Gramophone Magazine
August 2021
Editor's Choice

Viviana Lasaracina (piano)

Granados: Goyescas (piano suite)
Granados: Allegro de concierto, Op. 46

Spanish music reached a peak early in the 20th century, with Enrique Granados Goyescas numbered amongst the crowning masterpieces of its day. Infused with the innovations of Debussy and Ravel, and inspired by the colours and emotional depth of Goyas paintings and engravings, the Goyescas are like brilliant and psychologically elaborate improvisations filled with seductively ornamented harmonies. The cycle also conceals a narrative of love and death that Granados would later develop into an opera. Multi-award-winning pianist Viviana Lasaracinas playing was admired for its beautiful liquid tone and summed up as breathtaking in the New York Concert Review. Viviana Lasaracina has received first place awards at important international piano competitions in Salt Lake City, Pretoria, Spain, Poznan, Germany, Finland and London (where she won second prize and the Best Performance of a Classical Work prize at the Open Piano competition in 2012). In March 2014 she debuted at New Yorks Carnegie Hall. Lasaracina has an intense concert schedule, appearing as a soloist, with orchestra, and in chamber ensembles at important venues and major festivals in Italy and abroad. Some of her performances have been broadcast by Radio Vaticana, Rai Radio 3 and Rai5.

"So compellingly individual are Lasaracina’s sumptuous performances, you may find yourself, as I did, not thinking of Alicia de Larrocha even once." - Gramophone Magazine, August 2021.