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Sir Michael Tippett's Complete Piano Works Recorded by Steven Osborne on Hyperion

Jan. 08, 2008

January 2008 marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Sir Michael Tippett, and Hyperion Records honors the composer with a new recording of his complete piano works performed by Steven Osborne (CDA67461/2). Osborne performs Tippett's four piano sonatas and is joined by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for the Piano Concerto and Tippett's Fantasia on a Theme of Handel. The pianist comments in an interview for Fanfare Magazine:

I thought it would be an interesting challenge to get to grips with all his piano music: It's all very contrapuntal and nothing is familiar: it's really slogging your way through the densest thickets to get physically comfortable with it....It's very much like Beethoven's music, it has the same intellectual rigor and grasps conflict with both hands, and a very definite will to conquer whatever these problems are. There is also incredible lyricism.

Fanfare's Colin Anderson remarks on the recording:

Steven Osborne brings deep commitment to the music, making it alive, vivid, and communicative through musical and technical virtues of the highest order. A comparison of the various recordings would bring constant preferences for one pianist above another, the result being the wish to retain them all for their particular insights. Listeners new to Tippett and with a particular interest in piano music should start here with Hyperion. All of Tippett's piano music is here and is wonderfully presented.

The London Sunday Times also comments:

This double album is a monumental achievement. Tippett's writing for piano is as demanding as it is cliché-resistant. No body of music for the instrument since Messiaen's is as distinctive as his and it is wonderful to have the oeuvre together on disc. The concerto is realized with a precision and vigor, both soloistic and orchestral, that leave one marveling anew at its inventiveness. In Osborne's account of the four sonatas, each a big statement, radiance and virtuosity go hand in hand

Commemorative performances around the world of Tippett's music this month include: the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra performing his Concerto for Double-String Orchestra; the Australian Youth Orchestraperforming Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli for string orchestra; The Heart's Assurance song cycle at the Royal Academy of Music in London; and Tippett's oratorio A Child of Our Time by the Dun Laoghaire Choral Society at the National Concert Hall of Dublin, Ireland.

To learn more on the life and work of Michael Tippett, please visit www.schott-music.com.

For more information on the Hyperion recording of the complete piano works of Michael Tippett visit www.hyperion-records.co.uk.

Sir Michael Tippett
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (19531955)
2222-4230-timp-cel-str
32'

Fantasia on a Theme of Handel (1939-41)
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16'

Piano Sonata No. 1 (1936-37; rev. 1942)
21'

Piano Sonata No. 2 (1962)
14'

Piano Sonata No. 3 (1972-73)
22'

Piano Sonata No. 4 (1984)
35'

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