Although he is best remembered for his orchestral and instrumental music, Saint-Saens was also responsible for spearheading the revival of the French Baroque, especially the music of Lully and Rameau, as well as being perfectly placed to absorb the latest instrumental dance music. His five "character waltzes" include the ethereal and ravishingly textured Valse mignonne, the stylistically forward-looking Valse nonchalante and the virtuosic Valse gaie, the composer's final waltz for solo piano, while the three minor key Mazurkas are strongly characterized and filled with ingenious musical contrasts. Last but not least, the three "souvenirs" are delightful evocations of particular corners of the world that inspired Saint-Saens.

The works on this first volume of the complete piano works of Mieczysowski range from very early yet characterful Mazurkas and the remarkably intense Lullaby, his Opus 1, to the at times dissonant Piano Sonata No 1.

Classical Music

Franz Anton Hoffmeister occupied an important place in Viennese musical and cultural life. He was much respected as a publisher—his firm published works by Mozart and Haydn, and he was friendly with Beethoven—but also as a composer. He wrote at least eight operas, a substantial number of symphonies, and a large amount of music for the flute, a popular instrument amongst the wealthy amateurs of the time. He also wrote expressively and rewardingly for the piano, which had a similarly wide audience. This is the second of three volumes of the first complete recording of Hoffmeister’s piano sonatas.

This is the third and final volume of Türk’s keyboard sonatas.

Classical Music

Grand Piano's Volume 2 of the cycle of complete piano works by the Russian born composer and pianist Alexander Tcherepnin focuses on Tcherpnin's early woks and includes world premiere recordings. Pianist Giorgio Koukl is the Prizewinner of many international music competitions including the H. Rahn competition (Switzerland) and the Alien Competition (Washington DC).

“Türk’s leichte sonatas are both aesthetically accomplished and important to our understanding of the Classical period’s pedagogical practices. Furthermore, the sonatas’ correlation to central stylistic and aesthetic concepts… make their reincorporation into the standard repertoire desirable and perhaps even crucial." – Michael Tsalka

The piano and chamber works on this recording span 45 years of Boris Tchaikovsky's career, ranging from the delightful pieces composed by the precocious ten year old to the Etude in E Major of 1980. They include the Sonata for 2 Pianos with its mosaic approach to composition and its expressive exploration of the inner soul, and the beautifully crafted Violin Sonata of 1959. The solo piano miniatures reveal a spare texture that highlights the instrument's elemental beauty.

There is only one major issue with this excellent new release from Grand Piano: how to approach listening to it. The above listing does not really reveal the problem. The fact is that Johann Baptist Cramer’s Studio per il Pianoforte, Books 1-4 contain some 84 complex, involved and highly pianistic studies (studio=studies=etudes). This represents almost two solid hours of music. Does one begin at ‘Étude I in C major’ and work through to ‘Étude LXXXIV’ in the same key? On the other hand, perhaps, it could be good to take these a book at a time. Yet each ‘book’ is around 30 minutes. Stravinsky once remarked that Vivaldi wrote the same work some 400 times. Now I am not implying that these études lack interest or variety: what I am suggesting is that after two dozen they begin to sound a little same-ish. My suggestion is that if the listener can read - or even follow - music, they should download the four books from IMSLP (see links below). Personally, I took them at about six or seven at a time in the order presented. I then stopped and did something else and then ‘carried on’.

Johann Baptist Cramer was born in Mannheim in 1771 but was brought to London the following year. After lessons in violin and piano from his father, he had more formal studies with, amongst others C.F. Abel and Muzio Clementi. However, as a composer he was largely self-taught. In 1788 he began to tour extensively as a concert pianist, playing in many European capitals. In 1828, he set up a music-publishing house in partnership with Robert Addison. Although Cramer is best known for his piano solo music, he contributed seven piano concertos, hundreds of sonatas, a piano quartet and quintet.

Studio per il pianoforte were published, as noted above, in four books, two in 1804 as Op.30 and the other two in 1810 as Op.40. They formed the fifth section of the composer’s massive Grosse praktische Pianoforte Schule (1815). Keith Anderson points out that they ‘anticipated [Muzio] Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum by nearly seven years.

Cramer’s ‘studio’ cross the boundary between ‘teaching pieces’ and works of art. Beethoven and Schumann famously admired them: Busoni issued an edition of these Études and wrote a number of additional examples in the same style -which are generously included on the present CD.

