New Recording of Beethoven Piano Concerti Nos. 3 & 5 Now Available on Decca Records

A new recording of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor and Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73, "Emperor" is now available on Decca Records (8808678135671) featuring acclaimed conductor JoAnn Falletta leading the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra with soloist Norman Krieger.

Krieger recorded the concertos live with Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic in Buffalo's Kleinhans Music Hall. The Emperor Concerto, which was Beethoven's last work for piano and orchestra, was performed by Krieger with Falletta and the BPO as a centerpiece of the Orchestra's 2015 Beethoven Festival. The performance earned high praise from Buffalo News reviewer Mary Kunz Goldman, who called the performance "exquisite," noting that the BPO "played with extraordinary finesse" and that "Krieger, at the piano, showed a special gift for the rapturous melody lines of the Emperor."

Buffalo News reviewer Herman Trotter hailed Krieger's 2004 performance of the 3rd Piano Concerto saying, "I can't remember ever hearing this concerto performed more convincingly," adding "Krieger played with authoritative command of the keyboard, a fluid assurance of melodic line coupled with crisp, clean definition of the thematic material."

Norman Krieger, an audience favorite in Buffalo, is one of the most acclaimed pianists of his generation and is highly regarded as an artist of depth, sensitivity and virtuosic flair. He regularly appears with the major orchestras of North America, among them the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and the National Symphony. Among Krieger's early accolades was the Buffalo Philharmonic Young Artists Competition Prize. He went on to win the gold medal at the first Palm Beach Invitational Piano Competition and perform on Lincoln Center's Great Performers Series.

JoAnn Falletta is the Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center. A leading recording artist for Naxos, her discs have won two

Grammy Awards and ten Grammy nominations. Her recent work with the Buffalo Philharmonic includes the January 2017 Naxos release of Richard Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos (Naxos 8.53536), which the Buffalo News calls a "formidable recording," and the March release of Music of Vitezslav Novak (Naxos 8.53536), which Classical CD Review praised as "excellent, well-recorded performances with the remarkable JoAnn Falletta and her Buffalo Orchestra." This season, Falletta recorded two CDs for Naxos with the Buffalo Philharmonic, music of Kodaly and Wagner, Music from the Ring, a recording of the music of Franz Schreker with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and in August will record her fifth world premiere recording of the music of Kenneth Fuchs with the London Symphony.

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