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piano-small.jpg 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...)patch2-small.jpg

Since 2006-07 season Blue Griffin and First Presbyterian Church of Lansing sponsor the "FINE ARTS SERIES" . ( Read more about the series ...)

 

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Gramophone Reviews "Grieg: Complete Lyric Pieces"

Nicholas Roth (pf)
Blue Griffin Recording, BGR145 (175', DDD)
By blowing off the drawing-room dust, a master pianist reveals Grieg's strength.
Debussy may have derided Grieg's music as "bonbons wrapped in snow", yet his Lyric Pieces emerge as meaty, occasionally spicy and always filling hors d'oeuvres in the hands of pianist Nicholas Roth. It's true that their formal dimensions and picturesque melodies charm and delight when framed in soft-grained, intimate and dulcet-toned interpretations. However, 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. For example, in the "Little Bird" from Op 43, Roth articulates the ornaments with hair-trigger precision and controlled tonal gradations that Michelangeli would have understood, perhaps envied. He reinforces the Op 47 No 1 Valse Impromptu's ear-catching melodic modality by emphasising the droning left hand syncopations.
While many pianists treat the Op 54 No 3 "March of the Elves" as a helter-skelter can-can, Roth maintains a deliberate, firm and purposeful tread. The bare, low-lying lines in the opening section of "Sadness", Op 65 No 3, sing out with the kind of foreboding rhetoric one associates with late-period Liszt. And rarely have the off-beat accentuations and thick left-hand accompaniments of "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen" sounded so clear and clean.
Although Roth may not offer the nervous energy and brash underpinnings found in Aldo Ciccolini's intense 2004 Lyric Pieces cycle for Cascavelle (or, for that matter, Grieg's own piano recordings), his 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: Complete Lyric Pieces (3CDs) Grieg: Complete Lyric Pieces (3CDs) $29.99 Add to Cart
 
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