Dances is a dazzling display of solo works for piano from Bach to Boogie Woogie; via Chopin, Granados, Albeniz, Scriabin and the Blue Danube. For his second solo album on Decca, Benjamin Grosvenor has assembled a typically imaginative and appealing programme of piano music inspired by the dance form.

Volume 65 of Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series journeys to Spain and the heart-on-sleeve world there to be found. The Albéniz Concierto fantástico owes much to Schumann and Chopin, albeit with an added drizzle of the Iberian peninsula; the perennially popular Rapsodia española, on the other hand, throws all such classical models to the wind.

The American pianist Lorin Hollander was only 14 years old in 1958 when he recorded his first album for RCA, a personal selection of “22 Favorites” entitled Discovering the Piano. Its success led to a sequel the following year. Over the next eight years he produced an acclaimed series of releases for the Red Label, establishing an international career which would eventually encompass more than 2,500 appearances as a pianist, conductor and passionate advocate for arts education. Hollander has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras and collaborated with conductors such as Bernstein, Szell, Ormandy, Leinsdorf, Previn, Haitink, Ozawa and Mehta. Sony Classical is now pleased to present a new 8-disc box set offering Lorin Hollander’s complete RCA discography for the first time on CD.

Pierre Fournier was born in Paris on 24 June in 1906 the son of a French army general. He was known for his lyrical playing and his impeccable artistic sensitivity and this, during his lifetime, earned him the title 'the aristocrat of cellists'.
Fournier was first taught piano by his mother but at the age of nine he suffered a mild case of polio and lost some of the agility in his legs and feet. He was no longer able to master the use of the piano pedals and so turned to the cello.

A little over a hundred years have passed since Enrique Granados met his death in the English Channel. After an acclaimed concert tour that took him to New York at the height of World War I, a German submarine sank the ship on which he was returning to Europe. Many manuscripts by the famous pianist were also lost in the icy waters and must have included priceless treasures – as we may gather from the interpretations of his surviving works by Maria Luisa Cantos, the grande dame of Spanish piano music, on her latest recording. After Granados had initially been brought to safety, he plunged into the water to save his beloved wife and lost his life in the effort – lending a romantic element to this extremely tragic episode.

During his lifetime Enrique Granados was highly valued above all for the poetry of his piano playing – and his compositions also breathe the same poetic spirit. Stephen Marchionda honors the composer on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth with a highly personal selection from these works. His own arrangements for the guitar create an illuminating link to Granados’ roots in Spanish folklore.