J.S. Bach / Preiss - 16

This is the third album that 16-year-old Christoph Preiss presents on the international market, with two years interval between each release. The outstanding young artist has drawn attention to himself, not only with his numerous prizes at the "Jugend musiziert" competition, but also with recital programmes that include the most important and difficult piano works from the Classical and Romantic repertoire and provoke ecstatic ovations from his audiences. Christoph Preiss has grown into an artist with a fascinating technique and unconventional, original interpretational skills; one who has become an insiders' tip among connoisseurs. This recording with Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Tchaikovsky's Grand Piano Sonata (that has such an awesome reputation among pianists), demonstrates the facility and virtuosity of this young man, who is blessed with a highly developed instinct for the stylish requisites of such differing epochs, and with pianistic abilities that overcome technical demands with no difficulty at all. Christoph has a healthy individuality at his disposal that manifests itself in all his interpretations, and armed with this, he pits himself against all forms of conformist, hackneyed and boring academicism. Incidentally, instead of the short middle section of the Waldstein Sonata, Christoph Preiss plays Beethoven's "Andante favori" that the composer originally intended as the second movement but which has, as yet, not been taken seriously by performers.