Sparklingly fresh playing … Takenouchi knows how to convince

Pizzicato, Pál Körtefa

Pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi has recorded two works that are rarely heard because of their instrumentation, together with string soloists from Symphonia Cymru. In this case it is a string quartet plus double bass, in Mendelssohn’s case with two violas instead of two violins.

Mendelssohn’s Sextet can be seen as a miniature concerto for piano and strings, with its atmosphere intended for the salon rather than the concert stage, which the posthumous publication may speak to, since the composer himself did not attach such great importance to the work. The style is reminiscent of Hummel, Weber and also Louis Spohr. New to Mendelssohn is the elfin lightness of the minuet, which brings poetic-fresh hues.

Bennett’s sextet joins in tone with that of the composers already mentioned and is distinguished by its charming manner of making, which also places the piano at the centre of interest. After all, Bennett composed it between two piano concertos.

In accordance with the form of the two works, Hiroaki Takenouchi has found a challenging task here, which he tackles with adept technical implementation.

With a contoured approach and at the same time sparklingly fresh playing, corresponding to the character of the works, Takenouchi knows how to convince.

Musically, he extracts many details from the two pieces that are worth hearing, which he integrates into the lively flow of the music. In doing so, he can dispense with a fully developed playing, since the natural flow already carries the music.

Whereas with Bennett the recording is a bit too close to the piano, creating a risk of clang, the Mendelssohn is free of these effects.

Even though the strings have rather subordinate roles in these works, the recording has appropriately incorporated them into the sound so that they can be heard without detriment. Symphonia Cymru is a young ensemble. The members are young graduates under 30 who are offered a performance opportunity here. They come together in varying lineups from chamber music to symphonic size. Here, the two quintets offer impeccable performances as they take advantage of the opportunities that arise from the music for an enriching performance.

The recording:
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To hear this in its piano version is to hear the work anew
18 Oct 22

Interlude, Maureen Buja

Excellent performances
1 Feb 19

MusicWeb International, Jonathan Woolf

A hugely enjoyable listen, played with infectious authority
3 Feb 18

The Arts Desk, Graham Rickson

Pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi - Sterndale Bennett and Schumann
Hiroaki Takenouchi does the piece proud
1 Jan 18

British Music Society, Michael Round

Unwavering conviction and … constantly expressive musicality
1 Jan 18

Myron Silberstein, Fanfare

Pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi - Sterndale Bennett and Schumann
Exhilarating playing here from pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi
4 Dec 17

The Guardian, Stephen Pritchard

Pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi - Sterndale Bennett and Schumann
Takenouchi handles this with bravura ease and a warm, refined sound
20 Sep 17

Crossed Eyed Pianist, Fran Wilson

Pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi - Sterndale Bennett and Schumann
Romantically affluent, poundingly sonorous and rich in pathos
7 Aug 17

MusicWeb International, Rob Barnett

Pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi - Sterndale Bennett and Schumann
Broad expressive capacity…..superb technical abilities
31 Jul 17

Record Geijutsu, Shinnosuke Nagai

Pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi - Sterndale Bennett and Schumann
Rich in tone and possessing an enviably secure technique – 5 Stars
27 Jul 17

Classical Ear, Andrew Achenbach

Pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi - Sterndale Bennett and Schumann
Brilliantly played by Takenouchi
9 Jul 17

End Notes – The Quarterly Review, Stuart Millson

Confidence, conviction and tremendous panache
1 Jun 17

Em Marshall-Luck, Albion Magazine

Pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi - Sterndale Bennett and Schumann
His playing is rich, dazzling and intelligently shaped
29 May 17

Sunday Times, Stephen Pettitt
Sterndale Bennett and Schumann – Hiroaki Takenouchi

Movingly Played
3 Aug 15

MusicWeb International, John France

“My major discovery on this CD was the only piece by a British composer – Ernest Walker’s heartbreakingly, beautiful Study (not a Prelude as given in the notes) for the left hand alone, op. 47 (1931). Better known for his seminal A History of Music in England, Walker was a composer, organist and pianist. The present work was one of three written for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein who had lost his right arm during the First World War. The Study is deeply felt, largely exploiting the lower registers of the piano and demanding a good legato technique. It is movingly played here by Hiroaki Takenouchi.”

 

He is unfailingly convincing, his playing thoughtful, lyrical and spontaneous
4 Jan 15

The Sunday Times, Stephen Pettitt

A deeply felt reading
1 Feb 14

MusicWeb International, Ian Lace
Recording of the Month

A convincing advocate
1 Oct 12

American Record Guide, Don O’Connor

“The performances are excellent. Takenouchi’s skill and, as important, his belief in the music makes him a convincing advocate. Yates and the RNSO capably abet a worthy enterprise.”

