Federico
Mompou
MÚSICA CALLADA
HASKELL SMALL
piano
$14.95 ~ MS1282
MUSIC
& VISION CD SPOTLIGHT: A MUST HAVE ~ April 2010
http://www.mvdaily.com/2010/04/mompou.htm
"In
the opening work of Book 1, Small conveys the austere purity and concentration
with an unhurried, timeless quality that seems just right... Throughout Small
realises the microbially shifting expression... [Small] is in touch with
Mompou's enigmatic, other-worldly music landscape..."
Lawrence
A. Johnson, Gramophone ~ October 2009
"Haskell
Small clearly feels this music deeply, tracing the gentle melodic contours with
sensitivity and letting the music soar when called for. His pacing is
appropriately patient and methodical, and he is careful to pull out the melodic
figures when they occur outside the top register."
Michael
Cameron, Fanfare ~ July / August 2009
"Haskell
Small plays with expressive restraint and delicate phrasing, making the most of
each ringing line, each atmospheric nuance."
Sullivan,
American Record Guide ~ May / June 2009
"Haskell Small
plays with evident care and devotion, and an atmospheric recording contributes
to a sense of intimacy."
BBC
Music Magazine ~ May 2009
"I am prepared to follow Haskell Small through these twenty-eight
stations again, knowing that he probably is the living guide who knows this
destination better than anyone and the Blüthner piano seems the perfect vehicle
for the journey.
Göran
Forsling, MusicWeb International ~ May 2009
Click HERE
for a Washington Post review a performance of Mompou's Musica Callada by
Haskell Small.
*
* *
Hailed by England's Musical Times
for his "dazzlingly prodigious technique", Haskell
Small has concertized with great success in major European capitals,
South America, Japan and China, and has been enthusiastically received by
American audiences in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and the
Spoleto Festival. A prize winner in the Johann Sebastian Bach International
Piano Competition, Mr. Small has received numerous awards and has been featured
in the nationally broadcast PBS special, "A Celebration of the Piano".
Following in the tradition of 18th
and 19th century pianist/composers, Haskell Small is also an accomplished
composer, who often performs his own works. He has received commissions from
such organizations as the Washington Ballet, Three Rivers Piano Competition,
Georgetown Symphony and Paul Hill Chorale, and he was the winner of the 1999
Marin Ballet Dance Score Competition. From 2000 to 2003, he was
composer-in-residence with the Mount Vernon Orchestra. In 2005, Small completed
Renoir’s Feast, a commission by the Phillips Collection to celebrate the
return of their beloved painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party. Recent
accomplishments include a publication by PeerMusic of his blues and jazz
miniatures, Scraps, and the world premiere in New York’s Weill Hall by noted
pianist Soheil Nasseri of the new work he commissioned Small to write, Lullaby
of War.
Besides his newly released
recording of Renoir’s Feast, Small has recorded a number of CDs, among them a
Gershwin disc, a Children’s CD with narrator Robert Aubry Davis, and Bach's
Goldberg Variations. In recent seasons, he has made several tours of Japan and
played recitals in Paris and London.
Haskell Small received his musical
training at the San Francisco Conservatory and Carnegie-Mellon University, and
has studied piano with Leon Fleisher, William Masselos, Harry Franklin and
Jeanne Behrend, as well as composition with Roland Leich and Vincent Persichetti.
Currently he is the piano department Chair of the Washington Conservatory of
Music.
www.haskellsmall.com