Nicolas Temperley has suggested that Cramer’s studies were by far his most ‘influential’ work. They are historically, as well as musically important. He writes that they ‘were the first of their kind: in fact, the word ‘study’ (étude) appears to have acquired its modern meaning through them…’ it was the first major collection of (high grade) teaching pieces for the pianoforte.

Cramer’s studies are not simply methodological exercises which would have had a tendency to be as dry as dust. They are imbued with well-considered formal characteristics and subject matter which are to be approached as part and parcel of the technical problems encountered. It has been suggested that only by a detailed examination of their internal structures will the qualities of beauty and interest be laid bare. It is unlikely that most listeners of these pieces will be able to devote this amount of time and effort to their exploration. However, I guess that the rule of thumb must be to regard them in a similar manner as those by Chopin. Alas, it is unlikely that a recital will include Cramer’s studies as a part of the programme, whereas Chopin Études are a staple of the concert pianist. However, at his best Cramer comes close to the Polish master in synthesising musical material and technical challenge to produce a consistent and satisfying artistic form.

The great nineteenth century pianist Edward Dannreuther has described this collection of studies well: ‘this is of classical value for its intimate combination of significant musical ideas with the most instructive mechanical passages.’

Stylistically, it is fair to suggest that Cramer’s Études inhabit the sound-world of Mozart and Scarlatti with frequent nods to Bach. However, his great achievement is that he has managed to fuse a conservative playing style with the latest developments in piano performance made possible by the mechanical advance in instrument design.

It is good to have Busoni’s Eight Études after Cramer included in this present CD collection. Unfortunately there is little information about them in the liner notes. However, they were dedicated to Carl Lütschg, who was a former pupil of Ignaz Moscheles. Keith Anderson notes that four of these studies deal with ‘legato’ playing whilst the remaining four address the problems of ‘staccato’ touch. Without a lot of work, I am not sure to what extent Busoni has adapted, rewritten or amended the original Cramer studies. It would have been helpful if the liner notes had proved a brief ‘cross reference chart’.

I thoroughly enjoyed being introduced to the entire run of Cramer’s 84 studies. In fact, it is the first time that they have been available in their entirety. They are played by three pianists who bring a huge talent to the performance of these important works. However, the main impression I get from listening to these Études is the inordinate enthusiasm and understanding that comes across in the performance. It would be easy, I guess, for the technical brilliance of many these studies to overshadow the poetical element that inhabits much of this music.

The liner notes are reasonable, although a little more detail may have been helpful. However, I accept that any analysis of each of these pieces would have made the booklet unwieldy.

The sound quality is impressive and allows the listener the maximum opportunity to enjoy every moment of this music.

With the above caveat about taking these pieces steadily rather than through-listening, I am sure that this double-CD will appeal strongly to all piano music enthusiasts. Whatever their usual fare, these Études represent a major stage in the development of piano technique as we have come to understand it in the music of Chopin, Liszt and other romantic pianists.

The full piano score of Johnann Baptist Cramer’s Studio per il pianoforte in four volumes can be found at IMSLP.

-- John France, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Virtuoso pianist Ignaz Friedman's compositions have long been neglected but they possess great melodic beauty and harmonic inventiveness. Grouped into sets of character pieces, they exude the haunting melodies of late Romanticism. The lush inventiveness of the Vier Klavierstücke, Op. 27 finds time for Polish folkloric inspirations whilst Stimmungen, Op. 79 – dedicated to his friend Rachmaninov - is pensive, passionate, serious and colourful. Strophes reflects Friedman’s love of Grieg, as well as the abiding influence of Vienna.

“It takes pianistic skill to convey the essence of these works and that is evident in Joseph Banowetz’s lovely and committed performances.” - Mark Novak, Fanfare

This is one of those discs that makes me want to shout with delight... A wonderful disc altogether!

This is one of those discs that makes me want to shout with delight. Not only is it the piano music of a neglected but brilliant composer but the sub-title Complete Piano Music 1 means there will be more. In fact there will be as many as eight volumes altogether. Hooray!
 
By his late teens, the accompanying booklet explains, Tcherepnin had already composed several hundred pieces. His father, Nikolay was a conductor, pianist and composer and, indeed the genes were passed on to Alexander’s son Ivan who was also a composer. Being born in what, as Confucius would, no doubt, have described as “interesting times”, the family had a difficult life from 1917 when they left for Tbilisi, Georgia, to escape the upheavals of the Russian Revolution, cholera and famine. Then they had to flee Georgia, following its annexation by the Soviet Union in 1921, for Paris where Alexander remained throughout the second world war before finally settling in the USA in 1948.
 
