JASMIN ARAKAWA

• Schumann: Fantasie in C major - I. Durchaues fantastisch

"Arakawa's Haydn is solid: fluid, cleanly played and articulated with precision... her approach has the verve necessary for a sharp and witty haydn...Each idea and phrase is presented clearly... Her strengths are in rich lyricism, as the Schumann Fantasy shows... The Scriabin has finely spun details... I admire that she shapes [Movement I] like an ice sculpture in its pristine clarity..."

Kang, American Record Guide [March/April 2017]

“Arakawa brings pronounced dynamic contrasts varied articulation to the first movement of the Haydn....[In the Scriabin] volatile dymanamics, restless inner voices and the unsettled ebb and flow of ideas in the outer movements come across convincingly.”

Jed Distler, Gramophone [February 2017]

“[In Haydn's most popular piano sonata] Arakawa delivers a spirited and very sensitive account of the first movement, focusing more on the brightness and elegance of the music rather than on its elements of grandeur. She's right on target here and in the other two movements. Her dynamics, tempo selections, digital facility and phrasing in general are impressive throughout the work. The outer panels effervesce with color, energy, and subtlety, and the Adagio, which in the wrong hands can sound dour and even gloomy, takes on a more serious manner but also has an airy and sometimes playful quality. A strong performance!... In the C major Fantasie Arakawa captures Schumann's expressive spirit with a deft sense for both the composer's quirky mood swings and his masterly sense to integrate every emotional and intellectual shift into an organized whole. In short, while Schumann can sound episodic and lacking structural design, Arakawa consistently phrases his music with a view toward conveying its unusual but imaginative form and expressive manner, in the end delivering a most effective account of the piece... the most outstanding effort on the disc is that of the Scriabin Third Sonata. It's a brisk performance of highly charged character: the first movement main theme comes across with fire and thrust, much in the somewhat brusque manner of Sofronitsky rather than the more Romanticized approaches of Ashkenazy, Gilels, Lazar Berman, Gould and others... her interpretation is full of emotion... [In the finale, she] imparts an almost palpable feeling of urgency and desperation, the music darkening as the movement proceeds, auguring an outburst of either catastrophe or triumph... This is a thoroughly brilliant and imaginative performance that may induce many listeners to hear this piece in a different way....[this performance] is bold, fresh, insightful and has a strong point of view. From the evidence here, I think I can conclude Ms. Arakawa is a talented artist of a rare order. I've heard a good many pianists who have regularly appeared at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Berliner Philharmonie, Salle Pleyel and the like, who are less talented than Ms. Arakawa... she should be far better known and appreciated. Maybe this fine disc will aid her cause. By the way, MSR Classics offers excellent sound here and fine liner notes by Ms. Arakawa. A tremendously enjoyable recording! Highest recommendations!”

Robert Cummings, ClassicalNet [January 2017]

“Arakawa displays many colorful moments in her intense survey of Haydn, Schumann, and Scriabin. [In Haydn’s Sonata] The playing from Arakawa remains pert, crisp, and direct. [In Schumann's Fantasie], Arakawa delights in the rhetorical effects the piece thrusts forward, including Schumann’s impulsive treatment of syncopations and counterpoint... Arakawa saved her eminently poetic gestures for the last movement [and savors the color scheme of this huge piece with obvious ardor... exemplary piano sound.”

Gary Lemco, Audiophile Audition [January 2017]

[ * * * * ] “[Jasmin Arakawa] has a strong feeling for the intensities and frequent mood changes of Romantic music, producing a heartfelt, deeply affecting reading of Schumann’s Op. 17 Fantasie... Arakawa also seems quite comfortable with Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No.3... the Schumann and Scriabin performances are knowing, intense and fully cognizant of the complexities both of the musical material and of the thinking underlying the works... [Arakawa’s handling of Haydn’s sonata] is a well-thought-out and well-played one that listeners will find well worth hearing.”

