JEAN ROGER-DUCASSE : The Complete Piano Music (2015) 3CD / FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

All tracks & credits

FELIX MENDELSSOHN - Complete Piano Music (1996) 6CD / Mp3

Anyone looking for Mendelssohn's complete piano music -- a repertoire not often performed and less often recorded -- need look no further than this six disc set. It includes everything with an opus number and many things without one: the three Sonatas, the three Variations, the seven Preludes and Fugues, the ten Caprices, and, naturally, the 48 Songs without Words among many, many other works. The performances are consistently first-rate. With his refined technique, polished tone and elegant interpretations, Martin Jones is an impressive Mendelssohn pianist who ideally balances mind and heart in these performances. His Variations Sérieuses is stern but compassionate; his Sonata in G minor is austere but expressive; and his Songs without Words are always singing but also always supremely well-wrought. The only real flaw is the sound. Recorded by Nimbus in the middle to late Seventies, Jones sounds like he's playing behind the heavy curtains while the microphones are placed in the back of a small, empty hall. Still, for first-rate performances of Mendelssohn's complete piano music, this is the set to get, despite the dreary sound. by James Leonard 
CD1 - Caprices, etc
CD2 - Piano Sonatas, Kinderstucke
CD3 - Preludes and Fugues, Etudes
CD4 - Variations, Fantasies
CD5 - Songs Without Words
CD6 - Songs Without Words, Pieces
Martin Jones - piano

CARLOS GUASTAVINO : The Complete Piano Music (2008) 3CD / APE (image+.cue), lossless

Argentines, it is said, are Italians who speak Spanish and think they're British but wish they were French. The country's concert music accordingly has quite a mixture of influences that coalesce into a distinctive nationalist viewpoint. Argentine musical nationalism remained strong enough through the twentieth century to resist the modernist onslaught. Its foremost exponent was Carlos Guastavino, a composer who has been ripe for rediscovery by non-Argentines since the explosion in the popularity of Astor Piazzolla's music began a quarter century ago. Among Argentines themselves he required no rediscovery; his music was and remains well known, and he made a living from it without recourse to academic or aristocratic sinecure. As with Cuba's Ernesto Lecuona, his fame rested on a group of songs that crossed over to mass popularity, but (again as with Lecuona) his piano compositions give a better sense of his musical mind. Apart from an early flirtation with a rather dense neo-classicism, heard in the large compositions on CD 1, he specialized in short pieces rooted in but not restricted by Argentine popular styles, more often the country dances known by the adjective "creole" than the urban tango. Many of them are musical portraits, often quite subtle: hear the 10-piece set Mis Amigos of 1966 (CD 3, tracks 9-18), in which each work depicts not only a person but also the person's musical surroundings. The Diez Preludios that make up the first half of CD 2 are not the Bach- or Chopin-inspired cases one might expect, but are subtle adaptations of children's songs. They are unique in that they draw on children's music without really being for children at all. Throughout, Guastavino has a talent for elaborating simple material in unexpected ways, and it is here that Argentina's cross-cultural character comes in: what keeps his Romantic nationalism from seeming conservative or nostalgic is that he absorbed a good deal of music from different European traditions and made it his own in an Argebtuba wat. A little tune can go off in an Impressionist direction, may draw on Fauré, can sound like Albéniz, or can display contrapuntal expertise, all without losing its local flavor. This three-disc set is a worthwhile item for libraries and large collections of Latin American music. Pianist Martin Jones is confident and competent throughout, although he tends to underemphasize the popular rhythms in Guastavino's music. For the casual listener, three discs of Guastavino is a lot, but with luck this disc will inspire focused programs -- Guastavino's portraits could easily be juxtaposed with those of Leonard Bernstein, for instance -- that will illuminate his music still more. by James Manheim 

CARL CZERNY - Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1 (2008) 2CD / Mp3