His corpus of work embraces all manner of genres including opera, ballet, orchestral, chamber, solo works, choral, band, music for films and the theatre and even compositions for accordion and harmonica, among others. Though I’ve yet to hear much of it I’ve always been particularly struck by his piano music which I’ve found original and exciting ever since I first heard it on a old vinyl disc. He’s another of those pianist composers from the early twentieth century who became masters of the piano miniature.
 
The disc opens with his 10 Bagatelles, op.5 from 1918, distilled from a much larger number of pieces begun when he was a mere 13 year old, and one of his best known compositions. It comes as no surprise to learn that fact as they are highly inventive and hugely satisfying works possessing a crystalline brilliance accompanied by a propulsive momentum that drives the music forward in a way that becomes almost addictive. They are pieces that stay in the memory for, though I never heard that old disc often and not for many years, I recognised the first two bagatelles as plainly as if I’d only listened to them last week. Years after he had written them Tcherepnin was embarrassed by their success regarding them as juvenile, though he relented later accepting their spontaneity. Artists can sometimes be too self-critical, finding it difficult to accept flashes of genius at an early age. These are certainly examples of that and while you listen just remind yourself that these were composed almost one hundred years ago - unbelievable!
 
Self criticism takes various forms and often includes destruction of works considered unworthy of publication - thank God that didn’t happen with the bagatelles! - and with Tcherepnin that was the fate of the first twelve of his 13 piano sonatas, written in his early teens. The fourteenth, later renumbered as his piano sonata no.1, is the sole survivor and listening to it you can only imagine what has been lost, with regret. It’s a wonderful piece that is rhythmically inventive and exciting and which reveals a creative talent that is simply mind-boggling for someone so young. The booklet’s authors find some similarities with Prokofiev’s earlier Toccata and describe it as “This distinctly Russian-sounding piece ...” I agree with this but also see parallels in Tcherepnin’s compositions with Medtner and aspects of Scriabin, Weinberg and even Shostakovich. With piano compositions of that era from that part of the world there seems to have been an inherent and instinctive prism through which these composers naturally viewed things musical.
 
The 9 Inventions, op.13 (1921) that appear on this disc as a world première recording are further proof of Tcherepnin’s compositional abilities. They are, like the bagatelles, short, brilliantly scored little gems. The booklet’s authors write that “... it is hard for the listener to escape the self-consciousness of the new compositional technique”. I obviously missed out on that and it makes me realise that sometimes it’s better not to be an expert so that I can enjoy things more easily.
 
Tcherepnin’s Sonata no.2, op.94 (1961) has an autobiographical aspect. It gives expression to a frightening episode in which Tcherepnin experienced a strange ringing in his ears. This persisted over two years but eventually disappeared of its own accord. I was not able to discern this in the music but enjoyed it for its own sake as yet more marvellous writing for the piano. Again it serves to emphasise his youthful abilities as this mature work did not leave the early works ‘in the cold’ by any means.
 
The final work on the disc is 10 Études, op.18 (1920) and another world première recording. As I listened to the opening of the first I thought of Chopin. I was interested to read that the booklet noted similarities with Chopin too but also with Prokofiev while others brought Rachmaninov to mind and again Chopin and Prokofiev. Which composer doesn’t draw on influences from others however. Those who make every conscious effort to plough a unique furrow often produce sterile works. These etudes are absolutely fabulous little masterpieces (no.8 lasts a mere 35 seconds!) and they round off the disc in a truly emphatic way. When you realise that these works, while they bear the date of publication of 1920, were in fact written when Tcherepnin was a young teenager you just have to marvel. Music seems to be an art-form that very young people seem able to master at an earlier age than just about any other. It would be staggering to come upon a novel or a painting, sculpture or a play created by anyone as young. On the rare occasions when it does happen we find it just that. In music it happens much more often. I thought of this only yesterday when I heard the string sextet written by the 11 year old Max Bruch.
 
This disc is a simply brilliant introduction to anyone who hasn’t come across Tcherepnin before and who loves 20 ^th century piano music. The works are played superbly by Giorgio Koukl who has already recorded all of Martin?’s piano works to great acclaim. A wonderful disc altogether!
 
-- Steve Arloff, MusicWeb International 

Classical Music

The four works in this second of three volumes devoted to Enescu's piano music range over a period of more than 30 years. The earliest is the joyful, ebullient Suite "Des cloches sonores", Op. 10 which covers a wide expressive range including use of the melancholy Romanian song, the doina. The Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 24 is a mercurial, puckish works, both spiritred and contemplative, and the Piece sure le nom de Faure is a charming souvenir from one composer to another.

