Fanfare Magazine
Beethoven
Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor Op 37
7 Variations on 'God Save the King', Woo 78
Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so they say. It has been a while since I heard Phillip Kawin’s Beethoven Third Concerto with the Russian National Orchestra and the excellent Gerard Schwarz; it is even finer than I remember...View more
Fanfare Magazine
Beethoven
Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor Op 37
7 Variations on 'God Save the King', Woo 78
Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57
With the arrival of this album in early January 2021, echoes of the Beethoven year are still resounding. Yet even though the composer’s piano concertos and sonatas were well tended to in new recordings throughout the 2020 anniversary...View more
International Piano / No. 59 September 2019
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor Op 37
Phillip Kawin (pf): Russian National Orchestra/Gerard Schwarz
Master Performers 19.001 – DVD & Blu-ray
Phillip Kawin’s performances are always deeply considered: he follows in a lineage from Cortot and was influenced by Dora Zaslavsky Koch, a student of Bauer and Backhaus...View more
FANFARE MAGAZINE
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 3 • Phillip Kawin (pn); Gerard Schwarz, cond; Russian Natl O • MASTER PERFORMERS 19 001 (DVD and Blu-ray: 38:02)
Approximately three minutes into the Allegro con brio, pianist Phillip Kawin commences his graceful and generous performance of Beethoven’s third piano concerto. With minimal melodrama and more playfulness and joy, the piece is highly colorful and emotive—the flutes, woodwinds, and French horns seem to hover somewhere near the ceiling, circling the orchestra with repeating melodies and themes...View more
FANFARE MAGAZINE
Ludwig van Beethoven
iano Concerto No. 3 • Phillip Kawin (pn); Gerard Schwarz, cond; Russian Natl O • MASTER PERFORMERS 19 001 (DVD and Blu-ray: 38:02)
My last review of Phillip Kawin’s work (40:3) praised Kawin’s “subtlety, maturity, individuality, and musicality.” I have much the same reaction to his playing of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. He makes one tasteful, sensitive choice after another throughout his performance of the piece...View more
FANFARE MAGAZINE
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 3 • Phillip Kawin (pn); Gerard Schwarz, cond; Russian Natl O • MASTER PERFORMERS 19 001 (DVD and Blu-ray: 38:02)
A new video release on the Master Performers label features a rendition of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3, recorded in January of 2018 at Moscow’s Rachmaninov Concert Hall...View more
FANFARE MAGAZINE
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 3 • Phillip Kawin (pn); Gerard Schwarz, cond; Russian Natl O • MASTER PERFORMERS 19 001 (DVD and Blu-ray: 38:02)
Sometimes I regret that I don’t know everything. Oh, I’ve claimed that I do often enough; but usually the person I am talking to suddenly walks quickly across the street and pretends to be intensely studying the manure display in the window of the farm supplies store...View more
FANFARE MAGAZINE
Franz Schubert
Piano Sonata in a, D 845. 3 Klavierstücke, D 946 • Phillip Kawin (pn) • MASTER PERFORMERS 15 001 (69:41)
In the illuminating interview that serves as the program note for this release, Phillip Kawin clearly sets out his musical priorities: structural proportion and “balance between the many diverse elements,” coupled with a rich tone and singing legato. Those priorities emerge just as clearly in these finely poised and self-possessed performances, elegant in their touch, graceful in their phrasing (few sharp edges here), artful in their voicing...View more
FANFARE MAGAZINE
Franz Schubert
Piano Sonata in a, D 845. 3 Klavierstücke, D 946 • Phillip Kawin (pn) • MASTER PERFORMERS 15 001 (69:41)
Every English-speaking person can recite Shakespeare’s “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer …” but only a handful are able to make the words do what they are supposed to do. So it is that thousands of pianists can play all the right notes in the most formidable works of Liszt and Chopin, but...View more
FANFARE MAGAZINE
Franz Schubert
Piano Sonata in a, D 845. 3 Klavierstücke, D 946 • Phillip Kawin (pn) • MASTER PERFORMERS 15 001 (69:41)
We’re accustomed as reviewers to mention when a set of program notes is insightful or well written. Both are true for the notes to this Schubert album from Phillip Kawin, an admired faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music, a Schubert specialist as a performer, and an in-demand lecturer... View more