Pianist Inon Barnatan’s Time Traveler’s Suite Recently Released on Pentatone
Following up on his Pentatone releases of Beethoven’s complete piano concertos with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Alan Gilbert, pianist Inon Barnatan’s newest offering on the label is Time Traveler’s Suite, a journey through time and space that redefines the Baroque suite by combining movements of Bach, Handel, Rameau and Couperin with more recent works by Ravel, Barber, Adès and Ligeti (released Nov 5). The program culminates in Brahms’s ingenious Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. Long known as a thoughtful and compelling curator, Barnatan has been honing his Time Traveler’s Suite program in performances around the world for a number of years. The New York Times found that a performance at New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival in 2016 “showed why he is one of the most admired pianists of his generation,” adding that he “played everything brilliantly.”Two years later, when the pianist played the program in Boston’s Celebrity Series, the Boston Musical Intelligencer declared of the three-century-spanning program: “You would be hard pressed to hear finer, more enlightening performances of these pieces any time in the next 300 years.”
The pianist explains:
“This recital program was born out of a mild obsession with making connections. I have always been fascinated by the conversation that composers have with one another across centuries, how they respect and build on the music they love and admire and find a way to make it their own. … Composers like Bach and Couperin took the humble dance movements and made them into exquisite pieces of music that were too engrossing and complex to dance to. Ravel and Thomas Adès studied and rewrote Couperin’s music and used it, among other influences, as a departure point for their own unique language and sound. Ligeti and Barber used Baroque forms and idioms to channel their own 20th-century styles. … The relationship of keys and moods, and the way the composers were influenced by one another makes the “suite,” at least to my mind, a unified whole.”
This winter, Barnatan’s Time Traveler’s Suite serves as the basis of a performance at the Aspen Music Festival (Feb 10), and he performs a chamber version of the suite along with the Viano String Quartetin Denver, presented by Denver Friends of Chamber Music (Feb 16). Other winter performances include Barnatan’s returns to the Chicago Symphony (Jan 6–8) and London Philharmonic (Nov 27), as well as his debuts with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (Dec 2) and Montreal Symphony (Dec 8 & 11).
Inon Barnatan: Time Traveler’s Suite
Pentatone; released on Nov 5
Track List:
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
1 Toccata in E minor, BWV 914
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
2 Suite in E, HWV 430: II. Allemande
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)
3 Suite in A minor, RCT 5: II. Courante
François Couperin (1668-1733)
4 L’Atalante
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
5 Le Tombeau de Couperin: IV. Rigaudon
Thomas Adès (b. 1971)
6 Blanca Variations
György Ligeti (1923-2006) Musica Ricercata
7 No. 11: Andante misurato e tranquillo
8 No. 10: Vivace. Capriccioso
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
9 Piano Sonata in E-flat minor, Op. 26: IV. Fuga. Allegro con spirito
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24
10 – 36 Aria, Variations and Fuga
Inon Barnatan Winter 2021-22
Nov 27
London, UK
GERSHWIN: Concerto in F
Karina Canellakis, conductor
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Dec 2
Liverpool, UK
MOZART: Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491
Joshua Weilerstein, conductor
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Dec 8 & 11
Montreal, Canada
TCHAIKOVSKY: Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23
Rafael Payare, conductor
Montreal Symphony Orchestra
Dec 22
West Palm Beach, FL
FAURE, BEETHOVEN & SCHUBERT
With James Ehnes, Violin
Jan 6, 7 & 8
Chicago, IL
RAVEL: Concerto in G
GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue
André de Ridder, conductor
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Jan 21
Columbus, OH
RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 3
Rossen Milanov, conductor
Jan 28–30
Seattle, WA
Seattle Chamber Music Society (SCMS) Winter Festival
Feb 1
Los Angeles, CA
CHAUSSON: Concerto for piano, violin and strings
Los Angeles Philharmonic event
Feb 10
Aspen, CO
Time Traveler’s Suite
Aspen Music Festival
Feb 16
Denver, CO
Time Traveler’s Suite, chamber version, with the Viano String Quartet
Denver Friends of Chamber Music