Rediscovering significant piano music of the past

We live in an age of mysteries. The omnipresence of today’s recordings of classical music, many of which are of little-known repertoire, might lead us to believe that there is little left of the past to discover. Yet we have only to move back in time by a little over a hundred years to find the ghosts of a forgotten Romanticism waiting to be reanimated and to present to us an aesthetic very different from that of our own age. This was the era when the piano was at the centre of musical life; at the heart of the home and at the crux of the conception of the Romantic as artist.

Romantic Discoveries Recordings seeks to present innovative world première recordings informed by extensive research into the performance history of the Romantic era, and recorded in a natural ambience evoking the acoustic of the Romantic salon. These are not intended to be audiophile releases; rather, interpretatively faithful performances that aim at an honest, direct and sympathetic portrayal of music that is being introduced to the listener for the first time.

“His catalogue represents a huge contribution to the recorded repertoire of piano music by romantic unsungs…I have several of these CDs now and I must pay tribute not only to Kersey’s advocacy but also to his pianism. He has a fine technique but isn’t showy and he lets the music speak for itself. There’s something very appealing about this self-effacing, honest approach.”
Mark Thomas, The Joachim Raff Society

“A great feast for the Beethoven connoisseur” (of CD19)
James Green, author, The New Hess Catalog of Beethoven’s Works

“A true and nowadays unique artist, a pianist who has discovered a quantity of really unsung and memorable piano music…In my view, it is at the moment the most remarkable serial of unsung piano music of a high level, so not “lovely pieces” from days gone by, but the ambitious search for original and lasting works.”
Dr. Klaus Tischendorf, Burgmueller.com

Audio samples

The majority of our CDs have short audio samples available as Mp3 files, enabling you to download a track and listen before deciding whether to purchase. To listen to the tracks, you will need an Mp3 player. Many computers already have a media player installed; Windows Media Player is one of the most widely distributed. If you do not already have a media player, you can download the free FLV player available here.

Restrictions

For copyright reasons and because of import regulations/restrictions, all Romantic Discoveries Recordings titles are not available to purchase in the United States, and some may not be available to purchase in Australia or Singapore.

J.P.E. Hartmann: Piano Works

Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann (1805-1900): Piano Works
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD76

Audio sample: Allegro assai, op 31 no 6

Price: £13.99. Click the button below to purchase this CD securely online.

Total time: 71 minutes 57 seconds

Fantasy Pieces, op 54
1. Allegro poco moderato, pastorale (2’20”) 2. Allegretto capriccioso (2’51”) 3. Allegretto moderato – Canto marziale religioso (2’51”) 4. Allegro molto assai (2’00”) 5. Tempo di Menuetto moderato, con espressione (6’40”) 6. Andantino innocente quasi Allegretto (3’21”)

6 Tone Pieces in Song Form, op 37
7. Allegro agitato grazioso (5’56”) 8. Moderato (4’36”) 9. Allegro assai (3’05”) 10. Allegro moderato vigoroso (2’28”) 11. Allegretto quasi Andantino (3’01”) 12. Vekselsang (1’55”)

13. Bellmanske Billeder: Menuetter (7’46”)

8 Sketches, op 31
14. Allegro non troppo, grazioso (4’08”) 15. Canzonetta (1’39”) 16. Mazurka (1’56”) 17. Scherzo (2’15”) 18. Scherzo (4’04”) 19. Allegro assai (2’09”) 20. Introduction-Allegretto mouvement de valse (3’53”) 21. Allegro passionato assai (2’47”)

Our thanks to Dr Denis Waelbroeck for supplying scores of these rare works.

Notes on the music:
Johann Peter Emilius Hartmann succeeded his father at the Garnisons Kirke in 1824, and thereafter was successively professor at Copenhagen University and the founding director of the Conservatoire there from 1867. His studies in Europe in 1836 brought him into contact with Chopin, Rossini, Cherubini and Spohr. In musical style he successfully fused elements of Nordic nationalism with a post-Mendelssohnian style that at its most progressive clearly looks forward to Brahms. The quality of Hartmann’s inspiration and mastery of compositional and pianistic technique was considerable, and marks him out as the leading Danish composer for the piano of his generation.

This disc reflects Hartmann’s devotion to that most nineteenth-century of piano forms, the set of contrasting miniatures. For Hartmann, as for his predecessors (notably Beethoven), the miniature offers the opportunity to capture a brief mood or atmosphere without the concerns of formal development or the complex extension of structure; indeed where structure is extended, it is by simple episodic means. This distillation of musical inspiration to its essentials enables a rare intensity of experience; at their best, such pieces have the impact of the shorter forms of poetry, reflecting a more improvisatory and free-spirited art than can necessarily be present in the sonata or variations.

There is often much of Mendelssohn to be detected in Hartmann’s music, but with an individual and at times authentically Danish voice (see for example the Vekselsang that concludes op 37). This national feeling perhaps imparts a certain seriousness to his output by comparison with his contemporaries, and if not using actual folksong in his works here, he certainly often takes his inspiration from its contours and characteristic modulations.

The Fantasy Pieces op 54 are dedicated to Clara Schumann, who one feels would have readily appreciated their adventurous and intimate world. Particularly notable is the rhythmic displacement that appears in the second piece, which is both clever and effective. The fifth of the set is a dark Menuetto in A minor which at times bridges the gap with the waltz. Hartmann’s interest in the minuet, often considered antiquated by his contemporaries, can also be seen in the Bellmanske Billeder, an unusual set of two linked minuets with a virtuoso introduction, published without an opus number.

The title “Tone Pieces in Song Form” given to the set op 37 is surely a conscious reminiscence of Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words” of which the first piece could very easily be a continuation given its typical Mendelssohnian texture and melodic appeal. The set features a dramatic “hunting scene” as its third piece, and in its successor turns to a very Schumannesque narrative idea, answered in the last bars by a bluff “Chorus”. The ensuing Allegretto quasi Andantino flows amid complex double-note figuration, reminding us of Hartmann’s abilities in counterpoint.

