Composer: SCHUBERT; DEBUSSY; SATIE; BERIO

Tracks/ Timings: SCHUBERT: Impromptus op. 142 - Allegro Moderato; Allegretto; Theme and variations; Allegro scherzando; DEBUSSY: Six Pre'ludes (from Book 1) - Voiles; "Les sons et les parfums tourment dans l'air du soir" [Ch. Baudlaire]; Les collines d'Anacapri; La fille aux cheveux de lin; La danse de Puck; Minstrels: Six Préludes (from Book 2)- Feuilles mortes; La puerta del Vino; "Les fees sont d'exquises danseuses"; "General Lavine" eccentric; Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C; Feux d'artifice; SATIE: Petite Ouverture à danser; Croquis et Agaceries d'un Gros Bonhomme en Bois- Tyrolienne Turque; Danse Maigre; Españaña:Trois Nocturnes:Descriptions Automatiques- Sur un Vaisseau; Sur une Lanterne; Surun Casque: Embryons Desséchés- d ' Holoturie; d ' Edriophthalma; de Podophthalma: Pièces Froides: Le picadilly, Je te veux: Rag-Time Parade: BERIO: Sequenza IV for piano:Six encores pour piano: brin [1990]; leaf [1990]; wasserklavier [1965]; erdenklavier [1969]; Iuftklavier [l985]; feuerklavier [1989]

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Information: Standing at the top of the Israeli piano scene, Michal Tal is one of the most active musicians in numerous fields: solo and chamber music playing, new music performing and promoting, teaching, coaching and supervising young teachers, directing musical and pedagogical projects, as well as searching always after new experiences in her field. Michal Tal was born in Tel Aviv and started her piano lessons when she was five years old. At the age of sixteen she performed as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then she played with all leading orchestras in Israel, Europe and the U.S. such as the Virginia and Dallas Symphonies, the Strasbourg Philharmonic, the Munster Symphony and the Hilversum Radio Orchestra. She played under the baton of Leonard Slatkin, Eduardo mata and Luciano Berio. Michal Tal participated in numerous concerts and special festivals such as carnegie Recital Hall, the Tel Aviv Museum, the Tanglewood Festival, Lincoln Center "Focus" Festival, the festival for Israeli Music in KÖLN, the Israel festival and Kefar Blum Chamber Music Festival...
The short piece for piano was one of the hallmarks of early Romanticism, together with the enormous technological progress in piano building at that time. Unlike the large scale, multi-movement piano sonata with its complex cyclic architecture, the miniature strove to capture a fleeting emotion, an impression of nature. The piano pieces ranged from tiny miniatures, such as Mendelssohn's Songs without Words, to brief movements in ternary form, as in the case of Schubert's Impromptus op.142. The Romantic term Impromptu' stems from improvisation' and Schubert clearly meant to emphasize the nature of the music as a free outpouring of ideas, as contrasted to his large scale piano sonatas. Robert Schumann, who was deeply dedicated to Schubert's music, considered the four Impromptus as another Schubert sonata which moves from the tender melancholy of the first movement through the elegant third to the stormy, Austro-Hungarian dance character of the finale. Yet pianists frequently perform them as individual compositions...