Wittgenstein Mp3

Pianist Vanessa Benelli Mosell turns to the drama of Italian opera for her new album Casta Diva. Decca Classics will release the album, which assembles a collection of popular arias, overtures, and themes from “Norma,” “La Bohème,” “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” “Guillaume Tell,” “Madama Butterfly” and more in virtuosic arrangements by some of the great pianists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of the arrangements come from Chopin, Wittgenstein, Liszt, Thalburg, and Ginzburg.

Although the Concertos for Piano (left hand) by Korngold, Prokofiev, Ravel and others may be better known, it was Josef Labor who marked the beginning of the genre in 1915 with his first Konzertstück for Piano (left hand) and Orchestra. It was commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm in Russia during the First World War, but was determined that his career should progress nonetheless. Labor was part of Johannes Brahms’ close circle of friends who, at the age of three, had lost his sight due to smallpox. Composition was a luxury for him, in that he had to rely on the help of an amanuensis to commit his works to paper. Labor’s music is very skillfully composed, always sensuous and, above all, melodious. These world premiere recordings represent a high-point in Capriccio's Labor-Edition, which for a number of years has been spotlighting the sensitive music of this largely forgotten composer.