USD $15.99
 
024-124
Rasa Vitkauskaite: Reflections
Rasa Vitkauskaite, piano
NaxosTidalNapsterYouTube MusicSpotifyApple MusicAmazon MusicAmazon 
Reviews

“Vitkauskaite has established an enviable reputation as an intelligent performer who injects insight into every note and whose phrasing is nigh on perfect…When you listen to Une barque sur l’océan for example you can hear how precise her playing is and how it enables the notes to illustrate to perfection the watery nature embodied in the piece. It is breathtakingly beautiful and it is all you can do not to hear it again immediately…However, all of [the movements of Miroirs] are just as ravishingly beautiful…[in Beethoven, Vitkauskaite] shows that she can voice every emotion and every state inferred from gentle lullaby-like phrasing to volcanic outbursts…I don’t own another account of this sonata that I would place above this one…This is an extremely satisfying and thrillingly executed programme which should encounter no difficulties in finding its way onto the shelves of many music-lovers around the world. It is a well constructed and thoughtful programme that will educate as well as please any listener.

   MusicWeb International, Steve Arloff

“artistry of poetic and observant sensitivity…a musician with a keen ear for colour and structure…vital glowing performances…illuminating and nuanced…Vitkauskaite finds a fine balance between lyricism and buoyancy [in the Beethoven], applying judicious flexibility to lines while maintaining narrative cohesion. The dotted rhythms and knotty harmonic twists in the second movement’s march have a welcome experimental edge and the pianist exudes celebratory zest in the finale…Vitkauskaite caresses and animates every phrase [in the Guastavino].”

   Gramophone, Donald Rosenberg

 

“Vitkauskaite’s performance of each of the score’s five movements [of Ravel’s Miroirs] comes alive with scintillating pianism and a kaleidoscope of colors. Listen, for example to the peaks of foam that aerate the surface of her Une barque sur l’océan, or to the tintinnabulations of her La vallée des cloches, in which she so effectively differentiates her touch and pedaling to simulate the varying tolling, chiming, and tinkling bell sounds—a remarkable display of technique and sensitivity to Ravel’s brilliant tone painting…a Beethoven interpreter of penetrating insight. Her phrasing breathes in a way that makes Beethoven’s rising and falling gestures sound truly conversational…Rasa Vitkauskaite captures the grotesqueries of Liebermann’s gothic wardens of evil with both chilling and mischievously wicked effect…The Sonata in G Minor by Argentinean composer Carlos Vicente Guastavino (1912– 2000) is a work I’d not previously heard…gorgeous piano writing…deeply felt performance…All around, this is a most intelligently programmed and beautifully realized recorded debut recital, complete with copiously footnoted booklet analyses of each work authored by Vitkauskaite and Jan Swafford. Ongaku’s impressive recorded sound from the Rogers Center for the Arts at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts, completes the package for this enthusiastically recommended release.”
   —Fanfare, Jerry Dubins

 

 

 

 

 
Click cover to see pics
Play
filler