MUSICA CALLADA
Federico Mompou
HASKELL SMALL, piano
[
MS1282]
$12.95
LISTEN
REVIEWS
"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.
PROGRAM NOTES
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
PROGRAM
MSR Classics