The Eight Sketches op 31 date from 1842, by which time Hartmann was firmly established at the forefront of the Danish musical scene. They are notable for their pair of contrasting Scherzos that juxtapose enthusiasm and calmer polyphony. Older forms are suggested with the gigue-like movement that forms the sixth piece before the set concludes with a waltz and a fast-moving caprice in the minor.

Bendix: Piano Sonata, Chopin: Nocturne oubliee

Victor Bendix (1851-1926): Piano Sonata. Frederic Chopin (1810-49): Nocturne oubliée
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD75

Audio sample: Chopin: Nocturne oubliée (excerpt)

Price: £13.99. Click the button below to purchase this CD securely online.

Total time: 64 minutes 53 seconds

Victor Bendix (1851-1926)
Piano Sonata in G minor op. 26 (1900)
1. Allegro moderato (19’25”) 2. Intermezzo scherzando: Allegretto un poco vivo (5’10”) 3. Andante con variazioni (20’56”) 4. Allegro con fuoco, ma non troppo vivo (12’10”)

Frederic Chopin (1810-49)
5. Nocturne oubliée in C sharp minor, A.1/6 (7’08”)

Our thanks to Peter Cook for supplying scores of these rare works.

Notes on the music:
Victor Emmanuel Bendix was born to a Jewish family of music-lovers in Copenhagen in 1851. He was one of the first to study at the Royal Danish Conservatoire in Copenhagen and developed his style under the tutelage of Niels Gade, August Winding and J.P.E. Hartmann. A virtuoso pianist with a long and active career, he studied piano with Liszt in Weimar in 1881. In the last years of the nineteenth-century he toured Europe playing his piano concerto (1884), which his wife Dagmar performed in London.

Bendix belongs to the late Romantic school that stands between Brahms and Nielsen, and even to some extent Sibelius. He is concerned with the evocation of mood and atmosphere but within a formal structure that takes precedence. At times his music is rhetorical and rhapsodic; at others he presents epic drama and music of deep emotion (such as in the slow movement of his Sonata). Although well-regarded in his day (a street in Copenhagen is named after him today), Bendix’ demanding and complex works fell out of fashion in his later years and his major output, such as the four symphonies, is only just beginning to be revived.

The single piano sonata in Bendix’s output is a giant of the repertoire. The performance on this recording occupies nearly fifty-eight minutes, and it would be quite possible to imagine another interpretation that would take a broader view of some passages. However, Bendix manages this extended structure well, creating ample contrast, interest and thematic continuity. It is difficult, indeed, to imagine a work more typical of the piano sonata in the last years of Romanticism, with an enduring sense of fantasy reflected in mature musical language of great power.

The epic sweep of the first movement is indicative of Bendix’s ambitions for the work. The surging first theme is bardic and suggests a grand orchestral texture; its chordal counterpart balances not only its character but also acts as a foil to its chromaticism. The presentation is in some respects reminiscent of Chopin’s op 58 sonata, in which the structure unfolds seamlessly and gradually rather than with obvious divisions and landmarks. This long exposition is performed here with the optional repeat, before giving way to the unsettled and extensive development, which resembles an exotic and enchanted forest in its ability to create strange beauties from material that is by now familiar. Throughout, the use of chordal and octave writing maximises the expressive potential of the piano.

The second movement is seemingly lighter in tone; a gruff, rustic Intermezzo rather like a proto-Mahlerian Ländler. The humour is always somewhat on edge here, and even the comic bass section in the trio leads to chromatic filigrees that recall the uncertain atmosphere of earlier moments.

The slow movement is perhaps the emotive heart of the work, consisting of an extensive transformation of a folk-like theme in the dominant. Variations of an active, martial and scherzando character give way to an eerie, suspended Adagio. This begins a long transition to the glowing presentation of the theme in the major, though the coda reverts any sense of triumph or resolution to end disconsolately.

The finale again inhabits the sphere of action, and represents a pageant of contrasting ideas that are often reached by complex dramatic transitions. The music develops great virtuosic power and tests the performer in many strenuous passages of double-notes. Towards the end the second theme of the first movement returns accompanied by triumphant figurations; this is indicative of the increasingly confident and positive mood that dominates the coda as the sonata ends with a fanfare of massive chords.

The Nocturne oubliée is a good example of the many manuscripts discovered after Chopin’s death and (here) brought to light in the former Soviet Union; most such pieces are brief and insubstantial, but here we have a complete Nocturne that – for all that some have suggested that it is not authentic – certainly to this interpreter’s ear has many of the unmistakeable characteristics of Chopin’s early style, suggesting that it is either Chopin’s own work or that of a remarkably slavish imitator. Certain figurations are of a type that Chopin would later work out more pianistically, and we can also imagine that a certain amount of ornamentation would distinguish the otherwise-literal recapitulation. For all that it has its shortcomings, this is nevertheless an intriguing glimpse into Chopin’s compositional processes.

Piano Sonatas of Eduard Franck (1817-93)

Piano Sonatas of Eduard Franck (1817-93)
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD74

Audio sample: Sonata in F major, op 40 no 5: finale (excerpt)

Price: £13.99. Click the button below to purchase this CD securely online.

Total time: 69 minutes 21 seconds

Piano Sonata in E flat major, op 40 no 4
1. Allegro con brio (11’01”) 2. Adagio (10’59”) 3. Allegro vivace (7’02”)

Piano Sonata in F major, op 40 no 5
4. Allegro (8’38”) 5. Andante con moto (5’12”) 6. Presto (4’01”)

Piano Sonata in E minor, op 44 no 2
7. Allegro (10’10”) 8. Scherzo (4’18”) 9. Andante (7’54”)

Our thanks to Dr Andreas Feuchte for supplying scores of these rare works.

