Blue
Griffin Recording is an independent recording label and full service
recording company. We are located in Lansing, Michigan.
Recording engineer and producer Sergei Kvitko
has completed degrees in music from Russia and the US, including
Doctorate in Piano Performance from Michigan State University. (Read more...) BGR
uses the highest quality equipment to achieve the superb sound that has
been praised by Gramophone ("vividly detailed, vibrant sonics"), and American Record Guide ("The recording is
close to ideal, rich but clear, truthful, and immediate") among others.
(Read more reviews...)
Blue
Griffin is a unique label as it follows creation of the CD from
beginning to end, from setting up the microphones, recording, editing
and mastering, graphic design and printing, to distribution,
advertising and sales. (View full Catalog...)
Nicholas Roth (pf)
Blue Griffin Recording, BGR145 (175', DDD)
By blowing off the drawing-room dust, a master pianist reveals Grieg's strength.
...Roth's full-throated projection, wide dynamic range, dry-eyed directness and aversion to sentimentality purge a century's worth of drawing-room dust from the music. The results are revealing. [Roth's] masterful, accomplished artistry will provide Grieg lovers with ample food for thought. BGR's vividly detailed, vibrant sonics further fuel my highest recommendation.
Jed Distler
GRIEG: Lyric Pieces
Nicholas Roth, p—Blue Griffin 145 [3CD] 174 min (1120 Keystone Ave, Lansing MI 48911; 517-646-9117)
For those of you who, like me, enjoy having complete collections, look
no further than this compelling new set by Nicholas Roth. Having
immersed himself in Grieg’s sound world, he recorded all 66 of the
Lyric Pieces in just four days (two sessions, several weeks apart). I
listened once to all of them consecutively, and I enjoyed the
experience. It is a rare opportunity to hear a lifetime of
compositions, from Op. 12 to Op. 71 (1867 to 1901). And what a wealth
of music is here to be discovered. This set, available for about $30,
should be required listening for all students of piano and anyone else
with a fondness for romantic piano music. While we are more accustomed
to hearing groups of selected Lyric Pieces, my advice would be to
listen to them all, as well played and well recorded as here and select
your own group of favorites.
GRIEG Lyric Pieces (complete) • Nicholas Roth (pn) • BLUE GRIFFIN 145 (3 CDs: 173:11)
This is my first encounter with the playing of Nicholas Roth, and I
enjoyed it immensely. The superb Blue Griffin recording captures his
fine dynamic control and graceful, delicate handling of Grieg’s
filigree. This young American yields nothing in the way of idiomatic
style to his European colleagues, and his devotion and love for this
trove of musical riches is apparent at every turn.
Here's a program of miscellaneous cello music with a concept that works!
Altogether, this is satisfying programming combined with fine playing, clean technique combined with warmth of feeling. (Read full review)
GERSHWIN Promenade. Songbook: 18 songs. Preludes. WILD Grand Fantasy on Themes from Porgy and Bess. Seven Virtuoso Etudes: Oh, Lady Be Good; Embraceable You - Ralph Votapek (pn) - BLUE GRIFFIN 139 (61:38)
Ralph Votapek plays George Gershwin
Audio CD Blue Griffin
Votapek's recent recordings on Ivory Classics have all been notable for their technical finesse, their refined sense of color, their formal clarity, and their unfailing awareness of the composers' characteristic idioms (see Peter Burwasser's acclaim for his Ginastera, Poulenc, Szymanowski, and Piazzolla in 22:2; James Miller's praise of his Granados and Falla in 25:4; and my own enthusiastic review of his Debussy in 27:6). This new Gershwin CD is just as impressive, both in terms of Votapek's technique (note the ease with which he handles the big chords and the intricate rhythms of the Grand Fantasy) and in terms of his interpretive flair. The song transcriptions are elegantly cheeky: spiky but never aggressive, ironic but never campy, and always alert to Gershwin's harmonic genius. And in the Grand Fantasy - a far more attractive work than I thought it was a quarter of a century back when I first made its acquaintance - Votapek manages miraculous feats of balance, bringing out the virtuoso glitter of Earl Wild's elaborations (inner lines are especially well handled) without obscuring the expressive core of Gershwin's original music. Wild's own recording (now on Ivory 70702) may have more improvisatory panache, but Votapek's slightly more sober and less overtly pianistic reading provides an affecting alternative.
Votapek is not entirely faithful to Gershwin's score in the Songbook: he changes the order and splices songs together, for instance, and recasts a few measures here and there, but nothing runs against the grain. I do, however, wish he hadn't left out "Oh, Lady Be Good."Presumably, he made that choice because he was including Wild's Etude based on the same tune; but giving us both versions would have been revealing, rather than redundant. That is, though, a minor blemish on an excellent release. Fine sound too.
Peter J. Rabinowitz
Fanfare Magazine July/August 2007
Blue
Griffin Recording is an independent recording label and full service
recording company. We are located in Lansing, Michigan.
