Simone Dinnerstein's Second Album on Sony Classical Traces the Shared Vocal Aspects in the Music of Bach and Schubert

Something Almost Being Said Available January 31, 2011

J. S. Bach: Partita No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 826

Franz Schubert: Four Impromptus, Op. 90, D. 899

J. S. Bach: Partita No. 1 in B-Flat Major, BWV 825

"An artist of true expressive force" - The Washington Post

PR Newswire
NEW YORK
12/07/2011

NEW YORK, Dec. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Classical will internationally release pianist Simone Dinnerstein's second album Something Almost Being Said: The Music of Bach and Schubert on Tuesday, January 31, 2012. The new album combines J. S. Bach's Partitas Nos. 1 and 2, with Schubert's Four Impromptus, Op. 90, and was recorded at the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York by Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse. The album's title is taken from English poet Philip Larkin's poem, The Trees.

Something Almost Being Said follows the 2011 release of Ms. Dinnerstein's Bach: A Strange Beauty, which immediately earned the No. 1 spot on the US Billboard Classical Chart, and is one of the few classical albums to make the Billboard Top 200, compiling the entire music industry's top selling albums in all genres. The San Francisco Chronicle called Bach: A Strange Beauty "unadorned but profound bliss," and The Washington Post raved, "Dinnerstein's readings may be said to plumb these works' genuine depths . . . poised, elegant, wonderfully played."

Ms. Dinnerstein says of her new album, and its title, "Bach and Schubert, to my ears, share a distinctive quality. Their non-vocal music has a powerful narrative, a vocal element. The effect is that of wordless voices singing textless melodies. Bach and Schubert's melodic lines are so fluent, so expressive, and so minutely inflected that they sound as though they might at any moment burst suddenly into speech. They sound like something almost being said."

Simone Dinnerstein has been called "a throwback to such high priestesses of music as Wanda Landowska and Myra Hess," by Slate magazine, and praised by TIME for her "arresting freshness and subtlety." The New York-based pianist gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007 on Telarc, it ranked No. 1 on the US Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to many "Best of 2007" lists including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker. Her follow-up album, The Berlin Concert, also gained the No. 1 spot on the Chart.

Ms. Dinnerstein's performance schedule has since taken her around the world. Recent and upcoming highlights include performances at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and London's Wigmore Hall; at festivals including the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival, the Aspen, Verbier, and Ravinia festivals, and the Stuttgart Bach Festival; and concerto performances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Kristjan Jarvi's Absolute Ensemble, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Symphony.

Ms. Dinnerstein has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing classical music to non-traditional venues. Amongst the places she has played are nursing homes, schools and community centers. Most notably, she gave the first classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system when she played at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to coincide with her BSO debut.

Dedicated to her community, in 2009 Ms. Dinnerstein founded Neighborhood Classics, a series of concerts open to the public hosted by New York City public schools. The series features musicians she has met throughout her career, and raises funds for the schools. Neighborhood Classics began at P.S. 321, the Brooklyn elementary school that Ms. Dinnerstein's son attends and where her husband teaches. Artists who have performed on the series include Richard Stoltzman, Maya Beiser, Pablo Ziegler, and many more.

Over the past few years, Ms. Dinnerstein has been featured in Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Classic FM Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, "O" The Oprah Magazine, TIME, Slate, Stern, Cicero, The Sunday (London) Times Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, among others, and has appeared on radio programs including BBC Radio 3's In Tune, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, NPR's Morning Edition, Public Radio International's Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, American Public Media's Performance Today, Minnesota Public Radio, XM Radio's Classical Confidential, as part of the news on SIRIUS Satellite Radio's The Howard Stern Show, and on national television in Germany.

Ms. Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She was a winner of the Astral Artist National Auditions, and has twice received the Classical Recording Foundation Award. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio. Simone Dinnerstein lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and son. For more information, please visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.