Notes on the music:
Eduard Franck was born in Silesia into a wealthy and cultured family that numbered Mendelssohn and Wagner among its acquaintances. He studied with Mendelssohn as a private student and then began a long career as a concert pianist and teacher. He was regarded as one of the leading pianists of his day and also as an outstanding teacher.

Franck was not forthcoming about his compositions, and failed to publish many of them until late in life. He was a perfectionist and would not release a work until he was absolutely satisfied that it met his standards. Yet what survives is extremely high in quality. Writing of his chamber music, Wilhelm Altmann said, “This excellent composer does not deserve the neglect with which he has been treated. He had a mastery of form and a lively imagination which is clearly reflected in the fine and attractive ideas one finds in his works.”

The three Piano Sonatas on this disc demonstrate Franck’s varied approach to the genre. The E flat major sonata is outgoing and virtuosic, recalling both Beethoven and Haydn and the triumphant associations of the E flat major tonality. The opening movements have elements of Mendelssohn’s virtuoso piano style but are generally more emotionally charged, with an effective contrast between the first and second subjects in both movements. Indeed, this attention to formal contrast and finely-worked transition passages is entirely characteristic of Franck’s writing.

The elaborate slow movement is an extremely fine example of Franck’s mastery of extended structure. Indeed, the heart of the argument of Franck’s sonatas is frequently to be found in their slow movements, which show a level of inspiration, extension and variety within an essentially episodic format that stands with the finest of Early Romantic models. Mendelssohn is an obvious melodic reference, but Franck goes further in his exploitation of subtle and daring harmonic shifts – a device that was to become something of a trademark.

Where the E flat major sonata is predominantly music of extroversion, the canvas of the F major sonata is more intimate, recalling Beethoven’s experimental use of that key in his sonatas op 10 no 2 and op 54. Like op 54, the sonata begins with a movement with some characteristics of a minuet, though for Franck this is never more than a stylistic allusion as the work quickly develops momentum and transcends the formality of its opening motif.

The slow movement here is of the sort that Mendelssohn would have titled Venetian Gondola Song; its calm progress arrested by shifts in harmony and mood that disorient the richness of the opening material. Where the first movement had been relatively straightforward in utterance, the slow movement again for Franck is the means of introducing greater musical and emotional complexity within the sonata structure.

The Presto finale is based on a motif that could have come directly from the pen of late Haydn, and rests upon the contrast between two main groups in the major and relative minor. These develop somewhat through harmonic transformation although the mood is rarely concerned with deep matters, and a virtuosic coda ends the sonata on an exultant note.

The E minor sonata is the most ambitious of those included here. The intense opening movement is a high Romantic essay in tension and adventure, with a hymn-like second subject offering a prayerful calm in contrast. This movement shows Francks exploitation of piano technique at its most dramatic, though his “orchestral” writing is generally subtle and controlled even when expressing menace.

Such a tone-picture could only be succeeded by a lighter foil, and the scherzo that follows is playful and graceful in style, though still with an underlying anxiety and uncertainty, dispelled in part by the sustained Schubertian trio in the tonic major.

Perhaps recalling the outline of Beethoven’s op 109, Franck decides to end the sonata with a set of extended variations on a slow theme somewhat akin to that chosen by Schubert for his variations in the Sonata in A minor, D845. These begin in the unexpected key of C major and pass through a variety of textures before arriving at an elaborate and triumphant conclusion, which then dies away into nothing.

Piano Music of Alexander Ilyinsky (1859-1920)

Piano Music of Alexander Ilynsky (1859-1920)
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD73

Audio sample: Conte, op 19 no 21 (excerpt)

Price: £13.99. Click the button below to purchase this CD securely online.

Total time: 78 minutes 49 seconds

1. Three Pieces, op 30: no. 2, Nocturne (8’40”)

La journée d’une petite fille, op 19: book 4 (nos. 19-24)
2. Rêverie (4’56”) 3. La vieille bonne (5’38”) 4. Conte (5’38”) 5. Prière (5’00”) 6. Berceuse (3’02”) 7. Sommeil (3’30”)

from Six Pieces, op 17: nos. 1-4
8. Prélude (4’28”) 9. Récit interessant (2’31”) 10. Rêverie (7’40”) 11. Menuet (3’33”)

Three Pieces, op 18
12. Romance (9’04”) 13. Valse (4’24”) 14. Nocturne (10’27”)

Biographical notes (from Wikipedia)
Alexander Ilyinsky was born in Tsarskoye Selo in 1859. His father was a physician in the Alexander Cadet Corps. His general education was in the First Cadet Corps at St Petersburg, and he served in the Artillery from 1877 to 1879. His music studies were in Berlin, under Theodor Kullak and Natanael Betcher at the Berlin Conservatory, and under Woldemar Bargiel at the Neue Akademie der Tonkunst. He returned to Russia in 1885, graduated from the St Petersburg Conservatory and taught at the music school of the Philharmonic Society in Moscow. He resigned in 1899 and started giving private lessons. In 1905 he joined the staff of the Moscow Conservatory. His students included Vasily Kalinnikov, Anatoly Nikolayevich Alexandrov and Nikolai Roslavets.

His major work, the 4-act opera The Fountain of Bakhchisaray, to a libretto based on Alexander Pushkin’s poem, was produced in Moscow in 1911. He also wrote a symphony, a Concert Overture, a string quartet, three orchestral suites, a set of orchestral Croatian Dances, a symphonic movement called Psyche, two cantatas for female chorus and orchestra (Strekoza (The Dragonfly) and Rusalka), incidental music to Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Philoctetes, and to Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy’s Tsar Fiodor Ioannovich, piano pieces, church music, songs, etc. His name is perhaps most familiar to music students for his Lullaby from the third orchestral suite (sometimes described as a ballet), “Noure and Anitra”, Op. 13, which excerpt has appeared in many different arrangements.

