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STRAVINSKY • RAVEL • GERSHWIN

Transcriptions and Original Piano Works

ERIC FERRAND-N'KAOUA

“It all started with the Rite of Spring and a concert at the Paris Conservatoire in May 2013, celebrating the 100-year anniversary of Stravinsky’s most famous work. But instead of sitting in the audience, listening to the roaring orchestra, I had to generate the hypnotic power of raw rhythms and rapturous harmonies by myself, through Sam Raphling’s crazy piano transcription. Believe it or not, I felt this music “got that swing”. Then, surrounding the Rite with Ravel’s own piano arrangement of La Valse, followed by Gershwin’s evocative Preludes and powerful Rhapsody in Blue, all that came naturally, as if my piano was to tell the odyssey of rhythm and colour through the first quarter of the last century, the musical journey that led to jazz.” - Eric Ferrand-N’Kaoua

Watch videos:
GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue
GERSHWIN: 3 Preludes
STRAVINSKY: Rite of Spring
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STRAVINSKY • RAVEL • GERSHWIN

Stravinsky’s groundbreaking Rite of Spring is heard on this recording in the formidable yet seldom performed solo piano transcription by the 20th-century American composer and pianist Sam Raphling. It is coupled with Ravel’s own virtuosic transcription of La Valse, Gershwin’s jazz-infused 3 Preludes and his own solo piano version of Rhapsody in Blue.

STRAVINSKY: LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS (THE RITE OF SPRING) (ARRANGEMENT FOR PIANO BY SAM RAPHLING)
Première partie – L’Adoration de la Terre / First Part – 
Adoration of the Earth
1
Introduction (03:02)
2
Les augures printaniers – Danses des Adolescentes /
The Augurs of Spring – Dances of the Young Girls (03:02)
3
Jeu du rapt / Ritual of Abduction (01:24)
4
Rondes printanières / Spring Rounds (03:13)
5
Jeu des cités rivales – Cortège du Sage – Le Sage /
Ritual of the Rival Tribes – Procession of the Sage –
The Sage (02:52)
6
Danse de la Terre / Dance of the Earth (01:19)
Seconde partie – Le Sacrifice / Second Part – The Sacrifice
7
Introduction (04:09)
8
Cercles mystérieux des adolescentes /
Mystical Circles of the Young Girls (02:31)
9
Glorification de l’Élue / Glorification of the Chosen One (01:34)
10
Évocation des Ancêtres / Evocation of the Ancestors (00:48)
11
Action rituelle des Ancêtres / Ritual Action of the
Ancestors (03:32)
12
Danse sacrale (L’Élue) / Sacrificial Dance
(The Chosen One) (04:31)
13
RAVEL : LA VALSE (PIANO VERSION) (11:42)
GERSHWIN: 3 PRELUDES
14
No. 1 in B flat major: Allegro ben ritmato e deciso (01:37)
15
No. 2 in C sharp minor ‘Blue Lullaby: Andante con moto e
poco rubato (03:25)
16
No. 3 in E flat minor ‘Spanish Prelude’: Allegro ben ritmato
e deciso (01:10)
GERSHWIN: RHAPSODY IN BLUE (SOLO PIANO VERSION)
17
Molto Moderato – Moderato assai – Poco agitato –
Tempo giusto – Meno mosso e poco scherzando (10:03)
18
Andantino moderato (02:27)
19
Agitato e misterioso (02:59)

TOTAL TIME: 65:17

Listen to excerpts from Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring

About Eric Ferrand-N’Kaoua

French pianist Eric Ferrand-N’Kaoua, (pronounced Enkawa), born in 1963, was awarded first prize with distinction in piano at the Paris Conservatoire when aged only 14, soon followed by a first prize in chamber music.

Finalist and prize winner of the Clara Haskil and the Santander Competitions, he started performing as a soloist with several Japanese orchestras before the age of 20.

He then started collaborations with musicians from Eastern Europe, such as the USSR State Symphony Orchestra and the Moscow Soloists, and performed several times in the former USSR. He is a regular guest of the Miami International Piano Festival and has performed at the Theâtre du Châtelet (Paris), the Wigmore Hall (London) and the Mariinsky Concert Hall (St Petersburg). He is also an avid chamber music performer and forms an unconventional duo with the French violinist Gilles Apap.

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