    Something Almost Being Said:
    The Music of Bach and Schubert                         The Trees
     (Sony Classical)                                      by Philip
                                                         Larkin
    Track Listing
                                                                       The trees
                                                                     are
                                                                     coming
                                                                     into leaf
    [1-6] J. S. Bach: Partita No. 2 in C Minor, BWV                              Like
     826                                                                         something
                                                                                 almost
                                                                                 being
                                                                                 said;
    1.                      I. Sinfonia                 5:05                     The recent
                                                                                 buds
                                                                                 relax and
                                                                                 spread,
    2.                      II. Allemande               6:07                     Their
                                                                                 greenness
                                                                                 is a kind
                                                                                 of grief.
    3.                      III. Courante               2:12
    4.                      IV. Sarabande               4:28                     Is it that
                                                                                 they are
                                                                                 born
                                                                                 again
    5.                      V. Rondeau                  1:26                     And we
                                                                                 grow old?
                                                                                 No, they
                                                                                 die too,
                                Their
                                                                                 yearly
                                                                                 trick of
                                                                                 looking
    6.                      VI. Capriccio               3:00                     new
                                                                     Is written
                                                                     down in
                                                                     rings of
                                                                     grain.
    [7-10] Franz Schubert: Four Impromptus, Op.
     90, D. 899
                                Yet still
                                                                                 the
                                                                                 unresting
                                                                                 castles
    7.                      Impromptus No. 1 in C Minor 11:37                    thresh
                             Impromptus No. 2 in E-Flat    In
                             Major                                               fullgrown
                                                                                 thickness
                                                                                 every
    8.                                                  4:50                     May.
    9.                       Impromptus No. 3 in G-Flat 6:46                     Last year
                             Major                                               is dead,
                                                                                 they seem
                                                                                 to say,
    10.                      Impromptus No. 4 in A-Flat 8:36                     Begin
                             Major                                               afresh,
                                                                                 afresh,
                                                                                 afresh

    [11-16] J. S. Bach: Partita No. 1 in B-Flat
     Major, BWV 825
    11.                     I. Praeludium               3:02
    12.                     II. Allemande               3:37
    13.                     III. Corrente               2:32
    14.                     IV. Sarabande               5:37
    15.                     V. Menuet I & II            2:56
    16.                     VI. Gigue                   2:40

    Total: 75:49

SOURCE Sony Classical

SOURCE: Sony Classical

Simone Dinnerstein's Second Album on Sony Classical Traces the Shared Vocal Aspects in the Music of Bach and Schubert Something Almost Being Said Available January 31, 2011 J. S. Bach: Partita No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 826 Franz Schubert: Four Impromptus, Op. 90, D. 899 J. S. Bach: Partita No. 1 in B-Flat Major, BWV 825 "An artist of true expressive force" - The Washington Post

PR Newswire

NEW YORK, Dec. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Classical will internationally release pianist Simone Dinnerstein's second album Something Almost Being Said: The Music of Bach and Schubert on Tuesday, January 31, 2012. The new album combines J. S. Bach's Partitas Nos. 1 and 2, with Schubert's Four Impromptus, Op. 90, and was recorded at the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York by Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse. The album's title is taken from English poet Philip Larkin's poem, The Trees.

Something Almost Being Said follows the 2011 release of Ms. Dinnerstein's Bach: A Strange Beauty, which immediately earned the No. 1 spot on the US Billboard Classical Chart, and is one of the few classical albums to make the Billboard Top 200, compiling the entire music industry's top selling albums in all genres. The San Francisco Chronicle called Bach: A Strange Beauty "unadorned but profound bliss," and The Washington Post raved, "Dinnerstein's readings may be said to plumb these works' genuine depths . . . poised, elegant, wonderfully played."

Ms. Dinnerstein says of her new album, and its title, "Bach and Schubert, to my ears, share a distinctive quality. Their non-vocal music has a powerful narrative, a vocal element. The effect is that of wordless voices singing textless melodies. Bach and Schubert's melodic lines are so fluent, so expressive, and so minutely inflected that they sound as though they might at any moment burst suddenly into speech. They sound like something almost being said."

