HJ Lim EMI Debut - Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas May 22

By -

Young Pianist makes her EMI Classics Debut with Complete Beethoven Sonatas, to be released exclusively on iTunes for $9.99 on May 22


“In her hands, Beethoven has moved from VHS to Blu Ray in a heartbeat. Everything is dangerously invigorating, strikingly original. This is the kind of album that will save the classical recording industry.“ The Telegraph
The brilliant 24-year-old Korean pianist HJ Lim, who signed an exclusive contract with EMI Classics in September 2011, has recorded her first project for the label, an ambitious traversal of the Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas. As an unheard of feat in launching a new artist, EMI will release Lim’s Complete Beethoven Sonatas on the iTunes Music Store for only $9.99, a strategy commonly used with compilations, but never with a new release until now. A Yamaha exclusive artist, HJ was also the first to record the complete sonatas on a Yamaha CFX concert grand piano, the crown jewel of their remarkable piano collection.

Pianists who record the Beethoven sonatas cycle usually do so at the peak of long and storied careers. With this bold and controversial recording project, HJ Lim aims to prove that at the age of 24 she is ready to record the Beethoven sonatas now. She has the intelligence and artistic vision, and her powerful performances have been captivating both traditional and new audiences. She has already performed complete Beethoven sonatas cycles over eight days each in France, Germany and Japan.

Lim’s thoughtful and unique approach to such an immense undertaking further defines itself in her organization of the sonatas into eight seperate volumes, each with a disctinct theme: Heroic Ideals, The Eternal Feminine – Youth, Aspects of an Inflexible Personality, Nature, Extremes in Collision, Resignation and Action, Eternal Feminine – Maturity, and Destiny. Says Lim: “To perform Beethoven’s sonatas is not just to interpret music, but also an attempt to understand the multi-faceted psychology of a human being,“ and her extraordinarily in-depth and thoughtful liner notes, which break down her reasoning behind the themes and the groupings of sonatas, make it clear that she has reflected at length about each of these 32 works.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In ...
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

Teaching Composition – What are we trying to achieve

By -
In the process of learning composition I have spent time with a number of instructors who have encouraged me to write twelve-tone, pitch-class, electro-acoustic and other forms of experimental techniques. No matter how much I might understand and appreciate the work of other composers in the genres, these are not forms of music I resonate with. They are simply not forms of music I listen to and I struggle with the idea of writing them. However, in a Master Class by Libby Larsen she made the comment, “Learn them all, because all forms of music have something to offer.” This I very much agree. There are elements of each of the above mentioned forms (and others) that I do resonate with. Berg’s Violin Concerto is a beautiful twelve-tone work, although it is possible to look at numerous sections of the music with a “tonal” analysis. Another composer friend, Gary Bachlund commented that using these techniques can narrow the choices for how to compose a piece of work. If you look at ...
Read more