Alexander Ilyinsky also wrote “A Short Guide to the Practical Teaching of Orchestration” (1917), which remained in use long after his death. In 1904 there appeared under his editorship “Biographies of all Composers from the Fourth to the Twentieth Century”. He edited the complete piano works of Beethoven for a commercial publication. He died in 1920 in Moscow.

Piano Sonatas of Alexander MacFadyen (1879-1936) and Eduard Franck (1817-93)

Piano Sonatas by MacFadyen and Franck
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD72

Audio sample:  MacFadyen: Scherzo (excerpt)

Price: £13.99. Click the button below to purchase this CD securely online.

Total time: 70 mins 40 secs Alexander MacFadyen (1879-1936)
1. Concert Etude, op. 26  (6’07”)

Piano Sonata, op. 21
2. Allegro energico (9’56”)
3. Romanza: Adagio con espressione (7’29”)
4. Scherzo: Allegro con brio (3’14”)
5. Finale: Allegro maestoso (9’04”)

Adolph Bergt (1822-62)
6. Introduction and Valse Sentimentale, op. 4 (8’37”)

Eduard Franck (1817-93)
Piano Sonata in F minor, op. 44 no. 1
7. Presto (7’40”)
8. Andante con moto (9’01”)
9. Allegro (9’20”)

We are grateful to Peter Cook and Dr Klaus Tischendorf for supplying copies of scores for use in this recording.

Notes on the music
Alexander MacFadyen was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and studied there under William Borchert and the theorist Julius Klauser. During his three years at the Chicago Musical College he was a pupil of Rudolph Ganz, Arthur Friedheim (who had studied with Liszt), Felix Borowski and others, winning the Marshall Field Diamond medal for graduate school work.

Making his debut with orchestra at the Chicago Auditorium with conductor Hans von Schiller in June 1905, he then concertized as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Frederick Stock and taught at the International Conservatory, New York, and the Wisconsin College of Music, Milwaukee.

MacFadyen’s compositions are mainly small-scale songs and piano works, but this Piano Sonata, a mature work dating from 1921 despite its opus number, is on the grandest of epic scales. It was performed in concert by legendary pianist Josef Hofmann. Stylistically, it shows a strong influence of MacDowell and Grieg, and an ambitious use of episodic form, with the outer movements comprising a set of interconnected sections. MacFadyen’s work must be reckoned among the more imposing of the sonatas of the American late Romantic era and its neglect is puzzling.

Eduard Franck was born in Silesia into a wealthy and cultured family that numbered Mendelssohn and Wagner among its acquaintances. He studied with Mendelssohn as a private student and then began a long career as a concert pianist and teacher. He was regarded as one of the leading pianists of his day and also as an outstanding teacher.

Franck was not forthcoming about his compositions, and failed to publish many of them until late in life. He was a perfectionist and would not release a work until he was absolutely satisfied that it met his standards. Yet what survives is extremely high in quality. Writing of his chamber music, Wilhelm Altmann said, “This excellent composer does not deserve the neglect with which he has been treated. He had a mastery of form and a lively imagination which is clearly reflected in the fine and attractive ideas one finds in his works.”

This Sonata, the first of three that form Franck’s op. 44, is a passionate and finely constructed work that is inventive throughout. The surging, declamatory first movement is succeeded by a slow movement which (perhaps recalling Beethoven’s op. 31 no. 2) features a passage in recitative style. The finale is a busy movement with the opening figuration contrasted with episodes that suggest both Schubertian and Mendelssohnian turns of phrase.

The recording of Adolph Bergt’s Introduction and Valse Sentimentale together with our earlier CD53 completes our survey of that composer’s known piano works, although there are also reports of as-yet lost character pieces that appear not to have survived in the libraries of Europe. This is a piece that, in its way, is absolutely typical of Bergt’s distinctive lyrical and episodic style. Extremely subtle in effect, the same melancholic atmosphere pervades this work as is the case in his longer cycles, suggesting that his approach was fully-formed even at this early point in his compositional development.

Piano Sonatas of Gustav Weber and Hugo Kaun

Piano Sonatas by Weber and Kaun
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD71

Audio sample:  Loeschhorn: Song without Words

Price: £13.99. Click the button below to purchase this CD securely online.

Total time: 66 mins 48 secs

Gustav Weber (1845-87)
Piano Sonata in B flat major, op. 1
1. Allegro (12’16”)
2. Scherzo: Presto (6’55”)
3. Andante espressivo (7’16”)
4. Allegro vivace (6’53”)

Hugo Kaun (1863-1932)
Piano Sonata in A major, op. 2
5. Allegro moderato (8’31”)
6. Andante espressivo (6’12”)
7. Intermezzo: Presto (2’34”)
8. Rondo: Allegretto grazioso (6’04”)

Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-88)
9. Transcription of the Chœur des Scythes from Gluck’s “Iphigenia in Tauris” (5’38”)

Albert Loeschhorn (1819-1905)
10. Song without words (2’48”)
11. Arabeske, op. 90 no. 1 (1’26”)

We are grateful to Peter Cook for supplying copies of scores for use in this recording.

Notes on the music
We know little of Gustav Weber’s life other than that his lack of posthumous recognition is likely the result of his premature death aged forty-one. Born in Switzerland, he studied at the Leipzig Conservatoire and became a professional organist and conductor as well as a composer. Much of his career was spent as a teacher of singing in the Zurich public schools, and towards the end of his life he became editor of the Zurich journal Schweizerische Musikzeitung. Of his piano trio, op 5, Liszt, who was the dedicatee, wrote in 1882 that “I consider [it] an eminent work, worthy of recommendation and performance.”

The Piano Sonata op. 1 is in the grandest of styles, and occupies a similar coming-of-age role in Weber’s output to the early sonatas of Brahms. It is clear that Weber had absorbed elements of the “orchestral” piano style, with many passages featuring massive chords and double octave figurations. His melodic material recalls previous B flat Sonata monuments such as the opp. 106 by both Beethoven, and more particularly, Mendelssohn. Throughout the four movements a high level of invention and creativity is sustained, with the return of the opening motif at the end of the finale marking a satisfying cyclical aspect to the work. This sonata could well be revived in concert to good effect.

