[TOP: Awadagin Pratt: Beethoven Piano Sonatas; EMI Classics 55290 (1996) CENTER & BOTTOM: Awadagin Pratt: Beethoven Piano Sonatas; EMI Classics 0 26977 2 (2011) (73:45)]
Awadagin Pratt has released two new CDs this year, Johannes Brahms, Works for Cello and Piano on Telarc; and Eternal Evolution, four works of Judith Lang Zaimont on the Navona label. Awadagin Pratt's previous EMI Classics recordings are also being reissued. The pianist's first recording A Long Way From Normal, was EMI Classics 55025 (1994). It has been reissued by Arkiv Music for $16.99.
Awadagin Pratt's second recording is Awadagin Pratt: Beethoven Piano Sonatas; EMI Classics 55290 (1996). Piano Sonatas Nos. 7, 9, 30 and 31 make up the program. As familiar as these pieces are, Pratt gives them a distinctly fresh interpretation which we find quite enjoyable. This disc is out of print, but has recently been reissued as an Arkiv CD for $16.99. The same program is also available on a reissued EMI Classics release, catalog number 0 26977 2 (2011). CDUniverse offers the disc for $11.49. Amazon.com sells the CD for $9.42, while the price at Amazon Marketplace for a new copy can be as little as $6.62.
“Awadagin Pratt not only has a huge dynamic range but he has an original vision of the music, and the way he probes its innermost recesses is exciting and moving.
Awadagin Pratt is a young American pianist still in his twenties. Here he makes a strong impression in the two early sonatas, marking off musical ideas and sections very decisively. He sounds as if he has worked out his interpretations in every detail, rather than playing spontaneously. Although Beethoven’s Op. 109 is the simplest of his late sonatas, it needs the most mature pianist, one who can fill out its unfussy forms with the generous, unselfconscious feeling that usually comes only with long experience. Pratt is much more arresting in Op. 110, which gives him the chance to inflect more. He not only has a huge dynamic range but he has an original vision of the music, and the way he probes its innermost recesses is exciting and moving. The slow sections prefacing the two fugues are inspired and, towards the end, a mood of elation takes off as never before.
“Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 4 (out of 5) -- Adrian Jack, BBC Music Magazine”
“Beethoven's piano sonatas chart the course of a famously rule-breaking career. With nothing more than hammers and strings these works sound out the full symphonic scope of his almost perverse musical thinking; they reveal his eccentricity and brilliance in 32 vast miniatures.”
“Born in Pittsburgh, Awadagin moved to Normal Illinois at the age of 3 and began studying piano at the age of 6 and violin at the age of 9. At 16, he entered the University of Illinois, where he studied piano, violin, and conducting. At Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory of Music, he became the first student in the school’s history to receive diplomas in three performance areas.
“When the 26-year-old pianist won the prestigious Naumburg Competition in New York in 1992, Awadagin Pratt became the first African-American classical instrumentalist to win first prize in this international competition. In 1994, Pratt was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant for career development. He has played with most of the major symphony orchestras in the United States and appeared in many summer festivals, including Ravinia and Wolf Trap. He has performed internationally in Japan, Germany, South Africa, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, and throughout the Caribbean.”
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