Sofya Gulyak: Chaconne
Sheet Music

SKU: NX.CHRCD117

By Sofya Gulyak. By Alfredo Casella, Carl August Nielsen, Ferruccio Busoni, Franz Liszt, George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Sofia Gubaidulina. Classical. CD. Naxos #CHRCD117. Published by Naxos (NX.CHRCD117).

Sofya Gulyak, the first ever woman to win the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2009, has returned to the Music Room at Champs Hill to record a second album, exploring the fascination of the Baroque Chaconne, with its distinctive repeating bassline, for Romantic composers and beyond. Ranging from Bach to Gubaidulina, it showcases her remarkable talent. Her debut album was described as "Stunning" by Gramophone, with the Washington Post admiring her "tremendous precision and coloration... exquisite soft playing... with delicacy." The winner of numerous international competitions, she has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the LPO, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, RLPO, Halle Orchestra, and is in demand at piano festivals. She is currently a professor of piano at the Royal College of Music in London. Beginning with the Busoni reinvention of Bach's D minor Chaconne from his Second Partita for Solo Violin, Gulyak takes us on a musical journey. The same piece also influenced Nielsen's Chaconne of 1916, and Casella's Variations on a Chaconne of 1903, clearly shows his reverence for Bach. Busoni's original work of 1920, Toccata: Prelude, Fantasy, and Chaconne, is also included. Handel's Chaconne in G followed by Liszt's rework of Handel's Almira shows late-Romantic sonorities. Gubaidulina's Chaconne of 1962 is a powerful statement and closes this recital.