From Decca’s rich catalogue of piano music comes a generous selection of miniatures for piano, many of them quiet, all of them popular and much sought-after, in the finest of performances, of course.

Aromatherapy, the quiet moments of classical music. And the seventh volume, Reflections in the Water, is the ultimate tranquility! Water is a force of nature that inspired composers to some of their most languid compositions, from the Baroque (Handel’s Water Music written for a royal party held on a barge) to Impressionistic (the aqueous ripples and shimmer […]

Chopin was not a composer synonymous with Jorge Bolet and yet Bolet’s huge technique and limpid tone were totally suited to the long lines of poetry that Chopin wove, as this recording of both miniatures (the 24 Préludes) as well as the larger-scale works (Ballades, Fantasie) demonstrates.

Jorge Bolet was an avowed Romantic, happy to relax once the serious business of his recital was over. Like Moiseiwitsch, he could be mischievously enterprising, challenging his audience to guess the composer of this or that rare poetic jewel or confection or, like Rubinstein, he could affectionately confirm and recreate their favourites. With delightful old […]

Debussy’s twenty-four Préludes, like Chopin’s, are surprisingly self-sufficient. Divided into two books, published in 1910 and 1913, the Préludes are an intimate record of Debussy’s inner and imaginative life. Their titles were after-thoughts rather than direct inspirations, largely because Debussy’s delicate and complex response to natural phenomena or human idiosyncrasy could hardly be contained or […]

Schubert and Jorge Bolet may seem rare bedfellows for a virtuoso who excelled in the music of Liszt and Rachmaninov and whose lineage extended, through his teacher David Saperton, to Leopold Godowsky (Saperton’s teacher). But he finds in this music both muscularity and strength and his grasp of the music’s visionary and often extensive and […]

2014 marked the centenary of the birth of the colossal Cuban-born pianist, Jorge Bolet. Signed to Decca later in life, he made a series of magnificent Liszt recordings, but also recorded music by Chopin, Schumann, Brahms and Rachmaninov. One of Bolet’s own teachers, Josef Hofmann, was the dedicatee of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, a work […]