Eugenie Russo

Pianist Eugenie Russo has kept a low profile on disc but she’s taught piano in Vienna for decades. Her playing here is expressive and well matched to the instrument. There’s a full set of Clara Schumann’s piano music on CPO, taking up three CDs. That set kind of sounds like a period piano, but only because it’s a modern piano with idiosyncratic sound engineering - I think. For a varied, skilfully played recital on a period instrument, this will be hard to beat. 
  
As with the rest of this series, there are extensive notes on, and photos of, the instrument featured. Unlike a few other instalments I’ve encountered, the musical importance far outstrips the value to historical instrument junkies. It should appeal to everybody. 
  
Brian Reinhart 

Read the full review here.

..this new release, Clara Schumann's Klavier, has a wonderful air of magic about it.

Leonne Lewis in Clavier Magazine, 2007

Copland had the great American gift of sometimes setting down a few quiet notes which, when captured, convey a sense of vista, of silent and unending space, and this impression is frequently captured on this disc. New York born Eugenie Russo´s ... feeling for the Copland idiom is evident ... in Rodeo , her Corral Nocturne  is very good, and the following Ranch House Partyis about as wild as one can expect from ten fingers. 

William Lawes in Pianoforte Magazine

Eugenie Russo, where have you been all my life? The New York City native.....is heard from memorably in a welcome reissue on Paladino Music of an original 1995 release on the obscure Campion Records label. If it reaches a wider audience, that’s to the good, as these Aaron Copland treasures need to be heard by the whole world. In Russo’s hands, Copland’s music comes immediately to vibrant, stirring life in performances that put the focus on the composer’s high-profile rhythmic chords, sometimes spikey and impudent, at other times full-bodied, and his really sensational ostinatos.....the atmospheric El Salon Mexico, with its potpourri of delightfully lively Mexican folk tunes, heard here in the piano arrangement by Leonard Bernstein, and the composer’s own piano version of the ballet Rodeo. The familiar suite is all here: Buckaroo Holiday, Corral Nocturne, Ranch House Party (complete with honky-tonk piano), Saturday Night Waltz, and the stunning show-stopper, Hoe-Down. Russo’s equally sensational playing gets right to the heart of it all.                                               Audio Video Club of Atlanta: Phil Muse, Sept 2014
 

Ms Russo begins her recital with mid-period Brahms and takes him at his word when he titles his pieces ‘Capriccio’, applying this same improvisational freedom to the intermezzos, rarely adopting a steady tempo. Her fingers are always exploring, feeling, ruminating their way through the next phrase, vehement one moment, caressing the next, with no audible mannerisms; you never know what she’ll do next. The last clutch of pieces here is from Egon Wellesz, an obscure 20th Century composer who’s quite the stylistic chameleon.......Ms Russo’s interpretations are as sensitive as I can imagine.

OR 0010  Crossing Borders Eugenie Russo                     American Record Guide 2 July 2015Stephen Wright

These are reliable, faithful, and technically brilliant readings captured in a warm, concert-like acoustic. I hope Ms Russo releases a performance of the Piano Fantasy.

pmr 0052Copland: Piano Works                                            Rob Haskins© 2014 American Record Guide

Das ist gerade das Feine an Gershwin, daß das Material die unterschiedlichsten Zugänge erlaubt. Hier gibt Eugenie Russo...die originalen Klavier-Arrangements virtuos wieder- ein Vorgang mit dem Vorteil, vom Mitsummen zum Hören geführt zu werden. Erhebliche Valeurs-Entdeckungen sind da zu machen!

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