The work of Weber and Kaun is linked by a now-forgotten fellow student at the Leipzig Conservatoire and later pupil of Tausig and Liszt, Robert Freund (1852-1936), who was to become the first piano professor of the Zurich Musikschule and championed both Weber and Kaun in recital. Perhaps his extensive capabilities were an influence on their virtuosic piano writing.

By the side of Weber’s monumental work, the early Sonata by Hugo Kaun is more obviously lyrical and inward in intent. Kaun was born in Berlin and studied piano there with Oscar Raif. Around 1886, he left Germany for the United States, where he settled in Milwaukee. Here he taught at the conservatory and conducted local choirs, but was prevented from following a career as a pianist by a hand injury. Perhaps feeling the pull of his homeland, he returned to Germany at the turn of the twentieth-century and remained there for the rest of his life. He was appointed to the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1912 and in 1922 joined the staff of the Berlin Conservatoire.

Kaun’s works span all the major genres, and generally occupy a neo-Wagnerian niche that opposed the modernism of the post-First World War years. His piano concerto was dedicated to his friend Godowsky. Some of his works, particularly those for male choir, have a nationalist quality. The Piano Sonata op. 2 is a reflective, expansive work that epitomises the confident late Romantic style with a notable debt to Beethoven in its formal structure and sensitive use of texture.

Alkan’s works are generally well represented on disc today, but his transcriptions remain neglected. This is the first recording of an unusual choice of his – the Chorus of the Scythians from Act 1 of “Iphigenia in Tauris” by Gluck. The Scythians tell of having found two young Greeks shipwrecked; they demand their blood. Alkan renders the music in his customary fashion, interpolating considerable pianistic difficulties that are not immediately obvious to the listener but are all-too apparent to the performer.

Carl Albert Loeschhorn taught at Berlin from 1851 and was appointed Royal Professor of Piano in 1858. Best-known as a teacher, he also appeared often in chamber music and composed in both longer and shorter forms for piano and chamber groups. The two works here show him at his best in two lyrical encore pieces.

Piano Sonatas of Julius Röntgen (1855-1932)

Piano Sonatas by Julius Röntgen (1855-1932)
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD70

Audio sample:  Sonata no 1 4th movt (beginning)

Price: £13.99. Click the button below to purchase this CD securely online.

Total time: 63 mins 47 secs

Sonata no. 1 in A major, op. 2
1. Allegro (9’12”)
2. Scherzo: Presto (6’53”)
3. Adagio (8’42”)
4. Vivace quasi presto (8’00”)

Sonata no. 2 in D flat major, op. 10
1. Allegretto, sempre tranquillo (10’22”)
2. Scherzo: Allegro vivace (3’52”)
3. Andante cantabile (8’09”)
4. Finale: Allegro con fuoco (8’28”)

We are grateful to Peter Cook for supplying copies of scores for use in this recording.

Notes on the music
Julius Engelbert Röntgen was the son of the first violinist in Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra and showed musical gifts from an early age, studying under Carl Reinecke. Aged fourteen, Röntgen visited Liszt in Weimar and played for him, and returning home, he was introduced to Brahms by his friend Heinrich von Herzogenberg. Piano studies continued under the aged Franz Lachner, who had known Schubert.

From 1877, Röntgen based himself in Amsterdam, where he taught at the music school and gave concerts, including a performance of Brahms’ second concerto under the composer’s baton. He was together with Coenen and de Lange founder of the Amsterdam Conservatoire in 1883, and the following year was involved in the foundation of the Concertgebouw. However, he was passed over for selection as the Concertgebouw’s first Director, and thereafter concentrated on composing and working as a collaborative pianist. Among his duo partners was the young Pablo Casals.

The First World War brought about conflict for Röntgen, since one of his sons was taken prisoner by the Germans. In 1919 he took Dutch citizenship, before retiring in 1924. This retirement in fact prompted a burst of creativity in composition, with over one hundred works (mostly chamber music and songs) produced. The last year of Röntgen’s life saw him begin to experiment with atonality, and he wrote a bitonal symphony which has yet to be published.

Röntgen’s work has  received limited attention since his death, and only parts of his compositional legacy are represented on disc today, with the solo piano music being particularly little-known. As this present issue shows, Röntgen wrote with considerable facility for the instrument and was in many respects a successor to his teacher Reinecke as well as to Brahms himself.  Röntgen’s obituary in The Times, by Donald Francis Tovey, contained the following endorsement, “Röntgen’s compositions, published and unpublished, cover the whole range of music in every art form; they all show consummate mastery in every aspect of technique. Even in the most facile there is beauty and wit. Each series of works culminates in something that has the uniqueness of a living masterpiece.”

The piano sonata was an enduring preoccupation for Röntgen and the exact number of works in that genre that he wrote cannot yet be ascertained with certainty, since a significant part of his output was completed but not published. What is certain is that from his earliest years as a composer through to his last, he was writing piano sonatas, and by the time the A major sonata recorded here was published as his op. 2 he was already fluent in his mastery of large-scale piano writing.

Beethoven, a nd in particular the sonatas op 28 and op 101, is the main influence on the opening movement of the A major sonata, and just in the later D flat example op 10, Röntgen explores material that begins in pastoral and easy-going vein only to reveal more turbulent undercurrents as the material is developed. Rather than the expected calm flow introduced by the opening, Röntgen’s unexpectedly disconnected phrases ask significant questions that will only be fully answered later in the work.

Both sonatas place the scherzo movement second, reflecting the contrast between first and slow movements of considerable import. In the A major, the material is playful, while the D flat major is more extrovert and even Busonian. The slow movement of the A major exploits the contrast between the chorale-like opening and a more agitated dotted figure that recurs periodically as an episode. The D flat major begins with a determined processional which is contrasted with more lyrical polyphonic material leading to a dramatic chordal peroration.

