Friedman Transcriptions

Once upon a time… at the heyday of the piano, between 1880 and the Second World War, when nearly every pianist was also a composer and arranger. The distinction between interpretation, arrangement, and composition is not always clear-cut nor decisive – the only important thing is the delightful effect of these gems for piano, which pianist Jacob Leuschner, who has been exploring the repertoire of this "Golden Age of the Piano" for decades, has recorded for his new GENUIN CD. The names Leopold Godowsky, Ignaz Friedman, Federico Mompou can be found there, as well as a premiere recording by the Dutchman Dirk Schäfer. These are intimate piano moments that, played enchantingly and without the noise of shellac records, nevertheless bring their era back to life before our ears.

There were a number of influences that contributed to Franck’s distinctly personal compositional method, with two having the most substantial impact on his late style: the Austro-German tradition, particularly their notion of structural unity; and the tradition of France, the country where he lived for the vast majority of his life.

Transcribing musical works for other instruments or instrumentations has a long tradition in music history. Sometimes, the composers themselves wrote different versions of their works and often the musicians adapt works for their own instruments. Even great composers have enjoyed arranging the works of their predecessors and have thus transported them into their time and era of music history and lent their own interpretations to them. Among those are Sergei Rachmaninoff, Franz Liszt, and Ignaz Friedman - all three great pianists and composers. Renowned Russian pianist Zlata Chochieva presents their transcriptions of the works of great composers such as Bach, Mendelssohn and Mahler on her new recording.

Transcribing musical works for other instruments or instrumentations has a long tradition in music history.

"The Rite of Spring" is an album by flautist Hubert Laws released on the CTI label featuring jazz interpretations of classical music compositions. The Allmusic review stating "Long before Wynton decided he could play classical chops as well as the real long-haired interpreters, even though he was a jazz musician, Hubert Laws and his partners at CTI gave it a run with a jazz twist, and for the most part with a far more adventurous repertoire".

In the years between 1902 and 1914 some of the worlds greatest pianists published a series of works that explored the lyricism and virtuosity of Paganinis Caprices. Busoni was the greatest figure among them, but he considered Mark Hambourg to be the greatest pianistic talent of his generation. Both Michael Zadora and Ignaz Friedman carried out inventive free transcriptions while years later the Croatian Boris Papandopulo infused the pungent flavours of mid-20th-century idioms into the genre.