Pianophilia

sgambatiesque wrote:

4candles wrote: 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.

That is quite a YouTube find. The Satarelle duet is quite brilliant.

Alfred, the Karg-Elert additions to our Op.51 Aphorisms collection are most welcome. One day we may have the complete set, and these new ones posted today are very nice additions. Nearly all of Karg-Elerts oeuvre is very well written and wonderful to play. So with this posting I took the opportunity to spend some time playing the other Aphorisms, and these new numbers seem to fit quite nicely.

The Szekely sonata is definitely in the modern Hungarian tradition. I can tell you that composers are still writing music much like this with strong Bartok influence since last year I heard music of similar style in Budapest, unfortunately I couldn't make much sense of the program notes written in Hungarian, of course. The fugue is the weakest part of the entire sonata and doesn't seem to fit. I agree there are indeed there are lots of Bartok influences but none from his late period--music which I feel is not his best. The final rondo turns out to be a real "barn-burner" with brilliant effects and hugely interesting rhythms.

Thanks for these most welcome postings, Alfred.

GYULAI, Elemér (1904-1945. Holocaust victim. According to my babelfish
hungarian this piece won a first price in a 1950 Chopin competition in Paris
--- aIas, I never heard of such an event in Paris.)
3. Zongoraraszonata Three lengthy mvts. for which the same characteristics apply as for the previously posted hungarian sonatas.

Quite right, Alfred. The GYULAI sonata is very much in the same vein, but not quite as brilliant as the SZÉKELY. The GYULAI has very interesting sonorities with many brilliant moments. Thanks for posting.

SZABÓ, Ferenc (1902-1969. Pupil of Weiner and Kodaly.)
II. Zongoraraszonata Now this is somewhat different. Slightly more contemporary and you may detect some faint influences of Stravinsky and the french school. Well-crafted piece of medium difficulty in one mvt. with clearly marked sections.

One more Szabo

The Szabo sonata is quite different in characters the the previous Hungarian composers and considerably more dissonant, if I dare to use that phrase around here

SZELÉNYI, István (Étienne)
1904-1972. Pianist and composer. One of the main editors of the new Liszt edition.

Hommage à BartókVI. Zongoraraszonáta ...considerably more consonant, if I dare to use that phrase around here ...

SZELÉNYI---yes indeed, considerably more consonant. But the tiny little Bartok Hommage was over when it was just getting started! The more substantial sonata had a surprise: an ossia for a 7 1/2 octave keyboard on page 16 which finally gives Bossie owners a bare few notes to play.

TARDOS, Béla (1910-1966. Pupil of Bartok.)
Suite pour piano