In Made In USA: Gershwin, Beach & Barber, her first solo album for Alpha Classics, Claire Huangci was keen to celebrate the Gershwin centenary alongside her roots in America, where she was born, studied music and made her debut as a concert artist at the age of nine.
Presented as ‘An Experiment in Modern Music’ when it was premiered in 1924, Rhapsody in Blue made George Gershwin famous, and he soon set to work on a version for solo piano, recorded here by Claire Huangci.
The brilliant improviser and transcriber Earl Wild took Gershwin’s songs (Liza, Fascinatin’ Rhythm, Somebody Loves Me, I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, Oh, Lady Be Good, The Man I Love) to form the basis of his Seven Virtuoso Etudes for solo piano.
Equally virtuosic is the Op. 26 Sonata by Samuel Barber, whom Vladimir Horowitz (who premiered the work in Havana in December 1949) regarded as one of the few Americans capable of writing for the piano.
The New Hampshire-born composer Amy Beach took her inspiration from the folk music of both the New World and the Balkans, while retaining her harmonic language inherited from the Romantics. Her Variations Op. 60 (1904) bear witness to these influences.
Claire Huangci, Piano
Tracklist
Please note that the below previews are loaded as 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.Total time: 01:17:23
Additional information
| Label | |
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| SKU | ALPHA1071 |
| Qualities | DSD 512 fs, DSD 256 fs, DSD 128 fs, DSD 64 fs, DXD 24 Bit, WAV 192 kHz, FLAC 96 kHz |
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| Release Date | September 20, 2024 |
Press reviews
MusicWeb International
For her solo recital debut on Alpha, Claire Huangci has programmed an interesting mix of Americana that shows off her artistry well.
Claire Huangci’s recital ends with the seven Gershwin transcriptions penned by the great virtuoso Earl Wild. These are fantastic and fearsomely difficult in the grand tradition of the great piano transcribers of the past. Earl Wild probably recorded them (I believe his discography was enormous) but I cannot believe he would be disappointed with the performances on offer here.
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