Eugen Jochem Beethoven

This album by gifted Romanian pianist Eugen Cicero was recorded during Hungary's Debrecen Jazz Days in September 1978, but the tapes remained in the archives until 2004 when a Slovenian collector discovered them…

this recording of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana was authorized by the composer himself. It follows, therefore, that the present recording met with the high requirements of the composer himself and so represents an unusual collector's item. Orff intended not just to copy the medieval lyrics but to express the mood of that era. His highly rhythmic compositional style reflects the archaic character of the vocal line. The listener experiences not only the vital primordial pulse of the music in this thrilling interpretation but also the mystery of Fate through the tender lyrical passages. Orff's homage to wine, women and song of the Middle Ages, closely bound up with spring and love, is supported by balanced and precise sound technology. The listener is spirited away to the musical world of Carmina Burana by this recording.

The Jazz Club series is an attractive addition to the Verve catalogue. With it's modern design and popular choice of repertoire, the Jazz Club is not only opened for Jazz fans, but for everyone that loves good music.
Eugen Cicero, born Eugen Ciceu (27 June 1940 - 5 December 1997), nicknamed "Mister Golden Hands", was a Romanian-German jazz pianist. He started playing piano at age four, gave his first Mozart Concerto with the Symphonic Orchestra of his hometown, Cluj-Napoca (Klausenburg), at age six and by the time he was 14 he was widely known as a child prodigy. His parents helped him develop this gift and hone his skills and when he was 11 they sent him to study with Aurelia Cionca, renowned in her native Romania as an excellent pianist who herself was taught by a student of Franz Liszt…

When d’Albert appeared in 1881 at one of Hans Richter’s concerts in London he played his own Piano Concerto in A, but the work was never published and has not survived. However, from a review in The Musical Times of November 1881 we can reasonably deduce that the Concerto had the traditional three movements. The reviewer stated that it was ‘uncompromising in its pretensions to rank with the chief of its kind; largely developed, ambitious in style and character, and rigidly observant of classical form, while redundant in matter’.