Igor Kamenz - Igor Kamenz plays Scarlatti (2014) [Hi-Res]

The biography of Igor Kamenz, one that virtually cries out to be filmed, is the story of a man for whom only music has ever counted. As a child prodigy, he gave widely admired piano recitals in the Soviet Union and conducted major orchestras at an early age. After his emigration to Germany in 1978, he maintained a career as a concert pianist.

In 2013, by an almost incredible combination of circumstances, a CD featuring his playing came into the hands of a major management company [IMG] and to Naïve, who were immediately captivated by his talent and his musical personality: it was the start of a new chapter . . .He makes his New York recital debut in 2014/15 season and plays the Tchaikovsky concerto with Leipzig Gewandhaus. He will also partner Arabella Steinbacher, and Naïve artist Chad Hoopes, in recital. Domenico Scarlatti: born in Naples in 1685, the same year as Bach and Handel, son of the celebrated opera composer Alessandro Scarlatti, a universe unique in musical history; 555 harpsichord sonatas that have come down to us only in copy. In their variety, inventiveness, harmonic and timbral audacity, their vivacity, impulsiveness, the fruitful tension between vibrant Mediterranean joie de vivre and sombre melancholy, they form miniature psychological studies that look forward to the Romantic era, indeed the 20th century.

Igor Kamenz has assembled the sonatas played here on a modern concert grand into what he calls a ‘suite in eighteen movements’, the order of which follows criteria related to the dramaturgy, key and content of the pieces.