Michael Barenboim, Yulia Deyneka, Kian Soltani & Daniel Barenboim – Mozart: Piano Quartets (Live At Pierre Boulez Saal) (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:49 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
When he wrote his two unique quartets for piano, violin, alto and cello, in 1785 and 1786 respectively—the era of The Marriage of Figaro—Mozart was brilliantly inaugurating a genre which, much later, would inspire others, and not the least: Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Dvořák and Fauré, Saint-Saëns and Chausson. Not the big crowd then, because it is true that the format causes balance problems, that Mozart has overcome with his usual mastery (the others too, be reassured). Because the risk and the temptation are huge to make it some kind of mini-concerto for piano with three string accompaniments, and the composer took great pain to avoid that: yes, he often sets the piano against the three strings, but the exchange remains balanced and never are the strings only there to only act as support. In this, Mozart is the true precursor. On piano, Daniel Barenboim has surrounded himself with three musicians coming from his famous East-West Divan Orchestra: his son Michael B. on violin, the Russian violist Yulia Deyneka and Persian cellist Kian Soltani, great soloists whose value hasn’t awaited the passing of years to blossom in the light of day. Let’s note that these recordings have been made in a public concert in March 2017.
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Kian Soltani, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra & Daniel Barenboim – R. Strauss: Don Quixote – Ravel: Bolero (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 56:25 minutes | 577 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
On October 25, Peral Music releases its latest album, celebrating twenty years of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. In August 1999, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra as a workshop for Israeli, Palestinian, and other Arab musicians to promote coexistence and intercultural dialogue. In order to celebrate this significant anniversary, Peral Music releases a digital album featuring “Don Quixote” (Richard Strauss) with cellist Kian Soltani and the famous “Boléro”(Maurice Ravel).
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Kian Soltani, Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim – Dvořák: Cello Concerto (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:28 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
To say that Kian Soltani’s concerto debut for Deutsche Grammophon packs a punch is something of an understatement, and indeed long before Soltani even enters the fray, given that I’m not sure I’ve ever heard an orchestra sounding quite so dangerously, growlingly foreboding and theatrical at the opening of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto as is heard here from Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin in what was a live performance at the Berlin Philharmonie: markedly slower than the score’s metronome marking of 116 to a crotchet; little shivering swells added to the pianissimo crotchets concluding the first phrase; then not just a crescendo up to the first fortissimo statement of the main theme, but also a rushing accelerando; while this revving of the accelerator ultimately lands us smartly at Dvořák’s actual tempo marking, the effect is one of being caught up in a lethally super-speed, supremely polished whirlwind. If you’re a stickler for keeping to the score then you might balk, but there’s no question that it’s electrifying stuff. And on that note, remember Karajan’s glorious bar 72 injection of an ardent and thoroughly unscripted portamento swoop for DG, back in 1968 with Rostropovich? Well Barenboim’s repeated that trick here, and every bit as gloriously.
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Kian Soltani, Aaron Pilsan – Home (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:44 minutes | 1,33 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
No, no, we’re not going to pretend that the repertoire chosen by the Austrian-Persian (the nationality stated on his website… born in 1992) cellist Kian Soltani and the Austrian pianist Aaron Pilsan is completely original: Schubert’s “Arpeggione” Sonata, recorded a thousand and one times, and Schumann’s Fantasiestücke form the backbone of the record. But what’s really remarkable here is Soltani’s career: the soloist made his big international breakthrough in 2011 at the age of 19, with triumphant débuts at the Vienna Musikverein, and then First Prize at the International Paulo Cello Competition in Helsinki in 2013. Shortly thereafter he joined Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, firstly as the first solo cellist, and then as one of the soloists in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and Strauss’s Don Quixote still with Barenboim. Concerts followed in Berlin, the Salzburg and Lucerne festivals, and the BBC Proms, as a soloist or in a chamber ensemble. A brilliant career, off to a flying start. The album listing finds a touch of originality at the end, with Persian Folklore by the Iranian composer Reza Vali (b. 1952), a piece of writing inspired by Kodály’s own translations of popular Hungarian music into classical language.
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Kian Soltani – Cello Unlimited (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:12 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
The cellist creates a unique sound world to celebrate his passion for movie soundtracks.
“Everything you will hear on this album is made only and exclusively with my cello. The possibilities of this instrument are unlimited and infinite, and this album is a celebration of the instrument and of epic film music as well.” – Kian Soltani
Listen to the fourth pre release track ‘Intermezzo. A Scene from the Past’ now.
Daniel Barenboim & Kian Soltani & Michael Barenboim – Complete Mozart Trios (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:29:15 minutes | 1,54 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Daniel Barenboim is no stranger to complete collections. Glutton that he is, he records them several times over, whether it’s Beethoven’s Sonatas, or as here, Mozart’s Trios (already recorded for EMI in 2006 with violinist Nicolai Znaider and cellist Kyril Zlotnikov). And so it’s not the immortal Amadeus that we are hearing so much as a portrait of Barenboim that ages with the years. The accomplished artists create a close dialogue, greedily following each other’s music. Amongst all these scores, can we detect an aesthetic vision? The scores follow one after the other, like at a family musical soirée, with a convivial, sweetish piano sound – likely a matter of sound quality rather than sherry consumption – in particular on the Piano Trio in B Flat Major, K.502, but also in the opening passages of the Allegro of the Piano Trio in E Major, K.542, whose dramatic dimension is somewhat lacking here. But at least the piano doesn’t overshadow the strings or upset the balance required in these tightly-wound, respected works. Mozart’s chamber music isn’t simple: the contrapunctual writing builds a delicate world whose poetry is flavoured by harmonies and chromatism. Daniel Barenboim has found some fitting partners. – Elsa Siffert
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