These selections were originally recorded on the Duo-Art Reproducing Piano between 1916 and 1926.

When Mozart died, he was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave. Had he lived, he might well have regained the commercial success and public acclaim he enjoyed in the early 1780s, for no sooner had he passed, his fame rose like a meteor. In the 19th century, Mozart's popularity eclipsed that of nearly all other 18th-century composers. This recording is about the perception of Mozart after his death. The transcriptions and free fantasies that Petronel Malan has selected trace Mozart reincarnated - transfigured - through the ears, technique, and compositional gifts of seven composers. Chronologically, they range from Hummel, a Mozart pupil, to Friedman, a 20th-century keyboard virtuoso who survived World War II. Stylistically the range is equally wide.

Petronel Malan - South African pianist Petronel Malan now makes her home in the United States. Her debut recording with hänssler classic, "Transfigured Bach: The Complete Bach Transcriptions of Bartok, Lipatti and Friedman," was nominated for three Grammy® awards, including "Best Instrumental Solo Album 2004." This album is her second recording in a series with hänssler Classic. As a Blüthner Artist, Ms. Malan uses Blüthner pianos exclusively for her recordings.

The works in this programme demonstrate Philip Glass' perpetual goal of connecting with his audience. Taking shape as something like a hidden sonata form, Mad Rush contrasts peaceful atmosphere with tempestuousness and mesmerising beauty. The last of it's kind in Glass' oeuvre, 600 Lines, here receiving it's premiere recording on solo piano, is an obsessive and hypnotically restless toccata that represents the zenith of his experiences while working with Ravi Shankar. These two monumental works are joined by premiere recordings of the subtly transformed Metamorphosis Two, and Glass' transcription of Paul Simon's The Sound of Silence.

The program included in this album spans almost twenty years of composer Erwin Schulhoff’s career. Tracks included are Suite dansante en Jazz (1931), 9 Kleine Reigen (1913), Ostinato (1925), 5 Etudes de Jazz (1926), and Zez Confrey's Kitten on the Keys (1921). The influence of jazz, ragtime, Expressionism, and Dada are clearly heard in these works, some of which are rarely recorded. Caroline Weichert breathes new life into this music. Booklet notes are available in English and German.

Bavarian-born Adolf von Henselt was one of a galaxy of star pianist-composers of a similar age that included Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Thalberg. A student o Hummel, Henselt developed a breathtaking, idiosyncratic virtuoso technique but stage fright drew him away from performance an more towards composition and then teaching. Sergio Gallo, a steinway artist, specializes in the repertoire of the Romantic period, especially Liszt and his contemporaries, including Schumann, Henselt, Brahms and Chopin. Gallo has made several acclaimed recordings for Eroica and a recent release with Naxos of Liszt's transcriptions of opera by Meyerbeer, which was critically acclaimed by BBC Magazine: "Gallo makes a goo case for Liszt's honoring of the operatic originals."

Josef Hofmann was a prodigy and a polymath. Fascinated by technology he made experimental cylinder recordings as early as 1887, and undertook an American tour at the age of eleven. One of the very greatest pianists of the Golden Age, his recorded legacy is priceless, but like many musicians of his generation he also composed. He wrote a symphony, five piano concertos, and a considerable amount of distinctive and enjoyable solo piano music in the Romantic tradition, including a richly contrasted set of Charakterskizzen, Op. 40, a Sonata in F major, Op. 21 that reveals the influence of Schumann, and a finely wrought Theme and Variations and Fugue, Op. 14. Artem Yasynskyy won the Hofmann Prize at the First German Piano Competition of Polish Music in Hamburg in 2013.

MOZART Allegro in g, K 312. Andante and 5 Variations, K 501. 1 Minuetto in D, K 355. Marche funèbre, K 453a. Andantino, K 236. Klavierstücke in F, K 33b. Adagio for Glass Harmonica, K 356. La‚t uns mit geschlungen Händen, K 623. Rondo in F, K 494. Theme and 2 Variations in A, K 460. Fantasia in d, K 397 (2 versions). Sonata in D, K 381 1 • Christopher Hogwood (clvd); Derek Adlam (clvd) 1 • DEUTSCHE HARMONIA MUNDI 82876 832882 (73:46)


Mozart played on the clavichord? What at first may seem an odd concept has ample documentary evidence to support it. As anyone who has been to the Geburtshaus in Salzburg will probably recall, Mozart himself owned a clavichord that he used as a compositional tool for his last major works, according to his widow Constanze’s testimony. And as Christopher Hogwood reminds us in his notes, Mozart makes frequent reference to the instrument in general in his correspondence. As Bach, and Handel before him, then, it seems extremely likely that Mozart used this quietly intimate instrument in domestic music-making.


