Nelson Freire – Encores (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:55 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
This release, issued to mark the 75th birthday of the great pianist Nelson Freire in 2019, is hardly a typical album of encores. A good deal of it is devoted to a single composer, Edvard Grieg. Other composers are represented by multiple works, and there are substantial pieces like the Rachmaninov Prelude in B minor, Op. 32, No. 10, that would not fill the role of encore well. You might take the word “encore” in another way, though: to mean things reprised. Many of these pieces are ones Freire knows well, has played many times, and has explored at a truly breathtaking level of detail. The Grieg Lyric Pieces are not virtuoso works, and indeed are often played by amateurs, but you haven’t heard them played like Freire plays them, with each one a little study in phrasing and register. You could sample almost anywhere here, but try the first of the Shostakovich Fantastic Dances, Op. 5, which has an entrancing subtlety from the very first notes. Freire, a famed virtuoso, mostly avoids showpieces here, but, as if to say he hasn’t lost the ability, he does drop some in. The album is, then, an encore to Freire’s remarkable career, which isn’t over yet.
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Nelson Freire – Brahms: Piano Pieces & Sonata No. 3 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:11 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical, Piano
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
Nelson Freire made his recording debut with the Brahms F minor sonata in 1967. Now, half a century later, he returns to this monumental work.
The perfect repertoire at the perfect moment in his career: still in his prime at 72, Nelson Freire invests Brahms’ music with unrivalled colour and imagination.
This recital presents a portrait of Brahms across his entire oeuvre for solo piano, culminating in a selection of the celebrated late intermezzi.
This is Freire’s first Brahms recording since the 2007 Gramophone Record of the Year concerto set with Riccardo Chailly: still the reference recording.
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Nelson Freire, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Riccardo Chailly – Beethoven : Piano Concerto No.5 “Emperor” – Piano Sonata No.32 in C Minor, Op.111 (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:55 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
Released to celebrate his 70th birthday, Nelson Freire presents three landmark albums on the Decca label – the first in a brand new Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle begins with Piano Concerto No. 5, universally known as the “Emperor.”
This is the first recorded collaboration between the great Brazilian pianist and Italian maestro Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester since their highly acclaimed Gramophone Recording of the Year, the two Brahms piano concertos, in 2007, which went on to win multiple awards.
The concerto is paired alongside the C minor Piano Sonata no. 32, the composer’s last.
This album will be simultaneously released with Radio Days in September, followed by a Chopin album including Piano Concerto No.2 and other solo gems in January 2015.
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Nelson Freire – Chopin: Piano Concerto No.2 (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:41 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
In the third of three new landmark albums on the Decca label, Nelson Freire marks his 70th birthday year with a stunning recording of Chopin’s lyrical and brilliant Piano Concerto No. 2
The recording was made in Cologne with the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln and Lionel Bringuier, one of the most talked-about of the younger generation of conductors and features some favourite Chopin solo works – the Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52, the Berceuse in D flat major, Op. 57, the Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53, Three Mazurkas, Op. 50, plus the Impromptu in G flat major Op. 51
This is Freire’s fourth Chopin recording for Decca, which includes his celebrated set of the complete Nocturnes, of which the Guardian wrote: “[Freire] respects the poise and elegance of the melodic lines, floating them exquisitely while teasing out the harmonies beneath with fastidious care; this is Chopin playing of high quality, from one of the finest pianists alive today.”
Nelson Freire – Bach (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:21:34 minutes | 1,33 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: prestoclassical.co.uk | Digital Booklet | © Decca
Recorded: Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, Harburg, 17–21 August 2015
Nelson Freire brings a lifetime’s experience to his first-ever album devoted to the music of J.S Bach. It was recorded in Freire’s 70th birthday year and provides a superb overview of Bach on the piano: towering original works such as the Fourth Partita and Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue; one of Bach’s own keyboard transcriptions (the sublime slow movement of Marcello’s Oboe Concerto) plus a selection of transcriptions by Busoni, Siloti and Myra Hess.
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