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Cover: Matti Raekallio – A Night at the Opera

Matti Raekallio

A Night at the Opera

Matti Raekallio, piano

ODE 834-2 · CD · November 1994

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Track listing

10 tracks · 68:11

Ferrucio Busoni

  1. 1 Réminiscences de Don Juan (Mozart: Don Giovanni/transcr. Liszt) 14:36

Wilhelm Kempff

  1. 2 Orpheus' Klage (Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice) 4:49

Johannes Brahms

  1. 3 Gavotte (Gluck: Paride ed Elena) 3:56

Ferrucio Busoni

  1. 4 Figaro-Fantasie (Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, transcr. Liszt) 13:20

Franz Liszt

  1. 5 O du mein holder Abendstern (Wagner: Tannhäuser) 6:07
  2. 6 Spinnerlied (Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer) 5:45

Carl Tausig

  1. 7 Der Ritt der Walküren (Wagner: Die Walküre) 5:05

Franz Liszt

  1. 8 Isoldes Liebestod (Wagner: Tristan und Isolde) 7:23

Ferrucio Busoni

  1. 9 Sonatina No. 6 (Kammerfantasie über Bizets Carmen) 3:35

Vladimir Horowitz

  1. 10 Carmen Variations 3:35

About this recording

This CD features Finnish pianist Matti Raekallio with a selection of famous 18th- and 19th-century-opera transcriptions by Liszt, Tausig, Brahms, Busoni, Kempff and Horowitz. The Carmen Variations of the latter had never before been recorded by any pianist other than Vladimir Horowitz himself.

Features

Booklet with liner notes in English, German, French and Finnish

The artists

Matti Raekallio

Born in Helsinki in 1954, Matti Raekallio studied in his home country of Finland, as well as with Maria Curcio in London, Dieter Weber at the Vienna Academy of Music, and at the Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) Conservatory. He has been an active concert performer, making his American debut in 1981 at the Carnegie (Weill) Recital Hall. Since then, he has made regular tours of the US, including solo recitals and performances with several American orchestras. He has performed complete cycles of the 32 Beethoven Sonatas, the 10 Scriabin Sonatas, and the 9 Prokofiev Sonatas, as well as a total of 62 piano concertos. He has made approximately 20 albums for Ondine.

Full biography

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