For his latest Steinway & Sons release, pianist Andrew Rangell presents an intimate portrait of Franz Schubert; An album that includes the expansive Sonata in G major, D 894, the late Drei Klavierstucke, D 946 and a seldom heard little gem, Variation on a waltz by Diabelli, D 718.

On April 1, 2022, Steinway & Sons releases Andrew Rangell’s recording of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 (STNS 30176). Pianist Andrew Rangell’s debut recording—released thirty years ago—featured Bach’s Goldberg Variations, F-sharp minor toccata, and the two Ricercares from “A Musical Offering”. Over the course of many years, the verve, beauty and originality of Mr. Rangell’s Bach playing have been evidenced in a steady progression of interpretations: The Partitas, French Suites, Well-Tempered Clavier (bk.1), The Art of Fugue, English Suites, Inventions, Sinfonias, and many other individual pieces. This second book of the WTC now brings to completion a journey and survey which was never firmly planned as such. This is because the pianist’s embrace of Bach has run parallel with other deep involvements, beginning with Beethoven, but also exploring repertoire ranging from Sweelinck, Gibbons, and Farnaby to Ives, Nielsen, Enescu, Schoenberg and a host of other 20th century voices. Schubert, Haydn and Chopin also receive special attention within the artist’s rich discography. Rangell’s Bach survey ends with this second book of the WTC in sparkling, free-spirited performances.

Andrew Rangell’s 2018 release, From the early 20th…, an album featuring pieces by Schoenberg, Nielsen, and Enescu, was dominated by Charles Ives’ monumental “Concord” sonata. Volume 2 is intended as a more inclusive enlargement along these lines, featuring iconic works of Webern, Berg, Scriabin, and Ravel, alongside lesser-known gems by Sibelius, Mompou, and Prokofiev. A fanciful, if tangential, addition to the program is Bill Evans’ soulful Turn out the Stars (with its echoes of Ravel).

American pianist Andrew Rangell has specialized in the Ives Piano Sonata No. 2 (“Concord”) for many years, performing an unorthodox interpretation that may strike listeners in different ways. He alters the score in ways that somehow seem sympathetic to the music: for the optional flute part in the finale, he whistles, an effect that one suspects Ives would have loved. In general he conveys the sonata’s tone, which is at once ecstatic and reflective toward the musical past. Even those less enamored of his approach may profitably experience this release on the U.S. Steinway & Sons label, which seems uniquely suited to Rangell’s novel concepts and idiosyncratic but charismatic approach. The tendency among American listeners has been to regard Ives as a figure working in majestic isolation, but Rangell instead groups him with other composers “from the early 20th,” as his album’s title has it. As usual with Rangell, not everybody is going to accept his conclusions, but he makes a persuasive case. Ives, in his view, drew on a strain of thinking that was transcendental (and not just Transcendentalist), and that appealed to European composers as well. It might manifest itself in an assault on tonality (Schoenberg, but certainly Ives as well), vivid tone painting (sample the lovely and little-known Carillon Nocturne of Enescu, which seems to quote the Beethoven “fate” motif that also appears in Ives’ “Alcotts” movement), and a wholesale rethinking of classical forms (as in the Nielsen Three Pieces for piano, Op. 59). You might raise objections to each of these lines of thinking, but these are all works Ives might have known, and the end result is to make you hear the “Concord” sonata in a new way, which is a considerable achievement. Recommended.