Rarities of Piano Music at the Schloss vor Husum, Vol. 33

Georges Bizet 1. Grande valse de concert Theodore W. Adorno 2. Adagietto – Hommage à Bizet Kotaro Fukuma 3. Mazurka op.21 No.2 Chopin/Karol A. Penson 4. Leaves are falling Donizetti/Thalberg 5. Fantaisie sur l’opéra “Lucrezia Borgia” Franz Liszt 6. Ave Maria (Chanson d’Arcadelt) Anton Arensky 6 Essais sur des rythmes oubliés, op.28 7. No.1: Logaèdes 8. No.4: Säri (mètre des chanson persanes) R. Strauss/Walter Gieseking 9. Heimkehr (transc. 1923) Balys Dvarionas 10. In the Ice-Skating Rink (Winter Sketches) Benjamin Godard 11. Mazurka No.2 op.54 Giulio Ricordi 12. Romance poudrée William Seymer From Sommarcroquiser (Summer Sketches) op.11 13. No.3 Solöga (Sun-eye) – Portrait of a girl Gustave Samazeuilh 14. Nocturne Anatoly Alexandrov Sonata No.4 op.19 15. 3rd movement: Invocando un poco sostenuto Richard Danielpour 16. Bagatelle No.3 17. There’s a ghost in my room! J.S. Bach/Max Reger 18. Ich ruf’ zu Dir BWV 639 HUSUM CD 2019 By Peter Grove The musical world is having a difficult year, and in common with so many events, Husum has been forced to postpone the 2020 festival. It is to be hoped that the situation will improve over the next few months and the Rarities week will return stronger than ever next year. For the moment, this selective record of the 2019 festival must act as a taster for the fascinating repertoire which is heard there. One event did take place in 2020 which reunited some lucky patrons and introduced the general public to the Husum philosophy. In early February, Marc-André Hamelin gave a recital in the small hall of the magnificent Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. His performance of a wide-ranging selection of less well known works created a sensation among public and critics alike. He is truly an ambassador for the festival and it was an evening to be treasured for a long time. In 2019, as in previous years, a preliminary evening featuring promising students was held, and three of these can be heard on this disc. We begin, however, with the Japanese pianist Kotaro Fukuma, who was one of the “Young Explorers” that week. He already has an impressive discography including Albéniz’s “Ibéria” and a French album. From the latter we heard Alexis Weissenberg’s arrangements of songs by Charles Trenet, played with the same flair as Hamelin’s performance a few years ago. Georges Bizet was a brilliant pianist, but he composed relatively little piano music and that is rarely heard, apart from the 4-hand Jeux d’enfants. Even that is better known in the orchestral arrangement of a selected number of pieces. His Chants du Rhin have been heard in an early Husum festival, and we now hear his Grande Valse de concert. It is a virtuoso piece which is very much in the tradition of Chopin’s models and receives the performance here which it deserves. Theodor Adorno was known more as a writer on music and philosopher than as a composer. He did study musicology as well as sociology and philosophy and became acquainted with composers including Schoenberg and Webern. Born in Frankfurt, he studied composition with Berg in Vienna as well as piano with Edward Steuermann. He later moved to America and his writings included subjects as diverse as jazz and film music. His 1949 book, Philosophie der neuen Musik, was particularly influential on the avant-garde composers of the Darmstadt school. His small body of compositions includes this short tribute to Bizet. Cyprien Katsaris presented a comprehensive programme in two parts. The second was devoted to music by the Polish composer Stanislav Moniuszko, as a tribute to the 200th anniversary of his birth. First came a selection of pieces by students of Chopin. Julian Fontana studied law and music in Warsaw, where he became a friend of Chopin. After the 1831 uprising he emigrated to Hamburg and then Paris, teaching the piano and giving concerts. They included one in London with several other pianists including Moscheles, Cramer and Alkan. Chopin dedicated his two op.40 Polonaises to him. From 1841 to 1852 he lived in New York and Havana, and was the first to play Chopin’s music in Cuba. Gottschalk, the American composer who incorporated the Latin-American style into his music, dedicated two pieces to him. After Chopin’s death, Fontana published several of his works op.66-73, and later his Polish songs as op.74. His career was halted because of deafness and it is thought that he took his own life by inhaling carbon monoxide. His most important compositions are for piano, and this Mazurka follows the tradition of Chopin’s pieces. RELEASE DATE: August 2020 CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 849 EAN: 5709499849002 Download BOOKLET (PDF) Related