Pancho Vladigerov - Impressions; Suite Bulgare (Etsuko Hirose)

Information

Composer: Pancho Vladigerov

• Impressions, Op. 9
• Suite Bulgare, Op. 21
• Trois morceaux de piano, Op. 15: I. Prélude

Etsuko Hirose, piano

Date: 2021

Label: Mirare

https://www.mirare.fr/en/albums/vladigerov-impressions/

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Review

While it can’t be said that many of us have been waiting impatiently for recordings of music by Bulgaria’s No. 1 composer, Pancho Vladigerov, it’s still good news that two have come along within a relatively short space of time. Etsuko Hirose’s choice ranges wider than Nadejda Vlaeva’s (on Hyperion, reviewed last August); both include all ten Impressions from 1920, but Hirose has the edge by offsetting them against the Bulgarian Suite of 1926, where the proud C major ‘Alla marcia’ and the 5/4 and 7/4 elements show us the proud nationalist rather than the impressionistic cosmopolitan. Vlaeva has a mercurial touch better suited to the chronicle of a love affair, the Gershwin/Hollywood improvisational feel, while Hirose emphasises the Scriabin influence and taps the emotional depth for the elegiac end of a romance.

I learnt much, too, from Hirose’s well-researched note, telling us among other things that the composer’s mother was Russian-Jewish – Shostakovich raved about his Jewish Poem of 1950, that his twin brother was a distinguished violinist and that Max Reinhardt, for whose Berlin theatre Vladigerov wrote incidental music, wanted him to go to America with him. The composer’s fate would have been very different – he survived the Second World War in Bulgaria – and his output maybe less diverse.

-- David Nice, BBC Music Magazine

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Pancho Vladigerov (13 March 1899 – 8 September 1978) was a Bulgarian composer, pedagogue and pianist. He is arguably the most influential Bulgarian composer of all time, and was one of the first to successfully combine Bulgarian folk music and classical music. Vladigerov marked the beginning of a number of genres in Bulgarian music, including violin sonata and piano trio. He was also a very respected pedagogue; his students include practically all notable Bulgarian composers of the next generation, such as Alexander Raichev, Alexander Yossifov, Stefan Remenkov, and many others, as well as the pianist Alexis Weissenberg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Vladigerov
https://vladigerov.org/en/

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Etsuko Hirose (born 1979 in Nagoya) is a Japanese classical pianist. She studied at the École Normale de Musique de Paris with Germaine Mounier, then at the Conservatoire de Paris with Bruno Rigutto and Nicholas Angelich. In 1997, she won first prize in the Martha Argerich competition, which launched her solo career. Since 2008, she has been living in France and regularly returns to Japan to give recitals. Her performances are regularly broadcast, notably on Arte, France 3, France Musique, Radio Classique, and the NHK. She has recorded numerous discs for Denon, Mirare, Warner and Piano21.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etsuko_Hirose

https://www.etsukohirose.com/

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