Press
Tim Ashley, Jan 2011
Lyapunov: Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2; Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes – review
“Sergei Lyapunov (1859-1924) is one of Russian music’s more puzzling figures. A pupil of Taneyev and Tchaikovsky in Moscow, he eventually gravitated towards the nationalist circles around Balakirev in St Petersburg. He took Liszt as his primary model, and if you place his music alongside Mussorgsky or Borodin it can seem a bit un-Russian and faceless. His two piano concertos deploy the sectional single-movement form that Liszt favoured. The First (1890), with its lofty piano writing and dark instrumentation, is noble and grand. The Second (1909) is more Romantic and sentimental, with big climaxes reminiscent of Rachmaninov. The performances are terrific, with monumental playing from Shorena Tsintsabadze and orchestral contributions of persuasive beauty from the Russian Philharmonic under Dmitry Yablonsky. The filler is the Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes (1907), which is very difficult for the pianist (Tsintsabadze does wonders), if also harmonically four-square and melodically trite.”
B.A. Nilsson, February 2011
“Pianist Shorena Tsintsabadze bring amazing chops to bear on the solo parts, reminding us that such talent isn’t always in the major local concert halls.”
Kevin Sutton, February 2011
“Shorena Tsintsabadze is fairly new to the concert world and was still pursuing post-graduate music studies in 2010. Despite her youth, she is a fully competent soloist with ample technique, a rich warm tone and quite capable of the finger-busting demands of this flashy music. Her sound is never overbearing, but it is amply robust and never clangy and bangy in a Lang Lang sort of manner.”
Dan Morgan, June 2011
“Tsintsabadze has a persuasive musical personality, and I really warmed to her playing in the work’s more inward moments.”
October 2014
“Both concertos are excellently played on this recording by the young Georgian pianist Shorena Tsintsabadze with the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Yablonsky. The CD also includes Lyapunov’s Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes, often reminiscent of Liszt’s virtuosic pianistic style. Liapunov’s well-crafted music, with its colourful and imaginative orchestration, shows him to be one of the most talented nationalist composers of his time. Highly recommended.”
David Fanning, February 2011
“Moscow-born Shorena Tsintsabadze gives direct, well-schooled accounts of all three works, playing them for what they are worth”
David Hurwitz, January 2011
Lyapunov: Piano Concertos
“Moscow-born Shorena Tsintsabadze gives direct, well-schooled accounts of all three works, playing them for what they are worth”
Jerry Dubins, May 2011
“…Puritans, prigs, and prudes need not apply, but for all those not ashamed to leave their inhibitions at the door and to acknowledge their pleasure-seeking impulses, listening to Lyapunov is like taking a bath in Russian chocolate. And Shorena Tsintsabadze is the lady of the banya . Even if you already acquired the Milne as part of the Hyperion collection, I’d urge you to acquire this new Naxos. Timings-wise, Tsintsabadze and Milne are so close to each other that the few seconds’ differences between them in all three works are so slight they’re negligible. But in the crucial areas of interpretation, orchestral playing, and impact of recording, Tsintsabadze, Yablonsky, the Russian Philharmonic, and Naxos are the clear winners.
Shorena Tsintsabadze, in contrast, is Russian through and through. She was born in Moscow, studied at the Moscow Conservatory, and then in the U.S. with Oxana Yablonskaya. Lyapunov is in her blood, and you can hear it in the way she brings out the Russian idioms in this music derived indirectly from native folk melody sources. One has the feeling that these works have special meaning for her…”
Steven J Haller, March 2011
“Moscow-born Shorena Tsintsabadze seems born to play this music; she embraces it like Van Cliburn did the Tchaikovsky, warmly lyrical and impassioned in turn and blessed with a wide-ranging span of the keyboard from full bass register to glittering, yet never clattery top end. She traverses the shifting moods of both concertos with ease but truly comes into her own in the Rhapsody, tossing off the central “Polish” dance in deft fashion and really going to town in the Cossack Dance…”
John J. Puccio, January 2011
“The Piano Concerto No. 2 in E major, Op. 38 (1909) is a more formidable affair. It, too, is in a single movement, this time slightly shorter and more concise. It opens with a long, gently flowing theme, quite attractive and bucolic, which emphasizes Ms Tsintsabadze’s delicate virtuosity more than anything else on the disc. Following this opening section is a good deal more ornamentation by the soloist in segments that continuously transition from slow to fast to slow, with cadenzas galore. It’s almost too much of a good thing, finally leading to hints of Tchaikovsky and Liszt. Although there is a lot to like in the work, it probably goes in too many different directions to connect with every listener.