Simone Dinnerstein has been called "a throwback to such high priestesses of music as Wanda Landowska and Myra Hess," by Slate magazine, and praised by TIME for her "arresting freshness and subtlety." The New York-based pianist gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007 on Telarc, it ranked No. 1 on the US Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to many "Best of 2007" lists including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker. Her follow-up album, The Berlin Concert, also gained the No. 1 spot on the Chart.

Ms. Dinnerstein's performance schedule has since taken her around the world. Recent and upcoming highlights include performances at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and London's Wigmore Hall; at festivals including the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival, the Aspen, Verbier, and Ravinia festivals, and the Stuttgart Bach Festival; and concerto performances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Kristjan Jarvi's Absolute Ensemble, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Symphony.

Ms. Dinnerstein has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing classical music to non-traditional venues. Amongst the places she has played are nursing homes, schools and community centers. Most notably, she gave the first classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system when she played at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to coincide with her BSO debut.

Dedicated to her community, in 2009 Ms. Dinnerstein founded Neighborhood Classics, a series of concerts open to the public hosted by New York City public schools. The series features musicians she has met throughout her career, and raises funds for the schools. Neighborhood Classics began at P.S. 321, the Brooklyn elementary school that Ms. Dinnerstein's son attends and where her husband teaches. Artists who have performed on the series include Richard Stoltzman, Maya Beiser, Pablo Ziegler, and many more.

Over the past few years, Ms. Dinnerstein has been featured in Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Classic FM Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, "O" The Oprah Magazine, TIME, Slate, Stern, Cicero, The Sunday (London) Times Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, among others, and has appeared on radio programs including BBC Radio 3's In Tune, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, NPR's Morning Edition, Public Radio International's Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, American Public Media's Performance Today, Minnesota Public Radio, XM Radio's Classical Confidential, as part of the news on SIRIUS Satellite Radio's The Howard Stern Show, and on national television in Germany.

Ms. Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She was a winner of the Astral Artist National Auditions, and has twice received the Classical Recording Foundation Award. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio. Simone Dinnerstein lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and son. For more information, please visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.

Something Almost Being Said:

 

The Music of Bach and Schubert (Sony Classical)

 

The Trees by Philip Larkin

Track Listing

 

 

 

 

 

 

The trees are coming into leaf

[1-6] J. S. Bach: Partita No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 826

Like something almost being said;

1.

I. Sinfonia

5:05

 

The recent buds relax and spread,

2.

II. Allemande

6:07

 

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

3.

III. Courante

2:12

 

 

4.

IV. Sarabande

4:28

 

Is it that they are born again

5.

V. Rondeau

1:26

 

And we grow old? No, they die too,

6.

VI. Capriccio

3:00

 

Their yearly trick of looking new

 

 

 

Is written down in rings of grain.

[7-10] Franz Schubert: Four Impromptus, Op. 90, D. 899

 

 

7.

Impromptus No. 1 in C Minor

11:37

 

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

8.

Impromptus No. 2 in E-Flat Major

4:50

 

In fullgrown thickness every May.

9.

Impromptus No. 3 in G-Flat Major

6:46

 

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

10.

Impromptus No. 4 in A-Flat Major

8:36

 

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh

 

 

 

 

 

[11-16] J. S. Bach: Partita No. 1 in B-Flat Major, BWV 825

 

 

11.

I. Praeludium

3:02

 

 

12.

II. Allemande

3:37

 

 

13.

III. Corrente

2:32

 

 

14.

IV. Sarabande

5:37

 

 

15.

V. Menuet I & II

2:56

 

 

16.

VI. Gigue

2:40

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total: 75:49

 

 

 

 

SOURCE Sony Classical

CONTACT: CONTACT: For Simone Dinnerstein: Christina Jensen PR, +1-646-536-7864, christina@christinajensenpr.com; or Sony Masterworks: Angela Barkan, +1-212-833-8575, angela.barkan@sonymusic.com, or Larissa Slezak, +1-212-833-6075, larissa.slezak.@sonymusic.com

Web Site: http://www.simonedinnerstein.com