Mark J. Estren, InfoDad [November 2016]

"Jasmin Arakawa’s piano playing is a contagious mix of appetizing spontaneity andcultivated high taste. The music blossoms evocatively through her driven pianism, temperamental fire and jubilant, ice-controlled technique. Her keyboard touch is charismatically reflective, from the pulsed innuendos to the sung horizon-line phrasings, embarking the listener into an all-senses journey of daydreamed discoveries. Her solar-lit finger tips’ instrumental touch, colorized by her unique, subtly shivered feather pedaling, paints an ever-evolving ephemeral soundscape storytelling, which is captured in these recordings. She owns that enticing dialogue between her fertile musical imagination and the pure joy of her industry, plunging the listener from the get-go into an enchanted merry-go-round of the proverbial theatrical rupture of disbelief. Jasmin Arakawa’s capacity of translating, through the piano, the sense of truth within the ecosystem of each musical style - which she duly serves with utter humility and true maturity - brings the large array of the musical idioms to their true universality."

Emile Naoumoff

KLAVIERABEND is a pianistic journey into three innovative minds, reflecting distinctive approaches to inner boundaries and their musical realizations. Three composers - Haydn, Schumann and Scriabin – who would, at first glance, appear quite separatedby time and musical approach, display in these works a remarkable common thread:Each composer is heard exploring the compositional and pianistic boundaries of his time, as well as his own psychological boundaries. In each work, the abundance of marked idioms and characteristics is a manifestation of the disparate mindsets of the three composers, which nonetheless are united by a revolutionary spirit.


A charismatic and versatile pianist, Jasmin Arakawa has performed widely in North America, Central and South America, Europe, China and Japan. Recognized as having a strong lyrical sense as well as impeccable technique, Arakawa has been heard in prestigious venues worldwide, including Carnegie Hall, Salle Gaveau in Paris and Victoria Hall in Geneva. She has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Philips Symfonie Orkest in Amsterdam, Orquestra Sinfonica de Piracicaba in Brazil, and several orchestras in her native Japan. Other performance highlights include guest artist appearances at the Toronto Summer Festival, Ribadeo International Music Festival in Spain, Bicentenaire de Chopin in Switzerland, Scotiabank Northern Lights Music Festival in Mexico, Festival de Música de Cámara in Peru, Festival Internacional de Música Erudita de Piracicaba in Brazil, Fazioli Piano Pure Series in Chicago and Distinguished Concerts International New York. An avid chamber musician, Arakawa has collaborated with notable artists, including cellists Colin Carr and Gary Hoffman, flutists Jean Ferrandis and Marina Piccinini, clarinetist James Campbell and the Penderecki String Quartet. She is also a founding member of Trio Micheletti, with violinist Véronique Mathieu and cellist André Micheletti. Additionally, Arakawa served as Collaborative Pianist in Residence at the Banff Centre in 2011. Arakawa has a special interest in Spanish repertoire, which grew out of a series of lessons with Alicia de Larrocha in 2004. As a prize-winner of the Competition in the Performance of Music from Spain and Latin American and under the sponsorship of the Spanish Embassy, she subsequently recorded solo and chamber pieces by Spanish and Latin American composers. Jasmin Arakawa is a graduate of Tokyo University of the Arts, where she studied with Shigeru Maruyama and Katsumi Ueda. She holds Doctor of Music and Master of Music degrees in Piano Performance from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she studied with Emile Naoumoff, who was the last protégé of Nadia Boulanger. A devoted teacher, Arakawa is Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of South Alabama.
[ www.jasminarakawa.com ] JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809)
SONATA IN E-FLAT MAJOR, HOB. XVI:52 (1794)
Allegro
Adagio
Finale: Presto

ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
FANTASIE IN C MAJOR, OP.17 (1839)
Durchaus fantastisch und leidenschaftlich vorzutragen
Mäßig. Durchaus energisch
Langsam getragen. Durchweg leise zu halten

ALEXANDER SCRIABIN (1872-1915)
PIANO SONATA NO.3 IN F-SHARP MINOR, OP.23 (1898)
Drammatico
Allegretto
Andante
Presto con fuoco



MSR Classics