The program concludes with the Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes for piano and orchestra (1907), a piece in rondo form with a pleasant pastoral theme returning several times, interspersed with a few country dances. Frankly, I enjoyed this music with its exotic Rimsky-Korsakov overtones as much as anything on the album, not only for the endless tunes but for Ms Tsintsabadze’s sensitive playing and Maestro Yablonsky’s alert direction.”
Robert Cummings, January 2011
“Moscow-born pianist Shorena Tsintsabadze, a student of Oxana Yablonskaya (mother of the conductor here), catches the fire and the poetry of the music, meets its pyrotechnical demands with relative ease and imparts a wonderful sense of imagination to her interpretations. Dmitry Yablonsky draws fine performances from the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, and Naxos provides excellent sound. Recommended.”
Phil Muse, February 2011
“…After the introduction by the orchestra of an unmistakably Russian theme in octaves, pianist Shorena Tsintsabadze makes her presence known early and often, handling the well-defined lyricism in the Adagio section with skill and feeling. When the opening theme returns in the long-awaited modulation to E flat major at the end, we have come to a very satisfying conclusion.
Concerto No. 2 in E major affords Tsintsabadze and the RPO under Yablonsky even more occasions to shine in its relaxed, natural give and take between soloist and orchestra. Like its predecessor, this is a concerto in a single movement in which there is a nice balance between broadly stated melodies by the orchestra and finely crafted cadenza-like passages by the pianist, striking a natural balance between urgency and relaxation. The slow section, Lento ma non troppo, allows the soloist to display delicate tracery and subtle warmth that never descends to sentimentality.
Finally, Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes makes much of its folk themes and the pianist’s virtuosity, culminating in cascades of sound as we arrive at the climax, a rousing Cossack dance. Whether or not Rimsky Korsakov’s assessment that Lyapunov “lacked originality” will hold up with the passage of time, his music is undeniably attractive in its warmth and melodic qualities. These three works, short on thinks but long on feeling, embody what we love about the Russian piano concerto. They need to be heard more often.”
Patsy Morita, April 2011
”Tsintsabadze is certainly a very capable pianist, sounding as if she can handle the bigger Romantic concertos, and she effectively demonstrates where Lyapunov’s concertos fall in the history of Russian music.”
June 2011
Christophe Huss, February 2011
“… Le concept du concerto pour piano est ici directement tiré des concertos de Liszt: un bloc d’une vingtaine de minutes accolant des épisodes contrastés. Le langage, aussi, est post-lisztien, dans la veine de Balakirev et dans l’esprit nationaliste de l’école de Rimski-Korsakov, mais sans la subtilité des textures orchestrales rimskiennes. Liapounov, bonne solution de remplacement à Liszt et Rachmaninov, est servi par une interprétation convaincante.”
Juan Manuel Parra Urbano
, April 2011
“…El protagonismo interpretativo, tanto de los conciertos como de la Rapsodia sobre temas ucranianos, reside en la pianista Shorena Tsintsabadze, que muestra una sólida destreza con el instrumento…Para quienes sientan una pasión desmedida hacia el pianismo ruso tardo-romántico, Sergey Mikhaylovich Lyapunov es una opción con claras reminiscencias a Rachmaninov.”
Publié le 18/08/2004
„Musique aux accents russes“
24 ноября 2012
“19 ноября в Зале ОГАТ имени Тургенева прошел заключительный концерт юбилейного, X-го Фестиваля искусств «Орловская музыкальная осень». В исполнении Орловского губернаторского симфонического оркестра под управлением его руководителя Василия Шкапцова прозвучали два замечательных, объемных и сложных сочинения – Симфония № 9 Антонина Дворжака «Из Нового Света» и Третий концерт для фортепиано с оркестром Сергея Рахманинова. Солистом в рахманиновском концерте выступила молодая, но уже известная не только в России, но и за океаном московская пианистка Шорена Цинцабадзе.
Тандем оркестра и солистки – Шорены Цинцабадзе, – можно с основанием назвать чрезвычайно удачным. Сложнейшая партия фортепиано была интерпретирована московской пианисткой ярко, вдохновенно, и, вместе с тем – искренне, просто. Ей удалось очаровать публику не только виртуозной техникой, тонкой и чувственной фразировкой, но и прекрасным, «собранным» звуком, наполненным воздухом и объемом. Хочется упомянуть о том, что очередная и ожидаемая встреча с талантливой пианисткой у орловских меломанов состоится в ноябре 2013 года, когда Шорена Цинцабадзе приедет к нам в гости с сольным концертом.
Отдельные слова благодарности, безусловно, заслуживает дирижер концерта – Василий Шкапцов, проведший оба отделения концерта в высшей степени профессионально, точно и тонко. Оркестр звучал на редкость компактно, стройно, его динамическая палитра была чрезвычайно разнообразна, что в целом позволило слушателям не думать о значительных трудностях выбранных произведений, а свободно погрузиться в волшебный мир музыки”
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