazingly a fine work by Saint-Saëns receiving its world premiere recording.

    Intense, dramatic and full of action this will appeal to both opera lovers and piano afficionados.

  • Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Piano Music

    Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Piano Music

    Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco is best known for two things – his evocative guitar music, and his work during his long association with the movie industry in Hollywood, where he produced some amazing scores though never quite receiving the fame of his compatriot Nino Rota. His extensive body of piano music has been largely neglected despite the fact that it is exceptional, impressionistic, and in the best post-Romantic tradition of ‘lighter’ music – though only relatively ‘light’ in that it is written in traditional harmony. Never shallow, but highly suggestive of moods, emotions, places and colors. Many of the works in this album are receiving their first recording.

    Alfonso Soldano is a brilliant Italian pianist, the last and highly- regarded pupil of Aldo Ciccolini whose debut recording (piano music of Sergei Bortkiewicz) attracted worldwide acclaim. He is naturally attuned to the Romantic which makes him an ideal interpreter of this music. He has just been appointed Artistic Director of the Aldo Ciccolini Academy in Trani, Italy.

  • The Piano At The Ballet: Vol. 2

    The Piano At The Ballet: Vol. 2

    Anthony Goldstone died on January 2, 2017 after a year-long battle with illness. This was his last recording, and is issued now also as a tribute and memorial to one of the greatest pianists of our age who never achieved the international recognition he deserved. His immense musical knowledge, assiduous research, and skilful artistry in both performance and also transcription brought him great acclaim in musicological circles.

    Following the critical praise and commercial success of ‘Piano at the Ballet’ this sequel focuses on transcriptions of ballet music with French connections – through the composer or subject matter and includes both well known works and some refreshingly unfamiliar pieces, including program works by Debussy and Françaix later choreographed.

  • Enigmas

    Enigmas

    A varied range of masterful works from English 20th century composers – some familiar and all major works of importance. Elgar composed his Enigma Variations at the piano; it was always suitable for a solo version and Elgar himself wrote this. Bowen’s Flute Sonata is well known – a Romantic staple — as is Leighton’s Elegy, which deserves to be better known. The piano solo work Folio I is lively and full of fun, while the two Sonnets of Rubbra are exquisitely gorgeous and absolutely essential listening.

    Fine performances by pianist Elspeth Wyllie who is an accomplished soloist and chamber musician/accompanist, working throughout the UK and other countries. The young set of musicians here show exceptional talent and musicianship in the recorded works which are very varied yet make up a coherent concert album.

  • Franz Schubert: Complete Piano Duets

    Franz Schubert: Complete Piano Duets

    The importance of this set cannot be over-stated. First released on 7 separate CDs by Olympia, it launched the international reputation of Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow as one of the world’s foremost duos, and it remains the only complete recording of Schubert’s original duet compositions including many little-known masterpieces and one Polonaise completed by Goldstone from Schubert’s unfinished manuscript. Each disc concludes with a Polonaise encore written by Schumann, inspired by Schubert. The set represents the whole stretch of Schubert’s output from D.1 to D.968.

    The performances are superb, exhilarating and perfectly integrated: the husband and wife team really do play like one person with four hands.

    Tragically, Anthony Goldstone died on January 2, 2017 while we were finalizing the design work, and did not live to see the re-issue of this marvelous collection, repackaged and remastered as a box set.