Pianophilia

fleubis wrote:How very wonderful, Alfred. You have given us the 2nd Weismann volume of 48. These are nice little pieces and nice to be able to play the while looking into my own garden.

Thanks for posting!

You are welcome!!!

Sich rege(r)n bringt Segen (12):


This reading of Reger's monumental Bach Variations is remarkable in several respects:

A reading with very little sweat. Unlike other pianists Richard Laugs
does not try to take the fffs too literally*. The reading nevertheless has
power and drive where necessary. (*cf Albeniz' Iberia!)

He masters the piece with remarkable ease without belittling the music.
Unlike other pianists the piece is not drowned in pedal which makes it quite
easy to follow the partly extremely thick textures.

The unusual sound of the piano is not quite the piano sound I am dreaming of,
but it is by far better and more musical than today's sterile glassy and metallic
Steinway sound (lacking fundamental power and character, IMHO).

http://www.mediafire.com/download/f957w ... Laugs.flac

I quite agree, this performance by Serkin is remarkable for it's clarity of line and terracing of dynamics while other pianists drown the counterpoint in a sea of mushy damper pedal.

fleubis wrote:I quite agree, this performance by Serkin is remarkable for it's clarity of line and terracing of dynamics while other pianists drown the counterpoint in a sea of mushy damper pedal.

Sorry, you mixed it up!!

The link above is to an LP performance by German pianist (and conductor)
Richard LAUGS (recorded late 1960s or early 1970s)!

The Serkin performance you refer to is a live recording from a concert in London in 1973
Probably still available in the CD series: „BBC Legends“. That is why I did not
post it on PP!

You are right Alfred! I'm getting confused again. Going to retrieve my glasses now which are sitting on the piano (again!). And yes, the Serkin recording is still available on CD.

The Bavarian Library has just released a good scan of Julius Reubke's Piano Sonata in Bb minor - http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de ... 00001.html

I have downloaded it and cleaned the scan up, and post it here. Regards
Fred

Wonderful, Fred. This cleaned up copy of the Reubke Sonata is much better than the one on IMSLP. I am well familiar with Reubke's organ sonata--one of the cornerstones of organ literature, but his bombastic piano sonata is not well known at all...neither is his short little Scherzo Op.3 (IMSLP). Alas that he died at age 24...!

The work below is no longer available as piano score.
The copyright now is with Ries & Erler and they have published
a full (study) score as part of the „Furtwängler Gesamtausgabe“,
edited by conductor George Alexander Albrecht
(during this process the work transformed into „Sinfonisches Konzert“).
Available for a mere 168.- Euro.

This is for all people who love the (handful of) heart-rending melodies and...
(excuse me, dear Wilhelm) the trite sequences and the (partly) dull counterpoint of this work.

Recommended recordings:

1) Edwin Fischer (2nd mvt. only)
The live performance from 1939 of the complete work suffers from the
extremely poor sound quality of the recording
2) Erik Then-Berg under Kubelik (CD Tahra TAH 197, 26. Juni 1963 -
have to check whether this is a live or a studio recording)
3) Barenboim / Mehta (live 1971; „bootleg“, various LP and CD editions)

Goodness, Alfred. Had no knowledge that Furtwangler had written any music at all, let alone something like a piano concerto! He's mostly known on this side of the pond as an outstanding Beethoven interpreter.

I did find some interesting and vaguely familiar tunes in this piece.

Thanks for the posting of this.

fleubis wrote:Goodness, Alfred. Had no knowledge that Furtwangler had written any music at all, let alone something like a piano concerto! He's mostly known on this side of the pond as an outstanding Beethoven interpreter.

I did find some interesting and vaguely familiar tunes in this piece.

Thanks for the posting of this.

For further studies (especially recommended: Violin Sonata No. 2 and Symphony No. 2):

http://www.furtwangler.net/composer
http://www.furtwaengler-gesellschaft.de ... aphie.html