Broadway & Lafayette: Simone Dinnerstein in New York and Paris
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein first gained notice with her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, a recording which she funded herself, and which launched her international career. Not long after, Ms. Dinnerstein recorded other works of Bach, the contemporary composer Philip Lasser, Schubert and Beethoven. On her newest CD, she’s created a musical bridge between France and the United States, exploring a relationship that shares ideas across the Atlantic, from Broadway and Lafayette streets in New York, to the avenues of Paris. Philip Lasser is back, too, himself part French, and has written for Ms. Dinnerstein a piano concerto based on a Bach chorale. Ravel and Gershwin met (Simone explains more in my audio blog), both in Paris and New York, and the influence of each on the other is particularly noticeable. Dinnerstein brings out the “Ravelian” qualities in the Gershwin, and vice versa. Lasser’s “The Circle and the Child” is a well-constructed three-movement work with many appealing moments built on Bach’s Ihr Gestirn, ihr hohlen Lüfte (Your star, her high air and thou bright firmament), and completes the circle of old and new music, and the Old and the New worlds.
Simone Dinnerstein: Broadway & Lafayette (Ravel, Lasser & Gershwin)
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