Search - Leopold Godowsky, Felix [1] Mendelssohn, Moritz Moszkowski :: The Great Female Pianists, Vol. 4: Guiomar Novaes

The female colorist per excellence!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 01/03/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The gracefulness and remarkable poetic fingering were always the main interpretative virtues of Guiomar Novaes, regarded by most of critics as one of the greatest colorists of the noblest instrument.



I think to myself that while Madame Carreño lived the three quarters parts of her life into the XIX century, we should agree that Novaes, having born in 1897 belongs in all fairness the most distinguished Latin American female pianist of the first half of the twentieth century.



The most notable and genuine female Ambassadors of the piano in Latin America have been Novaes (Brazil), Rosita Renard (Chile), Martha Argerich (Argentina) and Gabriela Montero (Venezuela). But in honor to the truth, none of these three last extraordinary performers have been able to achieve that suggestive sound, nocturnal lyricism, imaginative expressiveness and enraptured musicality with such engaging voluptuousness, absorbing commitment and sublime grandness.



Who else but her has been able to perform Mendelssohn's songs without words, Albeniz's Tango or Paderewski's Nocturne?. The only other pianist capable to be compared with her is Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, in what concerns to create atmospheres and impregnate the environment of sensual refinement since the first bar.



Novaes never worried by recording extensively. Her version Grieg's Piano Concerto, or De Falla's Nights in the gardens of Spain (surpassed just only by Kapell's magic performance still remain amongst the most extraordinary reference recordings until this date.



But the genre in which she never will be surpassed was in those intimate pages of the literature for piano. For any who really wants to approach and know about aristocratic refinement and sensual lyric flight, Novaes will be without hesitation, a must and besides an obligated reference for the next years to come.

"

A great pianist, a great recording!

Romeu França | sao paulo, sao paulo Brazil | 06/01/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"this is a rare collection of this great pianist.As always she is precise, clear, and delicate. For her, music itself comes in the first place, and so she is not show-off as others piano prima-donnas use to be. Some of the pieces, I heard for the first time in her interpretation.,and I am quite acquainted withe her work."