MySecretGardenmdp's video: Valentina Lisitsa piano - Rachmaninoff Sonata No 1 Part1

Exceptional music & interpretation.... *** Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Valentina Lisitsa started playing piano at the age of three, performing her first solo recital at the age of four. Lisitsa attended the Lysenko music school for Gifted Children and, later, Kiev Conservatory, where she and her future husband, Alexei Kuznetsoff, studied under Dr. Ludmilla Tsvierko. In 1991 they won the first prize in The Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition. In the same year, they moved to the United States to further their careers as concert pianists. Their New York debut was at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center in 1995. Lisitsa has performed in various venues around the world, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and the Musikverein. Recently, she has been the pianist in recital engagements collaborating with violinist Hilary Hahn.[5] Many of Lisitsa's performances, including Frédéric Chopin's Op. 10 and Op. 25 Etudes and Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata, have been made available on her YouTube channel, often in high quality. To date, Lisitsa has recorded 6 CDs (two solo CDs) for Audiofon Records (two are in duet with Alexei Kuznetsoff), a Gold CD for CiscoMusic label with cellist DeRosa, a duet recital on VAI label with violinist Ida Haendel, DVDs of Frédéric Chopin's 24 Etudes, Schubert-Liszt Schwanengesang, and her most recent DVD titled Black and Pink. Lisitsa recently collaborated with HORSE the band on their song, "Rape Escape", featured on their latest album, 'Desperate Living'. *** Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 28, is a piano sonata in D minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff, completed in 1908. It is the first of three "Dresden pieces", along with Symphony No. 2 and part of an opera, which were composed in the quiet city of Dresden, Germany. It was originally themed after Goethe's tragic play, Faust, and although Rachmaninoff abandoned the idea soon after beginning composition, traces of this influence can still be found. After numerous revisions and substantial cuts made at the advice of his colleagues, he completed it on April 11, 1908. Konstantin Igumnov gave the premiere in Moscow on October 17, 1908. It received a lukewarm response there, and remains one of the more underperformed of Rachmaninoff's works. It has three movements, and takes about 35 minutes to perform. The sonata is structured like a typical Classical sonata, with fast movements surrounding a slower, more tender second movement. The movements feature sprawling themes and ambitious climaxes within their own structure, all the while building towards a prodigious culmination. Although this first sonata is a substantial and comprehensive work, its successor, Piano Sonata No. 2 (Op. 36), written only 4 years later, became a much more enduring and regarded work. *** No copyright infringement intended.