The finale of the A major has a gigue-like quality rather in keeping with the pastoral mood of the opening. Pianistic leaping figures are notable and in places the writing assumes orchestral dimensions. The finale of the D flat sonata, by contrast, has something of a Grieg-like quality in its rustic, uncompromising refrain, though the development into elaborate polyphony suggests no-one so much as Brahms, though the demands upon the performer (confronted with streams of double-notes and wide-ranging textures that call for considerable stamina) are distinctly progressive compared with the earlier composer.

Piano works of Stefano Golinelli (1818-91)

Piano music of Stefano Golinelli (1818-91)
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD69

Audio sample:  Sonata no 5 1st movt (beginning)

Price: £13.99. Click the button below to purchase this CD securely online.

Total time: 69 mins 36 secs

1. Fantasia, op 105 (8’47”)

Sonata no. 3 in G major, op 54(b)
2. Allegro (7’15”)
3. Andante (5’24”)
4. Prestissimo (3’20”)
5. Allegro vivo (6’48”)

6. Scherzi e follie, op. 182 (4’58”)

Sonata no. 5 in E minor, op. 140
7. Andante sostenuto – Allegro agitato (8’33”)
8. Andante (6’32”)
9. Allegro (3’35”)
10. Allegrissimo (4’44”)

11. Fantasia villerecchia, op. 116 (9’25”)

We are grateful to Peter Cook for supplying copies of scores for use in this recording.

Notes on the music
Stefano Golinelli is in the process of being rediscovered as a highly significant pianist-composer of the nineteenth-century. His contemporaries were in no doubt as to his worth, with Hiller describing him as “the best pianist of his time” and Schumann praising him as an “unexpected sign of life” in Italy. The image of nineteenth-century Italy as a centre of opera should not obscure its very considerable activity as a centre of virtuoso pianism and composition for the instrument, and indeed Golinelli’s role at the forefront of both fields.

Born in Bologna, Golinelli began serious studies aged nine, according to the strict training for musicians then customary among the Bolognese, and at the age of eighteen was admitted as a signal honour to the Accademia Filharmonica in the capacity of composer; the usual examination was waived. From his mid-twenties he began a decade of concertizing as a pianist, playing not merely in the major Italian cities but also travelling to Paris and London. Meanwhile, in 1840, Rossini secured for him a position as teacher of piano at the Liceo Musicale where he was to remain until 1871. His career was thereafter divided between teaching, performing and composition, in which latter faculty he was to prove highly prolific.

We can see the same sort of range of forms in Golinelli’s compositions as in the piano works of his contemporary Liszt.  There are five large-scale sonatas, sets of variations, occasional pieces, a set of 24 preludes, etudes, albums of connected miniatures and dances of the salon forms of the day, and apart from three quartets and a few short chamber pieces, all of these works are for the piano. Almost all of these were published during Golinelli’s lifetime, as testament to his great popularity in his native land as well as abroad. Busoni was among those who became familiar with this output and regarded it favourably.

Golinelli’s style is individual and represents a development of the school of Mendelssohn, Heller and so on. He writes for the piano as a master, with a technical grasp that parallels Chopin and that exploits the instrument to the full. Even his short works tend to be technically demanding.

The Third Sonata, dedicated to Hiller, exists in two published versions, and the one here recorded is the second. Golinelli made major changes to the work between the revisions, shortening and tightening many of the transition passages and clarifying the textural writing so as to give a better effect. The slow movement was completely recomposed. Throughout, the influence of Beethoven’s Sonata op. 31 no 1 can be felt both in the melodies themselves and in their treatment, with the coda of the finale (of course also an influence on Schubert’s A major sonata D959) a particular point of contact. However, the style is very much Golinelli’s own, with some deft harmonic touches and a cogent argument throughout.

The Fifth Sonata, dating from 1858, inhabits more dramatic territory, and the opening movement’s introduction recalls Weber’s style before launching itself into a virtuosic and impassioned Allegro. The melodic material is strong and its treatment imaginative, with a notable F major episode in the development that could come from nowhere else than nineteenth-century Italy. This is followed by a slow movement whose opening calm soon develops into a more agitated demisemiquaver figure. It is the contrast and combination of these two features that makes the running for the remainder of the movement. Unusually among composers, Golinelli has a preference for placing the scherzo third in the sonata (which he also does in the Fifth) and here it is a dour little march marked “sotto voce” that meets its match in a massive fortissimo chordal motif with humorous acciaccatura garlands that takes the place of a trio (perhaps an idea influenced by Alkan’s Scherzo diabolico?). On arrival at the finale, the short introduction leads us into a complex main group in fiendish double notes that has something of the character of a tarantella.

Golinelli’s Fantasias are original works in the customary episodic form, and serve as a means for display both of compositional ingenuity and pianistic prowess. The C minor fantasia op. 105 begins in operatic fashion with its opening meditation interrupted by a distant bird-call. There follows a varied treatment of the initial theme and then a dramatic passage in massive chords and rapid figurations leading to a recitative and cantilena. More agitated material leads to the return of the main theme in grandiose style and a coda in complex arpeggiated figurations.

The Fantasia villerecchia, op. 116, is not such a striking work, but its view of the pastoral style is nevertheless attractive. Beginning with an innocent theme, it leads to a full-scale depiction of a storm worthy of Rossini’s William Tell Overture in its clever use of effect. A charming Allegretto in 6/8 time leads to the final exultant rustic dance.

The Scherzi e follie is a good example of Golinelli’s shorter works, illustrating his well-developed sense of stylistic contrast and humorous effect.

Rudolf Viole (1825-67): The Piano Sonatas vol. 3

Rudolf Viole (1825-67): The Piano Sonatas vol. 3
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD68

Audio sample:  Fugato section from the Viole Sonata op 1

Price: £13.99. Click the button below to purchase this CD securely online.

