Hisako Kawamura

Hisako Kawamura – Hisako Kawamura plays Chopin (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:39 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Music Labels Inc.

Born in Nishinomiya (Japan), moved to Düsseldorf (Germany) with her family at the age of 5, where she started to study piano under Kyoko Sawano. There are two mentors in Kawamura’s musical education: Malgorzata Bator-Schreiber in Göttingen who built her up musically and artistically, and Prof. Vladimir Krainev at the Hannover University of Music and Drama who developed her further to an artistic personality. After numerous outstanding successes at renowned international piano competitions, Kawamura’s international concert career began. She won the first prizes at the Concours Clara Haskil in Vevey, the A. Casagrande International Piano Competition in Terni, the G.B. Viotti International Music Competition in Vercelli and the European Chopin Competition in Darmstadt, she became laureate at the Concours Géza Anda in Zurich, the ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels.

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Hisako Kawamura – Chopin: 24 Préludes & Polonaise-Fantaisie (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:54 minutes | 1,38 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Classical

In 24 Preludes op. 28, Chopin’s classicist side governs the work’s unified key structure with the pieces arranged in pairs ofmajor and minor keys ascending in intervals of a fifth. Chopin as teacher prevails in how nearly each Prelude either addresses a particular technical challenge or is constructed according to a specific textural agenda. A Romantic sensibility lies at the heart of the music’s diversity of moods, brash declamatory gestures and frequent harmonic sleights-of-hand, yet, Chopin being Chopin, it is controlled Romanticism, and strikingly original at every turn.

Completed and published in 1846, Polonaise-Fantaisieop. 61 appears to have been first conceived as a fantasy, only for Chopin to add the polonaise rhythm underlining the main theme as an afterthought. Its improvisatory aura belies the arduous journey between the composer’s preliminary sketches and final manuscript. The five themes expand, contract, and transform with more rigor than one might glean from casual listening, while the contrapuntal proclivity and harmonic daring that characterize Chopin’s last compositions operate at full tilt.

Between these profound music, Fantaisie-Impromptu op. 66, one of the most famous solo pieces by Chopin, deeply heartfelt three Mazurkas op. 59 from Chopin’s late years, and a mysterious Fugue in A Minor, Chopin’s rare attempt into this format areinserted.

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Sergei Rachmaninov – Piano Concerto No. 2 & Cello Sonata – Hisako Kawamura, Clemens Hagen, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Jiri Belohlavek (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:22:20 minutes | 1,33 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source:  | @ RCA Red Seal / Sony Music Japan International

河村尚子・その10年の歩みが結実した、ラフマニノフ・アルバム
河村尚子のRCA Red Sealからの4枚目の、そして初の大曲コンチェルト録音を含むアニヴァーサリー盤の登場です。2004年11月に小林研一郎指揮東京フィルとの共演で日本デビューして以来、この10年は河村がその音楽を開花させ、育ててきた『最初の10年』でした。その密度の濃い10年の演奏経験の集大成にして、ピアニストとしての最も充実した成果が、この新しいラフマニノフ・アルバムに結実しています。

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