Martin Jones is known for recording the complete piano works of composers, however, Carl Czerny is one composer that it might take a pianist decades to find, let alone record, all of his works for the instrument. Jones has undertaken Czerny's 11 sonatas in this series for Nimbus, with a few smaller pieces to fill out each volume. Czerny categorized his hundreds of piano pieces into serious works, brilliant pieces for concerts, easy pieces for students, and exercises. It is the latter for which he is remembered today, particularly the School of Velocity, Op. 299. This series should change that view and show that Czerny was not only a personal link between Beethoven (his teacher) and Liszt (his student), but also a compositional and stylistic link between the two. Jones starts squarely in the middle of the 11 with four "sonatas" that are hardly traditional in terms of their form. Nos. 8 and 9 were published as "Grandes Fantasies en forme de Sonate," and while their heroic sound is suggestive of Beethoven's music, it also brings to mind Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy. The Sonata No. 5, Op. 76, does not even have a single movement in the sonata-allegro form. These are at once expansions on Beethoven's four-movement form and a foreshadowing of Liszt's own break with traditional: his single-movement, multi-sectioned B minor Sonata. Liszt's virtuosity is also evoked in the flashier and more dramatic moments of Czerny's Allegros and Prestos. It makes you wonder just what more Czerny put into his "brilliant" pieces for concerts if these are some of his "serious" works. These sonatas also demonstrate that Czerny was well educated in music history and theory. The fugue finale of Sonata No. 9 and the chorale variations in Sonata No. 6 refer to forms of the Baroque. The scherzo of No. 8 is like a Rossini tidbit, and that of Sonata No. 5 is like a Schubert dance. The Nocturne, Op. 647, that fills out disc 1, is dated much later than the sonatas, but its somewhat dense texture relates it more to the sonatas than to a Chopin nocturne even though it's obviously Czerny's attempt at something more lyrical and gracefully ornamented. With this first volume, Jones easily presents Czerny as much more well-rounded and important composer than anyone who's struggled with his etudes might ever suspect. by Patsy Morita  

CARL CZERNY - Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2 (2010) 2CD / Mp3

Martin Jones's second volume of the piano sonatas of Carl Czerny covers the beginning and end of Czerny's work in the genre, and on the whole the music is more understated than what's in Jones's first volume. This one opens with Czerny's last sonata, No. 11, which dates from 1843, more than 20 years later than the Sonata No. 1 (1820), which is also on the first disc here. The sonata has more lyrical ideas present than in the middle sonatas, but still has its Beethovenian moments and some drama. An interesting feature of the first movement is the frequent use of octaves in the right hand, and there is a definite 19th century, salon- or music box-appropriate flavor at times. That flavor is also found in the Character Etude, Op. 755/1, and in the almost John Field-like delicacy of the Chanson sans Paroles, Op. 795/1, both of which date from around the same time as the Sonata No. 11. The Sonatas Nos. 1 and No. 2 have five movements each. The first four seem to follow a traditional sonata structure, with the fifth being a fugue tacked on as an afterword. No. 1 is definitely by Czerny, the student of Beethoven, while No. 2 is written more concisely and, in terms of expression, more conservatively. The Sonatina that follows is expectedly of smaller proportions and less theatrical than the sonatas. The Sonata No. 7, one of the "grande fantasies" like No. 8 and No. 9 (on Vol. 1), is also a more modest work, not as "grande" as its siblings. With less dense textures and fewer passages of brilliant pianism, the sonatas in this volume give the listener a chance to appreciate Czerny as a more rounded composer and enjoy the music without getting too caught up in rousing heroism or impressive virtuosic feats. So far, Jones has again made the case for another underrated composer, presenting these sonatas with appropriate flair and finesse. by Patsy Morita 

CARL CZERNY - Piano Sonatas, Vol. 3 (2011) 2CD / Mp3

GRANADOS _ Goyescas - ALBÉNIZ _ Iberia (Martin Jones) (2004) 2CD / FLAC

GRANADOS [1867-1916] Goyescas 

 ISAAC ALBENIZ [1860-1909] Iberia

 Martin Jones / Piano 

Nimbus [2004] 2CD / FLAC / scans

O Púbis da Rosa