Composer: Frédéric François Chopin, Maurice Ravel, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky
Performer: Tetiana Shafran
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Steinway & Sons
Catalogue: STNS30155
Release: 2023
Size: 1.78 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66
01. I. Prologue
02. II. Dance of the Pages
03. III. Vision
04. IV. Andante
05. V. Silver Fairy
06. VI. Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat
07. VII. Gavotte
08. VIII. The Singing Canary
09. IX. Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf
10. X. Adagio
11. XI. Finale
12. Chopin: Rondo in E flat major, Op. 16
Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit
13. No. 1, Ondine
14. No. 2, Le Gibet
15. No. 3, Scarbo
The young pianist Tetiana Shafran came with a host of big prizes but was little known to the public before being signed to the Steinway & Sons label, but she makes a convincing debut here. She has plenty of competition in the big virtuoso pieces she plays here, but most of it is male, and she blows away any concept of a distinctively female style. Fitting the golden-age pianism mission of the label is her version of Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, transcribed for piano by Mikhail Pletnev. This transcription would have seemed normal in Tchaikovsky’s time but is not so common nowadays. Sample the third track, “Vision,” for a demonstration of Shafran’s crystalline playing. The other two pieces, the Rondo in E flat major, Op. 16, of Chopin and Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, are common enough, but Shafran brings to them a rare combination of clarity and power. Consider the “Scarbo” finale as well; it seems as though every conservatory graduate plays this piece these days, but the uncanny edge of Shafran’s repeated notes is not so common. Steinway contributes excellent sound from the Sono Luminus studios on a recording that clearly marks Shafran as a young player to watch.