From Franz Liszt, But The "Modern" Composer Liszt

March 20, 2012 - PRLog -- The actual Compact disk, recorded in Turkey is internationally launched through amazon.com(r) and its particular associates.

Liszt is amongst the pioneering personas of the 19th century with his fantastic affect on piano playing as well as on composing for that instrument is extraordinarily continual inside our time.

Without Liszt, the piano and also the piano repertoire as we know them at present could possibly be, put simply, unattainable. A frightening and also infinitely intriguing figure, he strode across the music world like a colossus and all of major musicians will owe him an enormous debt.

This particular CD shows Liszt as a "modern" composer. Liszt was in fact essentially the most modern pianist of all times, not merely he totally changed playing the piano but at the same time the actual music language itself.

The titles on this CD are not simply "late-works by Liszt". The disc tries to highlight the "modern" aspects with the Hungarian master's music using a relatively significant time-span. The oldest compositions are the Two Legends as well as the latest ones would be the "Bagatelle Without Tonality" as well as the "Csardas Macabre" and "Csardas Obstine."

Two pieces based upon Bach; the "Fantasy and Fugue on the theme B-A-C-H" and the "Variationen uber das Motiv von Bach ("Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen")" are witness to Liszt's serious fascination with organ music and his lifelong esteem with J. S. Bach.

Taken altogether this particular launch proposes a new sight on Franz Liszt as the most significant figures of the nineteenth century music.

The Tracks:

1 Fantasie und Fuge uber das Thema B-A-C-H
2 Variationen uber das Motiv von Bach ("Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen")
3 Legendes "St. Francois d'Assise: La predication aux oiseaux"
4 Legendes "St. Francois de Paule: Marchant sur les flots"
5 Les Jeux d'Eaux a la Villa d'Este
6 Bagatelle ohne Tonart
7 Csardas Macabre
8 Csardas Obstine

All tracks of the CD are available for auditioning at: http://www.okonsar.com/Liszt-Modern.html and video recordings of two of the tracks are in the artists Youtube(r) channel: http://www.youtube.com/mokonsar.

Mehmet Okonsar was born in Istanbul (Turkey) and lived in Paris for the duration of his primary education. He started mastering piano in the National Conservatory of Ankara, with Nimet Karatekin and Necil Kazim Akses. On account of the abundant resources the Ankara Conservatory then possessed and also the Mediatheque of the Centre Culturel Francais d'Ankara, he grew up studying the music of Pierre Boulez, Edgar Varese, Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Schaeffer, composers which will have a very strong impact on him. The artist claimed that his real musical education was given at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. His teachers were: Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden for the piano and Madame Jacqueline Fontyn for composition and orchestration. He furthermore studied along with a former pupil of Olivier Messiaen: Claude Ballif from the Paris National Conservatory along with the infamous pianist Alexis Weissenberg in Switzerland.

Mehmet Okonsar performed, among others, with the following orchestras: Utah Symphony, Antwerp Philharmonic, Poznan Philharmonic and Lublin Philharmonic. Examples of the conductors he played with conductors: Joseph Silverstein, Charles Dutoit, Sylvain Cambreling, Ingo Metzmacher, Christof Escher. In recital Okonsar appeared at London's Royal Opera House, the Salle Gaveau in Paris, in New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Kyoto, Bruxelles, Antwerp, Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Rotterdam, Rome, Athens, Calgary, Salt Lake City, Ljubljana.

His repertoire includes a assortment from the early 17th. century ("The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book") such as amongst others Orlando Gibbons and Giles Farnaby and extends to late 20th century with all the works by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Witold Lutoslawski. Notable works in this repertoire are: J.S. Bach "The Art of Fugue" carried out on organ (or piano) as well as harpsichord; the Goldberg Variations, the integrale of Well-tempered Keyboard.

Okonsar has performed recitals displaying the full piano works by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Even though he declines all type of "musical specialization", his repertoire is heavily on the "modern" side with Igor Stravinsky "Three Movements of Petrouchka" the "Sequenza" for the piano by Luciano Berio and the Klavierstucke by Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Mehmet Okonsar possesses an striking discography, all titles internationally published. By J.S.Bach, Goldberg Variations; The Well-Tempered Klavier (complete in 3 CD set); The Art of Fugue (performed on organ and harpsichord) and The Musical Offering (performed on electronic instruments). An interesting assortment of solo piano, free style improvisations is "Shadowy Arcade", a CD composed with pieces possessing stirring titles, in Okonsar's individual, personal musical style which is not unlike some very modern jazz improvisation styles.

For additional information or a sample copy please contact:
Mehmet Okonsar, mehmet@okonsar.com

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Mehmet Okonsar is a Belgian pianist, composer, conductor and musicologist. He studied at the Brussels Conserv. and at the Istanbul Techn. Univ. with J. Cl. Vanden Eynden and Alexis Weissenberg for the piano and Madame Jacqueline Fontyn for composition.