fantasy
Jon Kimura Parker
Independent FP0908
(jonkimuraparker.com)
Jon Kimura Parker first gained attention as the Gold Medal winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition in 1984 and he has since maintained a stellar 30-year career. Parker’s newest release fantasy presents five solo piano works in this genre, demonstrating not only his technical prowess, but also his substantial range. The recording opens with Schubert’s Fantasie in C Major, D760, also known as the Wanderer Fantasy, and closes with another monumental work, Schumann’s Fantasie, Op.17. Parker’s deeply expressive playing and seemingly tireless energy propel the momentum of these complex, multi-movement compositions.
Originally written for two pianos, William Hirtz’s Wizard of Oz Fantasy (1999) is presented here in a solo piano arrangement that transforms a medley of Herbert Stothart & Harold Arlen’s Academy Award-winning score into a virtuoso’s delight with its changing textures and dazzling finale. Calogero Di Liberto’s Fantasia sulla Cavalleria Rusticana is a tribute to the opera composer, and fellow Sicilian, Pietro Mascagni with a fantasy that, although written in 2005, recalls the Romantic grandeur of Liszt’s operatic piano transcriptions. The bravura of these two works is in stark contrast to Mozart’s unfinished Fantasia in D minor, KV397 featuring Parker’s own 90-second ending and refined playing.
Mention should also be made of the excellent audio quality of this 75-minute CD that was recorded in Stude Concert Hall at Rice University, Texas where Parker is professor of piano.