Total time: 77 mins 50 secs

Sonata no. 7 in D minor, op 26 (dedicated to L.A. Zellner):
1. Allegretto (9’53”)
2. Andantino grazioso, Allegro scherzando (7’03”)

Sonata no. 10 in F sharp minor, op. 29 (without dedication):
3. Allegretto (10’00”)
4. Andantino (4’01”)
5. Allegro agitato molto (5’48”)

6. Sonata no. 11 in E flat major, op. 27 (dedicated to Franz Liszt):
Allegro affrettando – Maestoso – Allegro con agilita – Moderato recitativo – Allegro (12’25”)

7. Caprice héroique, op 13 (5’57”)

Bronsart: Three Mazurkas, op 4
8. Allegretto capriccioso (3’02”)
9. Moderato (5’10”)
10. Allegro ma non troppo (6’39”)

11. Bülow: Elfenjagd: Impromptu (7’17”)

We are grateful to Dr Klaus Tischendorf and Peter Cook for supplying copies of scores for use in this recording.

Notes on the music
(continued from volume 2)
The Seventh Sonata, not unlike Beethoven’s op. 54, represents a hiatus between the fully worked-out dramas of the Sixth and Eighth Sonatas and a return to a smaller canvas. There are passages here that suggest a simple rusticity, particularly in the finale, but overall the harmonic cast is definitely of Viole’s mature period. Much in the opening movement suggests an extended meditation and, as would be made most clear in the Eighth, the rhapsodic element starts to come to the fore in passages that are openly exploratory. The lack of variety in the movement (again an issue that would be addressed in the Eighth) contributes to a somewhat dour impression overall, but equally is representative to the quality of obsessive concentration that distinguishes Viole’s style from that of his contemporaries.

The second movement has something of the feeling of a minuet; its development is brief and like other Viole central movements it feels terse and somewhat odd. It soon leads into the finale, which is based on the opening theme of the work, but now develops that theme with the aid of a rhapsodic episode and an extended coda.

If the free fantasia, song and dance structure of the Seventh did little to suggest the expansiveness of the Eighth or the intense drama of the Ninth, the Tenth is surely one of Viole’s finest mature compositions. The mood of the opening is tragic and meditative, beginning with a left hand recitative and developing into an agitated cantilena that introduces a development of considerable complexity. This long movement subsides directly into an Andantino that is among the most melodic and effectively contrasted of Viole’s slow movements. After this, the exciting finale is all high drama, with massive octave passages transcending Viole’s often reticent-seeming approach to attain a genuinely orchestral virtuosity.

This vehemence carries through to the opening of the Eleventh and final sonata, whose initial march makes clear the strangeness of much of Viole’s harmonic writing in this work. Everything here is more condensed than previously, and sometimes this leads to passagework of baffling harmonic obscurity – the emergence of a B minor triad ex nihilo in this first section is a prime example of a forward-looking approach here that mostly comes off successfully. A light intermezzo marked “with agility” provides a contrast in mood before a cadenza brings us to a finale with a triumphant hunt-like motif.

Viole’s cycle of sonatas is a notable achievement, but one so strongly marked by an individual personality that it must have evoked love/hate responses even at the time. What is beyond doubt is that Viole was possessed of an extraordinary intellectual ability and also a stylistic grasp that is remarkable. Just as he and his contemporaries saw their music as representing a progression from that of earlier eras, so Viole demonstrates aspects of that progression in his Sonatas, but throughout remaining resolutely his own man. Where few of those contemporaries were drawn to the sonata format to any great extent, Viole made it his own, showing how its issues could be addressed in a way that even now retains the capacity to surprise.

As a codicil, the Caprice héroique, dedicated to “his friend, Hans von Bronsart”, is a good example of Viole in more overtly virtuosic mode. Built on a leaping figure in the left hand, it is an etude in strength and stamina.

Bronsart himself is represented by three forward-looking Mazurkas published as his op 4. He met Liszt in Weimar in 1853 and also came to know Berlioz and Brahms at that time. Such was the esteem he was held in by Liszt that he was chosen to play the solo part in the first performance of Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto, with the composer conducting, and was subsequently the dedicatee of the work. Bronsart’s main career was as a conductor and as general manager of the theatres of Hanover (1867-87) and Weimar (1887-95). His wife, Ingeborg Lena Starck, was also a composer.

Both Liszt and Bülow admired Bronsart’s compositions, Bülow describing his piano concerto as the “most significant one of the so-called Weimar school”. His Mazurkas are not particularly Chopinesque, instead looking forward with hints of Szymanowski and even Scriabin’s development of the form. The harmony again begins to escape the salon and engage directly with the modality of the folk idiom.

Bülow’s compositions are today less well-known than his work as pianist, conductor and editor. As expected, they show a strong Wagnerian influence, but also some degree of Lisztian treatment of the piano. Elfenjagd is an attractive impromptu that could be considered a spiritual companion-piece to Liszt’s Gnomenreigen. If Bülow’s gift is not notably for memorable melodic ideas, then at least their artful and pianistically varied treatment compensates to some extent.

Rudolf Viole (1825-67): The Piano Sonatas vol. 2

Rudolf Viole (1825-67): The Piano Sonatas vol. 2
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD67

Audio sample:  Fugato section from the Viole Sonata op 1

Price: £13.99. Click the button below to purchase this CD securely online.