Hogwood’s recital is played on three instruments, including Mozart’s own, an unfretted instrument of unknown provenance conforming to the simple construction methods of late 18th-century German clavichords. It is the brightest and clearest of the three, with an attractive bell-like sonority in the upper register that makes it highly suitable for the late Adagio for Glass Harmonica, and a “buzzy” quality in bass, as heard in the final passage of the F-Major Rondo, the final movement of the composite Sonata, K 533/K 494. The oldest instrument, used for the first three works in the heading, is an unfretted clavichord by the Hamburg maker Johann Albrecht Hass, signed and dated 1761. The sound (at least as recorded) is to my mind rather on the “tubby” side, with a veiled quality that works particularly well in the chromatic intensity of the Minuetto in D.


Finally, Hogwood plays four works on an unfretted instrument by the Bavarian builder Johann David Schiedmayer. Interestingly, this late example (1791) is the one that approaches most closely the sound of a fortepiano, although I’m not sufficient of an expert on the subject to know if this was a conscious aim of later makers. Among the works played on it are both versions of the familiar Fantasia in D Minor, one of Mozart’s most unsettling keyboard works. The original breaks off on a dominant cadence, while there is another with a 10-bar completion by another hand, possibly August Müller. Hogwood plausibly suggests that the incomplete version was intended as the introduction to a work in D Major (he is not, as he implies, the first to do so; Alfred Einstein advanced the same theory 60 years ago), and consequently uses it as a lead-in to the Sonata in D, K 381, a not altogether convincing solution since the latter is for four hands. The sonata, much the most substantial work on the disc, is given a high-spirited performance by Hogwood and Derek Adlam, who achieve excellent ensemble (listen to the unanimity of the detached eighth-notes at the start of the second half of the opening Allegro), while making much of the concerto-like texture of the finale.


In general, Hogwood’s performances are as accomplished as would be expected from such a seasoned performer. Tempos are sensible, with andantes and allegrettos kept moving purposefully, while fingerwork is clean and well articulated. Ornaments are added where appropriate. Occasionally, I felt the touch was a little heavy and that rhythms were rather unyielding. A little more flexibility and expressivity would not have come amiss, but the recital is nonetheless highly rewarding both as to repertoire and as the rare opportunity to hear what Mozart sounds like on the clavichord. The CD is the third in a series devoted to the clavichord and entitled “The secret . . .”, previous issues having been devoted to Bach and Handel (both on Metronome). To come are “The secret Haydn,” and “The secret Beethoven.”


FANFARE: Brian Robins

Chopin: Works for Piano

Glenn Gould's 1964 recording of the Bach Two- and Three-Part Inventions needs little introduction to collectors, for the simple reason that Sony has reissued it umpteen times on CD. However, this latest incarnation via the label's newly reconstituted Great Performances series yields its fullest-sounding transfer yet. As a result, the piano's infamous middle-register "hiccup" effect that Gould charmingly describes in the booklet note is more pronounced, along with background rumble (the subway?) masked in previous editions.

But what's most important is that Gould divines more character and meaning from the Inventions than many pianists who've looked upon these works as little more than teaching pieces. I especially like how Gould creates a unifying arc by juxtaposing each two-part invention with its three-part counterpart in the same key, sometimes dovetailing non-stop from one piece to the next.

In addition to the aforementioned sonic improvement, Sony includes three unedited takes for the F major, B minor, and F minor Sinfonias that stem from the 1955 Goldberg Variations sessions. Although Gould rejected the recordings, they nevertheless came out on Sony's 2005 deluxe "Birth of a Legend" Goldbergs reissue. Three complete performances of these pieces from the same sessions appear here for the first time. If you've heard Gould's 1955 CBC broadcast of all 15 Sinfonias (CBC PSCD 2005), you'll know to expect more spontaneous and pianistically oriented interpretations than the relatively astringent 1964 remakes. For example, the B minor proves friskier and lighter in touch than the later version, while conversely, the F minor is a little broader, with more melodic inflection and discreet yet ravishing dabs of sustain pedal. God only knows what bells and whistles Sony's next Gould Bach Inventions re-re-re-re-issue may bring. Until then, the present release is the one to get.

– Jed DIstler, ClassicsToday.com

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) remaster.