DVD
After more than twenty years of recording for the major labels, I decided to create my own. The venture was launched in January 2001, at the dawn of the 21st century; hence my choice of PIANO 21 as an appropriate title. This is the vehicle for my own recordings, some of them of live performances. They comprise both new recordings and tracks from private and radiophonic archives from various countries as well as re-issues. PIANO 21 gives expression to my twofold passion to share not only music from the major repertoire – naturally – but also the discovery of rare and less well known works.
P21 034-N
This DVD of the recital that Cyprien Katsaris gave at the International Piano Festival of Shanghai Conservatory of Music on 4 October 2005 features the first video recordings in the world of 3 transcriptions: Katsaris’ own version of the Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue for Organ, BWV 565, Schubert’s ballet music Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus, by Ernst Pauer and the Overture The Queen of Cyprus by Jacques-François Fromental Halévy, by… Richard Wagner (!), who was an admirer of Halévy. In addition to a number of lesser-known works of Liszt, there is also a Chinese piece which Katsaris learned at the very last moment, an hour before the concert started, especially for the Shanghai audience.
