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Artists
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Autumn 2020 offered Daniel-Ben Pienaar an opportunity, not because the world was in lockdown but rather for the benefit it provided. A professor at London’s Royal Academy of Music, Daniel-Ben was allowed overnight access to the RAM’s Angela Burgess Hall. Solitary, with a Steinway and a single pair of suspended omni-directional microphones, surrounded by silence and the darkness of the night, Daniel-Ben recorded this inspired eight-CD set of Haydn’s Piano Sonatas over a four-month period. Daniel-Ben’s choice of Haydn’s 48 Piano Sonatas is based on his own meticulous research. The cycle comprises authenticated works plus earlier compositions presumed by scholars to be penned by Haydn. This deluxe box set follows in the footsteps of Daniel-Ben Pienaar’s acclaimed surveys of sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Daniel-Ben Pienaar enjoys an international reputation for his unusual musicianship, in particular for his highly individual readings of the German piano classics and for playing an extensive repertoire of pre-Bach works on the piano. He is noted for a sizeable discography including much-praised complete traversals of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Goldberg Variations, as well as the sonata cycles of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. He has made the first complete recordings of the keyboard works of Jacobean composer Orlando Gibbons and of the mature piano music of South African composer Arnold van Wyk, and the first recording on piano of Gaspard Le Roux’s Pi?ces de clavessin (1705). Pienaar is an elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, where he lectures, and a Professor of the University of London. Critical Acclaim for Daniel-Ben Pienaar “Pithy playfulness ? pearly opulence and heel-kicking virtuosity ? this Byrd soars!” ? BBC Music Magazine “Interpretations where within the letter critically observed, a numinous potency breaks free” – Gramophone “Pienaar responds with an astonishing range of expression and colour” ? The Sunday Times “A veritable Mo Farah of the keyboard” ? BBC Music Magazine “One of the most exciting pianists of his generation” – Rondo |
