Classical Music | Piano Music

Nikolai Kapustin

Intermezzo, from Eight Concert Etudes  Play

Janice Fehlauer Piano

Recorded on 09/16/2009, uploaded on 12/09/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Intermezzo, from Eight Concert Etudes                        Nikolai Kapustin

Nikolai Kapustin is a Ukrainian-born pianist who received a thorough classical training at the Moscow Conservatory before beginning a career in jazz as a pianist, composer and big band leader.  He is a prolific composer with over one hundred opuses to his name.  Kapustin's compositions fuse classical structures such as sonatas, concertos, or preludes and fugues with an idiomatic musical language that is purely jazz.  Although his works often sound improvisatory, no real improvisation is required of the performer, as Kapustin meticulously notates every small note and inflection.  The Eight Concert Etudes Op. 40 represent an integration of virtuosic technique with jazz harmonies and rhythms, and are an electrifying successor to the grand nineteenth-century tradition of dazzling concert etudes.     Janice Fehlauer