Finely played
1 Aug 12

Gramophone, David Fanning

“Hiroaki Takenouchi […] is impeccable in his pianism and unfailing in his idiomatic grasp.”

“Once again finely played by Takenouchi, this too is a must-have for anyone interested in the post-history of the Romantic piano concerto. With decent orchestral support and recording, and excellent documentation, it all adds up to a more than welcome issue.”

Yates and Takenouchi revive Russian and British concertos

The modem rediscovery of Georgy Catoirc’s modestly proportioned oeuvre was kick-started by Marc-Andre Hamelin’s 1999 Hyperion recital (1/00- soon to reappear on Helios). Since then the chamber music has been quite well served, leaving just the songs and orchestral works in search of modern champions.

The Piano Concerto was composed in 1906-09, according to most catalogues, though its first performer, Alexander Goldenweiser, gave 1911 as the date of completion. Dutton do not claim theirs as a first-ever recording; though if Aima Zassimova’s lavish documentary study (Berlin, Verlag Emst Kuhn: 2011) is to be trusted, it would seem to be so. Like all Catoire’s instrumental works, the Concerto bears the mark of his close encounters with Tchaikovsky, Taneyev and Scriabin. Accomplished pianist and thoroughly trained composer that he was, the music always falls gratefully on the ear, though in terms of surprise, delight or individuality it lags far behind the likes of, say, Cesar Franck, whose Symphonic Variations loom large behind the 19-minute first movement. Any limitations in the music’s effect are surely no fault of Hiroaki Takenouchi, however, who is impeccable in his pianism and unfailing in his idiomatic grasp.

The adventurous spirit of this young Japanese-bom, London-based pianist also gives us the Second Concerto (1932-33) of Percy Sherwood (1866-1939), a German-born pianist-teacher-composer who settled in Hampstead at the onset of the First World War and whose manuscripts now reside in the Bodleian Library. This is music still solidly rooted in the 19th-century Germanic tradition, with some imposing Rachmaninovisms grafted on. Never less than accomplished, it is never much more than that either. Once again finely played by Takenouchi, this too is a must-have for anyone interested in the post-history of the Romantic piano concerto. With decent orchestral support and recording, and excellent documentation, it all adds up to a more than welcome issue.

Gracefully expressive
20 Jan 12

BBC Music Magazine, Michael Church

“For Takemitsu, walking through a garden was a quasi-musical experience, and that’s the feeling one gets from Les yeux clos II, the late work by him in this collection.  Debussy’s sound-world is his source, but he pursues the argument into mystical realms; Hiroaki Takenouchi delivers it with gracefully expressive economy, as he does the eight other piece he has chosen to reflect the pianistic tradition among Japanese composers schooled in the musical ways of the avant-garde West.

The other pieces which stand out here are Joji Yuasa’s exquisite Cosmos Haptic (‘relating to the sense of touch’), in which single notes and terse phrases are dropped like pebbles into a silent pool, and Sachiyo Tsurumi’s exuberant Toy 2 for piano and electronics, in which the piano’s timbre is decorated by gentle gurgles and burps.”

Performance  ★★★★
Recording  ★★★★

Takenouchi will go far
1 Sep 07

MusicWeb International, Mark Sealey

“This is a sumptuous, relaxed, languorous CD of nine spare – yet also explosive – Japanese contemporary pieces for piano.  It is as much an act of love as it is of exposition of new music.  The composers have been chosen by Hiroaki Takenouchi to represent work from that country of the last half century or so.  They reveal an intensity with – and, really, a sort of authority over – melody, texture, rhythm and what the instrument can do.  This intensity, this sense of command, can amaze, if we enter this sound-world as receptive listeners”

“a recital of real depth and interpretative strength […] here is beautiful, accomplished and truly delightful music.”

“Miyoshi’s and Nodaïra’s pieces are in contrast with what comes immediately before and with Hosokawa’s “Haiku”, which follows it, in that they have more pace, more evident animation.  The “Haiku” homage to Boulez shares some of the latter’s sound-world: clusters, vertical groupings, a love of sound for sound’s sake, sporadic interjections which serve to imply the melodic lines, rather than define them in linear fashion.  Here Takenouchi is at his poetic best.  Pauses, attacks, holding of notes – such techniques seem aimed at stretching the limits of pianism, without self-consciousness.  In fact they plunge us right into the essence of best practice and great creativity for the instrument.”

“This is emphatically and unashamedly modern, at times dissonant and aggressively uncompromising playing of honest, crystalline music.  Takenouchi (just 30 years old) is based in London, where he studied with the late Yonty Solomon.  He will go far.  His sureness of touch and dramatically clear and clean insight are ideally suited to this music and to the world it inhabits.  For something new, different, yet essentially full of integrity, beauty and creativity, this CD is well worth a look.”

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27/03/2025