Rarities of Piano Music at the Schloss vor Husum 2023, Vol. 37

Review: MusicWebInternational Review: MusicWebInternational Review: InternationalPiano Spring 2025 William Sterndale Bennett Three Pieces Op. 28 (1848-1849) 1. Introduzione e Pastorale 2. Rondino 3. Capriccio Franz Liszt 4. Großes Konzertsolo Sophie Menter 5. Romance Op. 5 (1907) Juliette Dillon 10 Contes fantastique de Hoffmann (1847) 6. Le violon de Crémone Sergei Rachmaninov / Alfonso Soldano 7. Night is sorrowful Op. 26 No. 12 Sergei Bortkiewicz 8. Nocturne Op. 24, No. 1 (Diana) Alexander von Zemlinsky Fantasien über Gedichte von Richard Dehmel Op. 9 (1898-1900) 9. Stimme des Abends 10. Waldseligkeit 11. Liebe 12. Käferlied Edvard Grieg Lyric Pieces, Book 7 13. Bächlein Op. 62 No. 4 Frédéric Chopin / Leopold Godowsky Studies on Chopin’s Etudes 14. No. 4 on Op. 10 No. 2 (Ignis fatuus) 15. No. 6 on Op. 10 No. 6 (for the left hand) Leopold Godowsky 16. Meditation (1930) Christoph Willibald Gluck / Alexander Siloti 17. Melody from ‘Orfeo ed Euridice Husum CD 2023 © A wise man once said, if you don’t have a success model, look around at what everyone else is doing and do the opposite. When Peter Froundjian planned the first solo piano evening of his new festival in 1987, he did not have Beethoven or Schubert in mind, but rather Godowsky and Alkan. It was not Alfred Brendel or Sir András Schiff on the billboard, but young up-and-coming pianists like Marc-André Hamelin and Stephen Hough. No grand concert hall in Amsterdam or London, but a castle on the North German coast, in the town of Husum. In fact, ‘Rarities of Piano Music’ was as far removed from a standard piano recital as could be imagined. It was only going to go one of two ways: ‘belly up‘, or a jubilant success. We can indeed learn a good deal from paying attention to those who came before us, but we can’t guarantee success by imitating them. A person’s inner life can never be documented. This may account for why nobody has copied Froundjian. If you believe in the Asian model of production – making replicas of everything from electronics and cars to whisky – why is there no Rarities of Piano Music Festival in Shanghai or Tokyo? Or anywhere else, for that matter. The concept looks simple enough, but Froundjian has refined the execution to an art-form: digging out the right (but novel) repertoire, matching pianists to little-known pieces and composers, is far from easy. In this respect, the annual album of highlights from the previous year’s concerts continues to prove that Froundjian is in a class of his own. RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 2024 CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 979 EAN: 5709499979006 Download BOOKLET (PDF)   Related