Alfor's Rarities

[alfor]

You are welcome, jeremy!

To Sir Malcolm, with compliments:

Sergei V. AKSYUK
15 Waltzes

Aksyuk 15 Waltzes.pdf

Fairly easy to medium difficult. In parts slightly parodistic. Some Prokofiev influence.
Very mildly contemporary. Cf. Franko Mendes. Cf my previous Aksyuk postings.

[ilu]

Dear Alfor:

Thank you very much for the scores and especially for your comments about the style and grade of difficulty; in my case your opinion is very useful.

ILU.

[fleubis]

Lots of Waltzes! Of the Aksyuk pieces, I like No.3 and No.6 the most and have interesting ideas and are much fun to play.

Thanks to Jeremy for mentioning the Upspruch Op.19....which I've not played in over a year. Very nice pieces and so very well written for the piano.

Alfred, thanks for current and previous posts...it is so nice to again play many of these really wonderful pieces like the Upspruch, but alas, if only time would permit for more frequent review. We here at Pianophilia can not complain of lack of great material, but only a lack of time.

[Dani_area_51]

Love it, love it, Alfor! Thank you so much for the Aksyuk! I enjoy all your postings but when it comes to the russians...

Best regards.

[alfor]

...it is so nice to again play many of these really wonderful pieces like the Upspruch...

Try his "Deutsche Tänze op. 7"; some gems to detect!

P.S. If you search for "Upspruch" you might get a frustrating zero results

[alfor]

Hungarian weeks...
...or:
Behind the Iron Curtain, but west of "Malcolm-country".

GAAL, Jenö (Hungarian composer, 1906-1980. Pupil of Kodaly.)
II. Zongoraszonata

Gaal Sonata #2.pdf

Recommended. Skilful written piece in a fine "mellower-than-Bartok" hungarian idiom.
Of medium difficulty, but needs a good pianist to show all its merits.

[fleubis]

Gall Sonata No.2 has a really fine last movement with very interesting and well developed material. Lovely! Thanks for posting this interesting work.

Alfred, you mentioned Uspruch's Op.7 Waltzes....So I went back and played through these....yes, there are some real gems there. This is good intermediate level material with lots to explore in these fairly short 21 waltzes.

[sgambatiesque]

As an aside to this, I was interested to recently discover quite striking similarities between the first piece in this set, À la Saltarelle and the opening of the final movement of Alkan's Sonate de Concert, Op. 47, which is called 'Finale alla Saltarella'!

Just tripped over this Youtube video of what is claimed to be the world premiere performance of the Saltarelle duet Op.47a by Jack Gibbons and Annarita Santagada.

[alfor]

Some more Karg-Elert:

Sigfrid KARG-ELERT
Aphorismen op. 51 (sel.) NMS (came as double-page scans, so I did some editing)
http://www.mediafire.com/?57r3sw7xccoe876

Nos. 13 & 14 are new to this forum, I think.

[alfor]

Thank you for recent feedback. Always much appreciated!

SZÉKELY, Endre (1912-1988)
Sonata (No. 1) per pianoforte (1954) out-of-print

Szekely Sonata.pdf

There obviously is a whole generation of Hungarian composers who were composing in an amazingly similar style using devices mainly taken from the easier pieces of Bartok's middle period and occasionally some devices of his earliest period. Strange enough as mvt. III S. installed a fugue in this otherwise thoroughly hungarian sonata. Some virtuoso devices, but as a whole of moderate difficulty.