Arthur Ancelle is a French pianist, prize-winner at international competitions, and author of many piano transcriptions, who is well known for his duet with Ludmila Berlinskaya, with whom he performs at the world’s best concert venues.
Arthur Ancelle dedicated his second solo album released by Firma Melodiya to Joseph Haydn’s sonatas, thus marking the 285th anniversary of the composer’s birth. The pianist wanted to call the album recorded in July 2017 at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory “Haydn Is Fun!” He believes that Haydn’s music, with its every page, tells us about his propensity for provocation, surprises, and non-conformism.
The album consists of two sonatas of the middle period (Nos. 30 and 31), which establish a work as an artistic creation rather than an improvisation, and Sonata No. 62 in E-flat major, one of the most famous ones, the pinnacle of Haydn’s piano legacy written in the last London period.
“Having such a great number of masterpieces, I found it painful to choose works to record, but the pieces featured here convinced me with their richness and joyful atmosphere,” the pianist explained his choice. “How can we now find and convey this fantasy, humor, and provocation to the instrument, these inventive subtleties, when all this is frozen on paper, and many listeners already know what comes next? How can we find novelty and spontaneity, how can we surprise with every new performance?”
Arthur Ancelle finds answers to these questions in documentary sources and in the free interpretation of the rhetoric of Haydn, one of the founders of the First Viennese School.
