Michael Leslie Live
Live-Recording, 2nd of February 2011
Allerheiligen-Hofkirche Residenz, Munich

Michael Leslie Live

Haydn · Beethoven · Schubert

Late Works

CD 1 (45'40'')

Joseph Haydn Sonata in D Major,
Hob Verz XVI / 51

Franz Schubert Sonata in B Flat Major, D 960

CD 2 (49'07'')

Ludwig van Beethoven 33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli, opus 120

In its freshness and undiminished brilliance this live recording conveys the idiosyncratic character and meticulous attention to detail of Michael Leslie’s piano playing.

Sound:
Jérôme Marot-Lassauzaie, Peter M. Pfleiderer
Recording:
PfleidRecording und Pfleid-Marot-Mixing www.pfleid.de
Piano:
Steinway D-Modell, Klavierhaus Vogel. www.klavierhausvogel.de
© + P
Michael Leslie

This recording can be ordered directly from Michael Leslie.
projekte(at)piano-pictures.net
Price: 18,95 €
Postage: D 2 € / EU 4 € / Rest of the world 6 €

or Büchergilde
www.buechergilde.de

Allerheiligen Hofkirche
telos musik records www.telos-music-records.com

Michael Leslie, piano

Hammerklavier Sonata op. 106

Diabelli Variations op. 120

Ludwig van Beethoven

Review on www.amazon.de
5.0 of 5 Stars Probing Performances of Beethoven's Two Himalayan Peaks for Piano,
16th June 2010 Scott Morrison, Middlebury VT, USA

… What is it that makes these recordings special? I've been trying to come up with something that will clarify and haven't succeeded to my satisfaction. The performances are technically pristine – and frankly they sound like live performances to me, although I could be wrong about that. Yet, within the kind of spontaneity one can hear in live performances of this sort one can also hear the assurance, the knowledge of a first-class musical mind at work, one especially tuned into the architecture, the form of the pieces at hand. There is a formal clarity allied with telling variations in tone, phrasing, attack, voicing that enhance the, to me, overwhelming emotional impact of these two peaks of the piano literature. Of course the Hammerklavier and the Diabellis are alike in that they are extremely long and hewn from granite in a sense. But they are also different in that the Sonata is a wrenching personal epic whose individual movements limn a narrative of struggle and triumph culminating in that daunting final fugue, whereas the Diabelli Variations are a kind of journey whose initial lightheartedness and even jauntiness eventuate in the utter seriousness of the final five sections which become, of course, the heart of the matter. In a sense the Diabellis are Beethoven's Winterreise but with greater earlier emphasis on early insouciance. Somehow, and I don't know how he does it frankly, Leslie conveys all this wordlessly. …

Sound clips

If for some reason you are unable to here these musical examples, try clicking here: www.amazon.de. This will connect you with the audio clips at amazon.

CD 1
Beginning of the first movement of the
Hammerklavier Sonata opus 106

CD 2
Beginning of Variation VIII of the
Diabelli Variations opus 120

KOM
The Eleven-eleven Matinee Concert Series

Michael Leslie, piano

Sonata in A Major KV 331
Fantasie in c Minor KV 475
Sonate in D Major KV 576

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The CD is a live recording from the 14th September 2008 Michael Leslie's Mozart sonatas (including the A major sonata with the Alla Turca finale).

Those qualities which frequently elude studio recordings – immediacy and spontaneous, unpremeditated freshness – sometimes come across in live recording from concerts and dress rehearsals. Michael Leslie’s Mozart piano sonatas possess this “ex improviso,” – youthful daring and early morning freshness. (Michael Schopper)

CD price Mozart sonatas: 12,00 € + 2,50 € Versand-/Portopauschale Ordering options for bill:

ELEVEN-eleven MusikKultur e.V. c/o Günther Frank, Pfarrstrasse 84, 82140 Olching
A further CD will be released in the summer of 2011 Michael Leslie playing Beethoven Piano Sonatas To the eternally distant beloved – Beethovens tribute to womanhood: The sonatas in F Major opus 54 / A Major opus 101 / F sharp Major opus 78 “A Therese” und especially the variations over “A Madl, ja a Madl” opus 107/5

www.11-11-musik.de

cd
Buchclub Büchergilde Gutenberg www.buechergilde.de

Michael Leslie, piano

Five Dialects in African Pianism

Gyimah Labi

The Five Dialects are special, quite extraordinary. Created by the Ghanaian composer Gyimah Labi, these works achieve a synthesis between the folk music of the composer’s homeland and the large forms of the European tradition.

limited stock

cd
Buchclub Büchergilde Gutenberg www.buechergilde.de

Michael Leslie, piano
Michael Schopper, Bass
Andrea Jacobs, Violine
Thomas Ruge, Cello

Folksongs und Variations op. 107

Ludwig van Beethoven

Coproduction Bayrischer Rundfunk and Büchergilde Gutenberg

sold out

Michael Leslie Live

Haydn · Beethoven · Schubert

Late Works

Michael Leslie’s piano recital on the 2nd of February 2011 was recorded with the P. M. Pfleiderer und Jéréme Marot-Lassauzaie recording technique, (PfleidRecording and Pfleid-Marot-Mixing).

In this innovative process the piano is recorded and mixed so as to preserve its spacial image and unique tone quality.

The musician’s intentions are thus conveyed to the listener with extraordinary clarity and directness. One has the impression that the player is in the same room. Incidentally, this recording was not subsequently corrected or manipulated in any way.

In its freshness and undiminished brilliance this live recording conveys the idiosyncratic character and meticulous attention to detail of Michael Leslie’s piano playing.

Beethoven

The Hammerklavier Sonata and the
Diabelli Variations

…The Hammerklavier Sonata and the Diabelli Variations are both Himalayan peaks, but they are more different than alike. The Hammerklavier Sonata, like the 9th Symphony, is a drama in which huge forces are mobilised, and where the final movement brings catharsis and reaches out with a universal message to mankind. This drama had its roots in Beethoven’s personal life; composing the Hammerklavier Sonata was the therapy which enabled him to emerge from a personal and artistic crisis which had crippled him for more than four years. The fugal finale gives a vivid idea of the violence of the process. The Diabelli Variations on the other hand suggest a journey or pilgrimage. There is a comprehensiveness and sense of finality about the work which creates the impression of a last will or testament. At the end one is reminded of Kleist’s remark in The Puppet Theatre: “Paradise is locked and barred and the cherub behind us; we must make a journey round the world and see whether we can enter from the other side.” Predictably, at the end of the pilgrimage Beethoven finds a back door, and in the last variation, the Tempo di Menuetto, he slips through it into Paradise….

Eleven-eleven

MusikKultur e.V.

The Eleven-eleven concert series in Olching was inspired by and named after the highly successful Eleven-eleven matinee concerts held in London and Tel Aviv during the nineteen seventies, the brain child of the world-famous conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. The artistic director of the Olching concert series, Michael Schopper, himself took part himself in several of Leonard Bernstein's matinees in Tel Aviv, and hereby perpetuates the tradition.

www.11-11-musik.de

KOM-Kulturwerkstatt
am Olchinger Mühlbach
Hauptstraße 68
82140 Olching

Five Dialects in African Pianism

What the Sydney born and based in Munich, Michael Leslie played here, sounds like contemporary piano music. That is also recalls Earth beats, the 12-minute centerpiece of this cycle, but the late Alexander Scriabin. But the Five Dialects are special, extraordinary. They were created by a Ghanaian composer Gyimah Labi of who brings in his work, the music of his homeland with the great Western forms in line.