Volodos plays Mompou Arcadi Volodos

• Frederic Mompou (1893-1987)
• 1Prélude VII (Palmier d'étoiles)03:01
• 2Damunt de tu Només les flors04:12
• Scènes D'Enfants
• 3I. Cris dans la rue01:38
• 4II. Jeux sur la plage01:47
• 5III. Jeu 201:27
• 6IV. Jeu 302:04
• 7V. Jeunes filles au jardin02:45
• 8Hoy la tierra y los cielos me sonrien02:15
• 9El lago (Le lac - from Paisajes, Nr. 2)05:26
• 10...pour appeler la joie (Charme VI)01:13
• 11Preludi XII04:09
• 12Dialogues 202:19
• 13Dialogues 103:09
• 14Musica callada I Angelico02:00
• 15Musica callada II Lent02:11
• 16Musica callada XXVII Lento molto03:23
• 17Musica callada XXIV Moderato02:21
• 18Musica callada XXV03:22
• 19Musica callada XI Allegretto01:27
• 20Musica callada XV Lento - plaintif02:16
• 21Musica callada XXII Molto lento e tranquilo02:39
• 22Musica callada XVI Calme02:24
• 23Musica callada VI Lento01:46
• 24Musica callada XXI Lento03:46
• Total Runtime01:03:00

Info for Volodos plays Mompou

Arcadi Volodos is one of the world’s best pianists, celebrated as a “genius” and the “new Horowitz” for the unique combination of outstanding virtuosity and profound and expressive musicality.

Volodos devotes his new CD to the hardly known Catalan composer Frederic Mompou. He believes that Mompou’s solo piano works are of outstanding quality and open new worlds.

The fact that Mompou’s music is hardly known is a key to success for this CD. It can only reveal its deep und unique quality in the magnificent interpretation of Volodos.

The music of Catalonian composer Federico Mompou (1893-1987) is almost completely unknown today. Unjustly so, in the opinion of Russian star pianist Arcadi Volodos, who has devoted his new solo CD to this remarkable musical personality.

Carrying on the tradition established by his Spanish colleagues Enrique Granados and Isaac Albéniz, Mompou's works are subtle and delicate, mysterious and intimate, with a shimmering Impressionist palette. Mompou's role models are always in evidence in his many piano pieces: Chopin and Scriabin, Satie and Debussy. Yet in quiet, unobtrusive fashion, Mompou evolves a musical cosmos entirely his own from these models: his music is a true discovery.

Volodos has chosen for this CD pieces from the Mompou cycles Scènes d´Enfants (1915-18), Charmes (1920/21) and Música Callada (1959-67), which were among the composer's own favourites. In the last few years, Arcadi Volodos has regularly played works by the Catalonian composer in his recitals, prompting the Süddeutsche Zeitung to refer to his "deep sensitivity for inspired nuance".

“you will rarely if ever hear Mompou's introspection caught and held with greater affection and finesse...his playing is of an unfaltering poise and translucency. Sony's sound is ideal. This is a disc in a million.” (Gramophone Magazine)

“this CD is the purest pianism, with a drifting, freely associative, visionary momentum” (BBC Music Magazine)

“Arcadi Volodos, showman virtuoso, playing the music of Federico Mompou, poetic loner? The match could hardly be more surprising - or successful...there's no doubting the artist's sincere affection and affinity for this music...This new disc only confirms the genius of Volodos” (MusicWeb International)

“I've never heard a bad CD of Mompou's music, but Volodos's, like Larrocha's, is in a class of its own. He creates the illusion that he is at one with the music; it is playing him as much as he is playing it. This piano powerhouse here demonstrates that he can colour and phrase this music as sensitively as any pianist currently on the scene.” (International Record Review)

Arcadi Volodos, piano

Arcadi Volodos
Acclaimed as a “keyboard genius”, Arcadi Volodos is without a doubt one of the world’s finest and most prominent pianists. His boundless virtuosity along with his unique sense of phrasing, colour and poetry have made him an ideal “narrator” of Romantic musical tales. In his hands, a simple Baroque melody can be as fascinating as a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto, and his visions of Schubert’s glimpses into the abyss are as striking as his flights into the mystical realms of Liszt. Born in St. Petersburg in 1972, Volodos first studied voice and conducting and did not begin serious training at the piano until 1987 at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He pursued his studies further at the Moscow Conservatory with Galina Egiazarova, then in Paris and Madrid.

Since his New York debut in 1996, Arcadi Volodos has performed throughout the world in recital with many of the most eminent orchestras and conductors, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic, led by, among others, Myung-Whun Chung, Lorin Maazel, Valery Gergiev, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Semyon Bychkov and Riccardo Chailly. Volodos regularly appears in recitals at the Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna’s Musikverein and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris as well as in all the other important music centres in Europe and Asia. Since his highly acclaimed debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2002, he has been invited to return there every year.

Engagements in the seasons 2010/11 and 2011/12 included recitals in Korea, London, Zurich, Vienna, Madrid, St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Brussels, Munich, at the Ruhr Klavierfestival, the Beethovenfest Bonn, the festival in La Roque d’Antheron and the Salzburg Festival as well as concerts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Berlin Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra and Seoul Philharmonic. In January 2012 Volodos returned to Asia, after an absence of eight years, presenting recitals and concerts in Seoul and Beijing.

Highlights in the season 2012/2013 include, among others, recitals in Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Baden-Baden, Dortmund, Leipzig and Vienna as well as concerts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Munich Philharmonic and Oslo Philharmonic orchestras.

The beginning of the 2013/2014 season sees concerts with the Gewandhausorchester and Riccardo Chailly in Leipzig, Vienna, London and Paris, as well as recitals in major cities across Europe.

Since his now historic Carnegie Hall recital debut in 1998 Sony Classical has issued a series of acclaimed CDs featuring Arcadi Volodos’ interpretations of Schubert sonatas, Rachmaninoff solo pieces and transcriptions as well as live performances with the Berlin Philharmonic of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, under James Levine, and Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, under Seiji Ozawa. The 2007 release “Volodos plays Liszt” was named an “Editor’s Choice” by Gramophone magazine (“Liszt playing of uncommon, profound insight”), singled out as a Diapason d’Or and honoured with the annual ECHO-Klassik Award. In 2010 his Musikverein recital from the previous year was released on CD and DVD to rapturous international critical acclaim.

In the last few years, Arcadi Volodos has regularly played works by the Catalonian composer Federico Mompou in his recitals and devoted now his new solo CD to this remarkable musical personality. The album “Volodos plays Mompou” was released in 2013 by Sony Classical.

Booklet for Volodos plays Mompou