Total time: 75 mins 41 secs

Sonata no. 4 in F major, op 23 (dedicated to Franz Brendel):
1. Allegretto con moto (7’00”)
2. Moderato giusto (6’59”)
3. Presto agitato (3’56”)

Sonata no. 6 in B minor, op. 25 (dedicated to Carl Tausig):
4. Romanze – Andantino cantabile (3’12”)
5. Intermezzo – Allegro scherzando – Trio (5’33”)
6. Allegro appassionato (11’50”)

Sonata no. 8 in E major, op. 27 (dedicated to Dionys Pruckner):
7. Allegro (15’20”)
8. Romanze – Andantino con moto (4’05”)
9. Presto (5’23”)

8. Sonata no. 9 in F minor, op 28 (dedicated to Richard Wagner) (11’51”)

We are grateful to Peter Cook for supplying copies of scores for use in this recording.

Notes on the music
(continued from volume 1)
Where the Third Sonata had begun with determined objectivity, treating its first subject as if it were early Beethoven, its concluding perpetuum mobile surely represented a ne plus ultra of obsessive triplet-figuration finales for Viole. How to follow something so seemingly final? Well, the Fourth Sonata begins with an enigmatic but insistent figure over a pedal point, at once establishing harmonic instability and making it clear that we have moved forward in our stylistic purview to a definite Romanticism. Changing figurations, but not interrupting the constant movement of quavers, Viole introduces dolorous scalic cantilenas that will provide the main motivic material of the exposition, contrasting this with mini-episodes of staccato accompaniment and melody. Later on, the texture will expand to positively symphonic proportions with angular octaves followed by the return of the pedal point in a tense tremolando. As will become common with Viole, development is more or less integrated within the exposition and recapitulation.

Viole’s issues with slow movements have already been noted. Here there is no slow movement at all, but in fact a very similarly paced foil for the opening, marked Moderato giusto. This odd movement is built around a similar legato figuration to that seen previously, and indeed it feels like a continuation of that movement’s development, such is the thematic kinship.

The movement eventually develops into a dramatic virtuoso peroration, decorating the melody with rapid arpeggios, octaves and chords, before quickly dying away into nothing. Then Viole returns to the compound-time triplet finale of which he had shown such mastery in the Third Sonata. This time there is an added twist, for the main theme of the first movement swiftly returns in the new movement’s figuration, to be followed by allusions to previous motifs within more developmental episodes. Again, the perpetual motion rarely lets up, even if the Germanic formality of the motivic style adopted rather dispels otherwise-tempting comparisons with Chopin’s finale from op 58, for example. On paper, this is a long movement, and even though its Presto pace means that it passes by quickly, it remains packed with ideas and events so that it acquires a greater emphasis in the overall structure than is usual for a finale. A rather Brahmsian figuration introduces a coda replete with virtuoso double octaves and increasing in pace to the concluding prestissimo bars.

After the dramatically unified Fifth Sonata, Viole’s Sixth appears more conventional, and indeed evokes the approach of Schumann, Hiller and Mendelssohn to that form. Beginning with a short Romanze that resembles a Mendelssohnian Song without Words both in its cantilena style and brevity of treatment, this leads after just two pages into a scherzo-like Intermezzo. Here we are reminded of both Mendelssohn, and of Schumann’s scherzino from op. 26. The trio is more exploratory and introduces material of greater emotional depth and harmonic richness.

In the Fourth, the import of the work had been more equally shared with the finale than is usual; in the Sixth that feature is exaggerated, with the finale being the only developed movement and encompassing a full dramatic argument. This movement recalls Heller’s Second Sonata (also available on RDR) with which it shares a key and much else stylistically. Based on two motifs, the second of which gives rise to variants in both dotted and triplet rhythms, the texture and material are varied to a greater extent than hitherto. The writing at times approaches the Lisztian orchestral style that had been suggested in the Fifth, but throughout with a feeling of formal restraint. An interesting passage based on shifting pedal points and leading to a chromatic descent is somewhat reminiscent of Alkan. Yet the work does not end in this energetic mood, but with a quiet, still coda that, like Liszt’s Sonata, suggests significant major/minor ambiguity.

The Eighth Sonata steps beyond Mendelssohn’s world and can, at least in its first movement, be seen as a response to the first movement of Chopin’s op. 58 in its embracing of the rhapsodic style. Here the concentration is much more on cantabile than hitherto, with the mood one of greater emotional warmth and informality of approach. The varied textures noted in the Sixth are prominent here within a grand design that stretches out over a fifteen-minute span. Both the exposition and recapitulation codas end with restrained chordal passagework marked cantabile religioso – a fitting contrast to the activity that had preceded them.

Just as the Fourth had followed a first movement with one that is very similar in mood and tempo, so Viole’s central Romanze in the Eighth does not break the spell, but sees it from a different perspective, here from the tonic minor. The form is ternary, but with variation of the melody taking the place of significant development (another Chopinesque feature). Where the first movement had mostly concentrated on intensity, this movement is relatively simple and direct by comparison.

No such simplicity attends the finale, a complex and extremely demanding fugato whose subject plays with the alternation between major and minor in a forward-looking way. The movement can be seen as a study in double-notes; not merely the commonly-found sixths and thirds, but chains of fourths and diminished fifths abound. A maestoso central episode in the remote key of E flat major presents the subject in a chordal guise, before the opening material returns and leads to an expanded coda. Despite its ambiguity, the movement concludes triumphantly in the major.

The Ninth Sonata is dedicated to Wagner, and something of that composer’s style can be felt in the mood and execution of the piece. The work begins with a dramatic cadenza in martellato double octaves guaranteed to daunt all but the hardiest virtuosi (the infamous transition passage in Liszt’s Sonata is probably a model for this). Then we begin the movement proper, with the central theme treated under extended triplets which do not loose their grasp until the second cadenza. The succeeding Allegretto con moto, which follows without a break, is again concerned with treating the theme against triplets, but this time more developmentally, leading to a memorable chordal climax against a series of pedal points. After a return to the initial texture, Viole treats the theme in octaves against sweeping arpeggios in the manner of Liszt, leading to a third cadenza and the recapitulation of the opening theme, treated fully and with plenty of allusions to the previous textural explorations.  A dramatic succession of trills and tremolandi leads to the final explosion of arpeggios.