Edition Klavier-Festival Ruhr Vol. 35

Johannes Brahms's piano oeuvre was one of the 2016 Ruhr Piano Festival's main themes. That emphasis is reflected, naturally, in the choice of works for our annual boxed set of albums, along with the anniversaries of two further composers, the works of whom are - quite unjustly - seldom performed: Max Reger (marking the 100th anniversary of his death), and Ferruccio Busoni (celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth). Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24, can be viewed as an act of artistic liberation, here in a version by young German-Korean pianist Christopher Park, who performed his debut recital at the Festival. Finally, Max Reger's technically and musically challenging Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Georg Philip Telemann, Op. 134 are heard in a virtuoso rendition by Joseph Moog. Max Reger's Watercolors, Op. 25, pay omage to the Romantic piano tradition, performed by Anna Tsybuleva, whom we invited as the laureate of teh 2015 Leeds Competi