The Piano Teacher

Eduard Nápravník is hardly a household name, but he was one of the most important figures in nineteenth-century Russian music. As conductor of the Mariinsky Theatre—one of the finest opera houses in Europe, which became the Kirov Theatre—he worked with many of the most important composers of the day, including Tchaikovsky and ‘The Five’. He composed four operas, and many works in a range of genres, including four symphonies and the two works for piano and orchestra on this disc. His A minor Piano Concerto (1877) begins with a striking reference to the ‘Dies irae’ of Verdi’s Requiem, and is a work of tremendous energy and lyricism, with a nocturne-like slow movement and a dance-like finale. "Fantaisie russe (1881) is based on three Russian folk tunes, and is infectious in its melodic richness and thrilling in its virtuosity.

Franz Schmidt was not only a brilliant cellist, but also a gifted pianist who mastered almost the entire piano repertoire with ease. Nevertheless, he had a kind of love-hate relationship with the piano, since his great passion was for the organ. This did not prevent him, however, from writing numerous works for the left hand alone, all of them commissioned by the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein and including the Beethoven Variations, Piano Concerto in E-flat major and Quintets. Schmidt's output for piano two-hands, however, comprised only one work – the melancholic Romance, which he dedicated to his English teacher Geoffrey Sephton in 1922. Karl-Andreas Kolly remarks: “The fact that I have decided to arrange three of Franz Schmidt’s organ works for piano has primarily to do with my great passion for his music. And also a little with my hope that in a piano version, his organ works might possibly reach a wider audience”.