Nikolai Kapustin: Ballad, Op. 94 (with score)

Nikolai Kapustin - Ballad Op. 94 (1999)
Thomas Ang, piano
World premiere recording of this piece.
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There's nothing quite like looking at a Kapustin facsimile. How clear his handwriting is! And how much care he takes to have everything shaded in, like beams, flags, and whole notes, and how visually satisfying his beam slants are. It makes me wonder why Schott bother to print his music at all, because I just spot errors upon errors compounded by a terrible house style.
The Ballad is a slow cantilena with a solo section in the middle. In this sense it is similar to any number of his slow movements or pieces: the Berceuse op65 from a few years earlier is a great parallel. Even the slow movements of the 11th or 20th sonatas display striking similarities, all of these being roughly a moderate Andante in tempo. One can place the harmonic language as being firmly of Kapustin's middle period.

[@hesangasong]

2:23 this part is so cool. Kapustin never fails to surprise me.
Also agree with how Kapustin engraving is top notch... something about it is so aesthetically pleasing, and also very 'Kapustin'. Someone should make a music font out of it haha

[@vladimirdjurovic6348]

That part is unlike anything he’s written eh? he never really uses that harmonic flavour elsewhere..

[@unnamed_boi]

"ayo what ya cookin"
"phrygian mac & cheese"

[@mkeating52]

totally off the cuff it kind of reminds me of the harmonic flavor of the 4th ornstein sonata.

[@cunite9263]

Will download this piece and study it on my own time! Beautiful jazz work....

[@LucTaMusic]

Lovely piece and very tastefully interpreted! I almost feel like I'm listening to something by Keith Jarrett or Michel Petrucciani...

[@alfredocastella]

Been curious about this piece for a long time, glad to finally hear it :DD Such a lovely piece!!

[@jacobschatz]

Your scales are so smooth! What a great ending too! Thank you so much once again!

[@EnCwoisant]

Thank you, great performance

[@gabrielduarte-compositor6780]

Awesome!

[@juwonnnnn]

👏

[@PianoHsiang]

這首好棒

[@vladimirdjurovic6348]

4:26 reminds me of a passage from the second movement of his 5th piano sonata!

[@SCRIABINIST]

Finally found another Ballade!

[@fabioaggio]

Beautiful. Where can I find the score?

[@coqdorysme]

It's been freshly published by Schott, you can find it through most distributors I think

[@fabioaggio]

@@coqdorysme thank you very much

[@icewingsky]

I think there are some similarities between this and Sonata no 12.

[@casper5314]

he got that keyboard rizz 😏

[@casper5314]

I don't understand why in the end he composed a chinese sounding thing, seems a bit out of character with the whole theme

[@alexstudy7628]

Chinese Jazz

[@SimonPiano42]

Chinese music doesn't have a patent on pentatonic scales or similar-sounding music. It exists in other music too ;)

[@SCRIABINIST]

It doesn’t really sound Chinese to me. sounds more like to stuff found in the end of Hollywood scores in the 1950s.