All the works on this album derive from the inter-war years, i.e. the period in which Toch completely de-romanticized his music by disregarding late Romantic harmonic conventions and restrictions. "What has always fascinated and impressed me from the outset - particularly in the works after 1918 - is their reduction to the essential and salient. Every note conveys the impression of being absolutely necessary, and not one is superfluous or replacable. Ernst Toch's music is convincing, and his story moves me in such a special way that I feel a great need to make his music accessible to a broader public again and to contribute my share towards re-integrating the "most forgotten composer of the 20th century", as he often called himself in the final years of his life, in musical life today." (Anna Magdalena Kokits)

REVIEW:

Pianist Anna Magdelena Kokits has mastered the composer's idiom, and this is an affectionate, eloquent, and vividly played collection of Toch's piano works from WWI until his forced exile in 1933.

-- Gramophone

It’s possible that much of the warmth of this music emanates from the performer. Anna Magdalena Kokits has a very warm, almost relaxed style of playing, allowing individual notes to linger and written pauses to pause a fraction longer. But she also has a sparkling technique that allows her to play such works as the Burlesken No. 3 (“Der Jongleur: Muilto vivo”) with crystalline clarity and outstanding articulation. She’s the kind of pianist who doesn’t have to try very hard to make the music sing; it comes naturally to her.

-- The Art Music Lounge