The Handel Project: Handel-Suites & Brahms-Variations Seong-Jin Cho

• George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759): Suite No. 2 in F Major, HWV 427:
• 1 Handel: Suite No. 2 in F Major, HWV 427: I. Adagio 02:36
• 2 Handel: Suite No. 2 in F Major, HWV 427: II. Allegro 02:17
• 3 Handel: Suite No. 2 in F Major, HWV 427: III. Adagio 01:36
• 4 Handel: Suite No. 2 in F Major, HWV 427: IV. Allegro 02:12
• Suite No. 8 in F Minor, HWV 433:
• 5 Handel: Suite No. 8 in F Minor, HWV 433: I. Prélude 02:16
• 6 Handel: Suite No. 8 in F Minor, HWV 433: II. Allegro 02:28
• 7 Handel: Suite No. 8 in F Minor, HWV 433: III. Allemande 03:04
• 8 Handel: Suite No. 8 in F Minor, HWV 433: IV. Courante 01:40
• 9 Handel: Suite No. 8 in F Minor, HWV 433: V. Gigue 02:03
• Suite No. 5 in E Major, HWV 430:
• 10 Handel: Suite No. 5 in E Major, HWV 430: I. Prélude 02:09
• 11 Handel: Suite No. 5 in E Major, HWV 430: II. Allemande 04:33
• 12 Handel: Suite No. 5 in E Major, HWV 430: III. Courante 01:42
• 13 Handel: Suite No. 5 in E Major, HWV 430: IV. Air & 5 Variations "The Harmonious Blacksmith" 03:37
• Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897):Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24:
• 14 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Aria 00:49
• 15 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 1 00:47
• 16 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 2 (Animato) 00:41
• 17 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 3 (Dolce) 00:44
• 18 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 4 (Risoluto) 00:49
• 19 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 5 (Espressivo) 00:56
• 20 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 6 00:55
• 21 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 7 (Con vivacitá) 00:37
• 22 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 8 00:35
• 23 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 9 (Poco sostenuto) 01:17
• 24 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 10 (Energico) 00:35
• 25 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 11 (Dolce) 00:47
• 26 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 12 (Soave) 00:49
• 27 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 13 (Largamente, ma non più) 01:25
• 28 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 14 (Sciolto) 00:37
• 29 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 15 00:43
• 30 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 16 (Piano ma marcato) 00:30
• 31 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 17 (Più mosso) 00:28
• 32 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 18 (Grazioso) 00:50
• 33 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 19 (Leggiero e vivace) 01:06
• 34 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 20 (Legato) 01:22
• 35 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 21 (Dolce) 00:50
• 36 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 22 01:04
• 37 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 23 (Vivace e staccato) 00:32
• 38 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 24 00:33
• 39 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Var. 25 00:37
• 40 Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24: Fugue 05:13
• George Frideric Handel : Suite No. 7 in B-Flat Major, HWV 440:
• 41 Handel: Suite No. 7 in B-Flat Major, HWV 440: III. Sarabande 02:38
• Suite in B-Flat Major, HWV 434:
• 42 Handel: Suite in B-Flat Major, HWV 434: IV. Minuet (Arr. Kempff for Piano) 04:20
• Total Runtime 01:05:22

Info for The Handel Project: Handel-Suites & Brahms-Variations

George Frideric Handel's suites for keyboard instrument are foreign to most concert pianists. With his album "The Handel Project", the 28-year-old South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho wants to shed new light on these soulful works of Baroque music. Recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, he has chosen his three favourites from Handel's first collection of "Suites de pièces pour le clavecin": the suites HWV 427, 430 and 433. After years of studying music from later periods, Handel's keyboard works came into his focus, not least because of their wealth of musical ideas and melodic invention. "For me, Handel's music comes from the heart, people can easily follow it," Cho says, eschewing the right pedal as much as possible in his interpretation, but modifying some of the dynamic markings to exploit the potential of the modern grand piano. But Cho was also interested in Handel's influence on later composers, so he decided to record Johannes Brahms' creative response to Handel's music as well: Brahms' put his virtuoso "Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel" on paper within a few weeks in September 1861. For Cho, these are "the best variations ever written". The album closes with two single movements by Handel: the Sarabande in B flat major, HWV 440 and the Minuet in G minor - the latter in a magical arrangement by Wilhelm Kempff. Seong-Jin Cho will tour worldwide with the repertoire from his album.

Seong-Jin Cho, piano

Seong-Jin Cho
Born on 28 May 1994, in Seoul (South Korea), Seong-Jin Cho is today based in Paris. He won the International Fry- deryk Chopin Competition for Young Pianists in 2008 and the Hamamatsu Piano Competition in Japan in 2009, as well as Third Prizes in both the Tchai- kovsky Competition in Russia in 2011 and the Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv in 2014. He has performed in con- cert with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev, the French Radio, Czech and Seoul Philharmonic orchestras under Myung-Whun Chung, the Munich Phil- harmonic Orchestra under Lorin Maazel, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra under Yuri Temirkarnov, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Marek Janowski, and both the Russian National Orchestra and Basel Symphony Orchestra under Mikhail Pletnev. He has toured Japan, Germany, France, Russia, Poland,

Israel, China and the US. He has appeared in both concerts and recitals at the Tokyo Opera City, in Osaka, at the Moscow Con- servatory and at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. He has participated in numerous European festivals, including St. Petersburg, Moscow, Duszniki-Zdrój and Cracow, as well as festivals in New York and Castleton. As a chamber musi- cian, he has been invited to work with the outstanding violinist Kyung-Wha Chung.

Booklet for The Handel Project: Handel-Suites & Brahms-Variations