![Dmitry Smirnov – Bartók, J.S. Bach & Schneeberger: Solo Violin Works (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/12/21/t8j8dhn6zwywa_600.md.jpg)
Dmitry Smirnov – Bartók, J.S. Bach & Schneeberger: Solo Violin Works (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]
Russian violinist Dmitry Smirnov’s debut recording on First Hand Records features works by master baroque composer (Johann Sebastian Bach), a leading figure of 20th century music (B’ela Bart’ok) and a wonderful newly discovered work by influential Swiss violinist Hansheinz Schneeberger who died in 2019. The Schneeberger’s Sonata, written two years before Bart’ok’s Sonata, is a violin show piece, displaying much imagination in its idiomatic and virtoustic violin writing – this is the first recording of the work. There are many connections that link these three works together – the Bart’ok and Schneeberger Sonatas show influences of Bach. Also, Bart’ok’s First Violin Concerto was premi`ered by Schneeberger. On this album Smirnov plays a modern violin made by Philipp Bonhoeffer (Bart’ok and Schneeberger) and a 1795 Johann Sch”onfelder violin (Bach).
![Breanndán Begley, Mick O’Brien, ConTempo Quartet, IMO Quartet – Dave Flynn: Irish Minimalism (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 44,1 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/05/17/eo9thisbtk5ab_600.md.jpg)
Breanndán Begley, Mick O’Brien, ConTempo Quartet, IMO Quartet – Dave Flynn: Irish Minimalism (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 44,1 kHz]
With the title Irish Minimalism, composer Dave Flynn has laid down a marker. Minimalism is associated with America, and specifically with composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass (both of whom have spent a good portion of their careers disavowing the term) however, the hallmarks of the style (repetition, gradual incremental changes that accrue over time, steady rhythms which are often drawn from popular or traditional music, and a restrained sense of harmonic movement) are all compatible with Irish traditional music.
After years spent as both a composer and performer working in the dual worlds of contemporary classical music and traditional song, Flynn has fashioned a personal musical language by recognising that the differences between those two styles are not nearly as great, and certainly not as useful, as the similarities.
![Asako Ogawa – J.S. Bach: 6 Partitas, BWVV 825-830 (2020) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/07/09/yj1shhdr7542b_600.md.jpg)
Asako Ogawa – J.S. Bach: 6 Partitas, BWVV 825-830 (2020) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]
Asako Ogawa (Ginova), a leading Japanese-born harpsichordist based in London, actively performs as a soloist and as a continuo player in UK, Europe and Japan. She is also a baroque repertoire coach at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
![Amyas, Emily Baines – The Ghost in the Machine (2021) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/14/xm8j6lq6x98tb_600.md.jpg)
Amyas, Emily Baines – The Ghost in the Machine (2021) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]
This recording is centered around the performance style found in mechanical musical instruments (generally barrel organs and organ clocks) produced in 18th-century England. It features a combination of pieces which appear in treatises or other publications offering information from composers about performance style, and pieces whose style has been preserved within the pins, barrels and pipes of mechanized musical instruments made over 200 years ago. As historical performers much of our understanding of style is based on the study of treatises on performance, or other written sources from earlier eras. These are open to much interpretation, often appear to disagree with each other, and frequently the modern reader must decipher what they may have omitted because it seemed too obvious to mention for readers at the time. This recording is the culmination of 10 years of research by Dr Emily Baines.
![Alexandra Papastefanou – Tears from Babylon (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 48 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/03/08/z3i0xyh0dw7mb_600.md.jpg)
Alexandra Papastefanou – Tears from Babylon (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 48 kHz]
Neue Klaviertranskriptionen der griechischen Pianistin Alexandra Papastefanou von verschiedenen Kantaten, einer Orgelsonate und einem Choralvorspiel von J. S. Bach, die alle hier zum ersten Mal aufgenommen wurden. Die berühmte Myra Hess-Transkription von Bachs Kantate »Jesus bleibet meine Freude« beschließt einen faszinierenden neuen Blick auf einige von Bachs Chor- und Orgelwerken.
![Alexandra Papastefanou – Schumann: 1839 – Year of Piano (2021) [FLAC 24bit, 44,1 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/08/gn8c2dz8haiib_600.md.jpg)
Alexandra Papastefanou – Schumann: 1839 – Year of Piano (2021) [FLAC 24bit, 44,1 kHz]
1839 was Schumann’s most productive year of writing for solo piano, and the last year he wrote a major work for piano solo. The following year, Schumann wrote no works for solo piano, focusing a new energy in writing songs. 1840 is famously known as his “Year of Song” (“Liederjahr”), hence our coined title “Year of Piano” with all the works on this album, apart from three “Stücklein”, written in 1838. This is Papastefanou’s third album for FHR.
![Alexandra Papastefanou – J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (2021) [FLAC 24bit, 44,1 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/08/zcnxphvex58ac_600.md.jpg)
Alexandra Papastefanou – J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (2021) [FLAC 24bit, 44,1 kHz]
Following on from her two previous successful First Hand Records albums of Johann Sebastian Bach, Papastefanou has now recorded one of the most iconic works in the history of music, the Goldberg Variations. This challenging, inventive masterpiece feels completely natural under Papastefanou fingers and will surely be a recording to be revered, like her previous Bach recordings for First Hand Records.
![Adam Golka – Brahms & Beethoven: Piano Sonatas (2014) [FLAC 24bit, 88,2 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/01/15/5060216340289_600.md.jpg)
Adam Golka – Brahms & Beethoven: Piano Sonatas (2014) [FLAC 24bit, 88,2 kHz]
Adam Golka has won widespread critical and popular acclaim with his “brilliant technique and real emotional depth” (The Washington Post) and has garnered international prizes including the 2008 Gilmore Young Artist Award. He has performed with many orchestras around the globe inlcuding BBC Scottish SO, Sinfonia Varsovia, Warsaw PO, Shanghai PO and many American orchestras and has collaborated with artists such as Donald Runnicles, Mark Wigglesworth and Pinchas Zukerman. This brilliant young Polish-American pianist releases a remarkable new and unique recording. Brahms was clearly influenced by the ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata yet this is the first time these two works have appeared together on a recording.
![Adam Golka – Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1 (2020) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/01/il9l7b0u3i2fb_600.md.jpg)
Adam Golka – Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1 (2020) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]
Adam Golka’s third album for First Hand Records begins a wonderful journey in which he records all of Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas. This first volume, released in Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year, includes one of the composer’s most celebrated works, the “Pathétique” Sonata in C minor, alongside the contrasting Sonatas, Op. 10. All four sonatas were written 1796-98.
Since first self-presenting and performing Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas at the age of 18, Adam Golka has immersed himself in studying the master’s works. He has studied Beethoven under the guidance of masters such as Leon Fleisher, Alfred Brendel, Sir András Schiff, Murray Perahia, and Ferenc Rados. In 2011, Adam performed a cycle of all five Beethoven Piano Concertos with the Lubbock Symphony, with his brother Tomasz at the baton, and last summer, he made his San Francisco Symphony début at the Stern Grove Festival in Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto.
He will celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birthday in 2020 by playing the whole cycle of Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas in multiple cities, which includes a self-produced video series named “32@32”, made in collaboration with filmmaker Zac Nicholson and designed to be part of the concert experience.