Marc-Andre Hamelin Releases New Recordings

MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN has just released a recording of Medtner's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 on Hyperion with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski.

Currently concluding a European tour performing Debussy's En blanc et noir, Mozart's Larghetto and Allegro in E-flat, and Stravinsky's Concerto for Two Pianos and arguably the most difficult piece in the four-handed repertoire, Rite of Spring, which brought them to Rotterdam and Eindhoven, Netherlands; Dortmund, Germany; London's Wigmore Hall; Chiasso, Switzerland; and Florence, Italy, Hamelin and Leif Ove Andsnes will be appearing as a duo in six cities across the United States from April 24 to May 1, 2107.

The American tour will include Benaroya Hall, Seattle: the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco; the Annenberg Center in Los Angeles, New York's Carnegie Hall, the Chicago Symphony Center, and the Music at Strathmore Center, Washington D.C.

Below are a few of the dazzling reviews Marc-André Hamelin has garnered for his astonishing array of performances just in the last couple of months:

For Hamelin & Andsnes:

The Mesmerising Partnership of Leif Ove Andsnes and Marc-André Hamelin at Wigmore Hall, London:

Some artists achieve greatness by big competition wins, massive press campaigns, drop-dead good looks or a penchant for branding their name on everything from sneakers to pianos. Others simply by being mesmerising musicians: Leif Ove Andsnes and Marc-André Hamelin, for instance, and it's not surprising that this concert had been sold out for months.

--Harriet Smith, The Financial Times, April 2, 2017

Irresistible Power and Superb Teamwork

Alone, Marc-André Hamelin and Leif Ove Andsnes are very different players - the first typically cool, crisp and detached, the second more lyrically inclined. Together, they melded these qualities into an ideal balance; neither had lost his individuality, but the team was the thing.

[Stravinsky's Rite of Spring] holds its own as the biggest beast of the two-piano repertoire, and Andsnes and Hamelin's performance had the irresistible power and momentum of a juggernaut.

--Erica Jeal, The Guardian, March 31, 2017

For the Medtner/Rachmaninoff CD:

Hamelin Kills It In Medtner 2 and Rachmaninov 3
Hyperion already has excellent recordings of both of these concertos, from Demidenko (Medtner) and Hough (Rachmaninov), but as they saying goes, "greatness is its own justification," and this is a great disc. In a way, these concertos belong together. Not only were the composers friends, but both works, while cloaked in romantic virtuoso garb, are heavily symphonic in structure and syntax.

That makes Hamelin an ideal advocate. He is, of course, an exceptional keyboard virtuoso, but one of a very special type. The harder the music is to play, the easier he makes it sound. You can take the technical security completely for granted and focus entirely on matters of form and expression. In music that exists largely for virtuoso display, where a sense of strain is part of the point, this very quality can make his interpretations sound somewhat slick; but where the atrocious difficulty of the solo writing isn't the primary focus and serves a larger purpose, as here, he is incomparable. Hamelin isn't just a technical wizard-he's a smart one.

--David Hurwitz, Classics Today, April 1, 2017

For Hamelin's solo recital in Cleveland:

Marc-Andre Hamelin Wins Listeners' Hearts at Cleveland Int'l Piano Competition Recital
Marc-Andre Hamelin never won the Cleveland International Piano Competition, but he handily won over a portion of its audience Tuesdaynight at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

From a recital organized by the competition, the Canadian pianist emerged brilliantly victorious after repeatedly wowing a crowd of discerning listeners with an eclectic and often fiercely difficult slate of music. He even delivered a bewitching encore: Debussy's "Reflets dans l'eau."

A lesser performer might have gotten caught up in the thicket, drowned in two nearly relentless cascades of notes. Not Hamelin. With him, the difficulty of the music barely registered. All that mattered were the through-lines, the melodies that held it all together.

--Zachary Lewis, The Plain Dealer, March 22, 2017

A feature interview in Dublin:

Two pianists play 'Rite' in a rare harmonious relationship

As a performer with a reputation for a kind of super-human mastery and musical grasp of areas of the repertoire that most normal pianists shy away from, Hamelin often gets asked what the most difficult thing about piano playing is. "And I know darn well what they expect me to answer, thirds, octaves, sixths. No. It's the ability to be able to hear yourself during performance the same way the public is hearing you. And that's a very tall order.

-- Michael Derven, The Irish Times, March 30, 2017

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