Buriedtreasure

Pianist Alexander Ullman introduces us to a selection of his favourite recordings

The Young Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli – The Beginning of a Legend

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (piano) Teldec 0630-13303-2

This is more about the interpretation than the music itself. It’s quite a rare recording and I first listened to it when I was in my teens, when I was first discovering Michelangeli. It just seems so radically different to the rest of his output in that it’s a lot more free and there’s less of the neurotic perfectionism that one usually associates with his recordings. It’s truly wonderful – in particular the Chopin Mazurkas.

Franck Prélude, Choral et Fugue

Blanche Selva (piano)

Malibran-music CDRG 177

I’d never heard of Blanche Selva before listening to this album on Spotify, which has this radically beautiful interpretation of the Franck. It’s one of the first recordings of the piece, done around the same time as Alfred Cortot’s famous recording of it. She manages to capture the piece’s inevitability without being too rigorous and strict in adherence to the architecture, and also she creates this beautiful French soundworld.

Gibbons Keyboard Works

Daniel-ben Pienaar (piano)

Deux-elles DXL1126

Gibbons wrote his music during a

Golden Age for

English culture. He was a contemporary of William Byrd, Shakespeare, Thomas Hobbes and Christopher Marlowe. It was for that reason that I got interested in it and I started playing around with a lot of his works. I think this music’s unfairly neglected. Daniel’s performance here is very inventive and there’s a feeling of informed improvisation. It’s also very rich, intricate and poetic writing.

Alexander Ullman’s recording of Liszt Concertos is out on 24 June on Rubicon