Rarieties of Piano Music at “Schloss vor Husum” from the 2021 Festival

Review: FonoForum Review: MusicWebInternational Reynaldo Hahn: Le ruban dénoué for two pianos 1. No. 1 Décrets indolents du hasard 2. No. 3 Souvenir … avenir Alexander Tsfasman: Jazz-Suite for two pianos 3. No. 3 Lyrical Waltz 4. No. 4 Career. Presto Cécile Chaminade: 6 Romances sans paroles, Op. 76 5. No. 6 Méditation 6. No. 2 Élévation Josef Holbrooke: 8 Nocturnes, Op. 121 7. No. 5 “Bridal Ballad” (E.A.Poe) Percy Sherwood 8. Barcarole No. 2, Op. 24 (1915) Josef Suk: Things Lived and Dreamt, Op. 30 9. No. 6 Moderato quasi Allegretto 10. No. 9 Poco Andante Franz Schubert 11. Mélodie hongroise in B minor, D817 Franz Liszt 12. Valse oubliée No. 2 Sergei Rachmaninov 13. Prélude in F Major 14. Morceau de fantaisie in G minor 15. Oriental Sketch Issay Dobrowen 16. Jugend-Sonate, Op. 5b Rued Langgaard: Gitanjali-Hymner (after Tagore), BVN 149 17. VIII. Tavshedens Hav (The Sea of Silence), BVN 201 Husum & Covid © It is now 35 years since the inaugural concert of the festival “Rarities of Piano Music“, held in the North German castle of „Schloss vor Husum“. Every year since then, Danacord has released an album of selected highlights from the previous year’s event. The unique nature of the festival is documented in a book, Beyond the Mainstream (published in 2011), which explains about the raison d’être of Rarities of Piano Music and the (always difficult!) programming decisions facing its team of organisers, led by the artistic director Peter Froundjian. There are many collectors and pianophiles worldwide who have unfailingly slotted each new Husum CD into their collection. For them, this collection of highlights from the 2021 festival will make only partial amends for the absence of a 2020 album: a permanent state of affairs, owing to the inevitable cancellation of the festival in the midst of the pandemic. A three-day mini-festival was at one stage planned for May 2021, in the style of Alkan’s ‘Six Petits concerts’, but the idea proved unworkable. And so, nothing daunted, Froundjian and his team refused to throw away the hard work of their planning for 2020, and simply reprogrammed the events for the following year, with the grateful co-operation of all the artists concerned. Practical obstacles still had to be overcome while Covid-19 continued to wreak havoc on everyday life. Concerts took place as usual in the Rittersaal (‘Knights’ Hall) of the castle (originally built outside Husum, but now surrounded by the bustle of this seaside town on the North Sea). The audience capacity was reduced by half to meet legal regulations on social distancing. Thus, in order to satisfy the same number of piano-enthusiasts who steadfastly returned to the festival, the pianists were required to perform their programmes twice: in the late afternoon, and again in the early evening, thereby playing for the same size of audience that Husum has hosted for the past 33 years. RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 2022 CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 939 EAN: 5709499939000 Download BOOKLET (PDF) Related