Studies For Piano, Op.18

The fourth and fifth albums of this Szymanowski’s complete solo piano works series. This release introduces piano music from all of three Szymanowskis style periods. Pianist Anu Vehviläinen (DMus) works as a university lecturer at the DocMus Doctoral School of the Sibelius Academy, the University of the Arts Helsinki. She teaches piano, supervises artistic doctoral students’ theses, runs courses and develops the artistic education at the doctoral level. Vehviläinen’s artistic interest has focussed on Karol Szymanowski’s piano music.

This recording revives long-forgotten sonorities that once would have been very familiar: the sound of piano and organ being played together. It also presents a Sibelius premiere: the arrangement by Sigfird Karg-Elert of the suite from Pelléas and Mélisande. As the popularity of domestic music-making grew through the nineteenth century, it brought first the piano and, then, often the harmonium into well-off living-rooms across the western world. Composers naturally responded, with original works and arrangements: Sibelius Andante cantabile was written after a visit to relatives who had both instruments in their salon.

Any discussion about the most difficult works in the piano repertoire is bound to include Leopold Godowsky's 53 Studies on Chopin's Etudes. To be sure, the pure, unadulterated Chopin Etudes lie within reach of most virtuosos. But one cursory glance at a page from a Godowsky/Chopin concoction might easily intimidate even the most accomplished pianist of the human species. Godowsky operates under the basic premise that whatever elaborate passagework Chopin assigned to the right hand can and should be played by the left. On top of that, he smothers the right hand with lily-gilding countermelodies and serpentine filigree.

This set is a remarkable bargain, containing all of Brahms's solo piano music, including such chips from his workshop as cadenzas for other composers' concertos and a series of strictly mechanical piano studies that nobody will want to listen through. No matter. Idil Biret has a firm grasp of Brahms's idiom, and she plays with insight and passion throughout the set. Although she doesn't startle with her virtuosity, she handles the considerable technical demands of the music with great confidence.

Anatoly Alexandrov (1888-1982) - not to be confused with several other Russian composers with the name Alexandrov - was a Russian composer and pianist who wrote music in virtually all genres but mainly focused on the keyboard. The style is reminiscent of late Scriabin and, perhaps more than anything else, Medtner. Now, Alexandrov's music isn't, in the end, quite on the level of either of those composers, but this survey by Hamish Milne proves that Alexandrov is certainly a worthwhile encounter.

Jozef de Beenhouwer offers Clara Schumann and listening audiences a special gift on the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of her birth: an album including numerous recording premieres from this famous pianists extensive transcription oeuvre. He not only honors her compositional talent but also spotlights works with which she very deliberately and intensively occupied herself and in the process very attractively nuances our picture of the musical Schumann family. The focus is formed by selected songs by Robert Schumann.

Zoltán Kocsis performs the complete solo piano music of his fellow Hungarian, Béla Bartók. Completed in 2001, these critically acclaimed, definitive performances are the benchmark against which all others are considered.