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The Godowsky Edition - Volume 7
Isaac ALBENIZ (1860-1909)
Triana from Iberia, Book II, No. 3 (concert arrangement) (transcribed
Godowsky 1920s) [5:10]
Tango in D, Op. 165 No. 2 (concert version) (transcribed Godowsky
1920s) [2:57]
Georges BIZET (1838-1875)
Adagietto from L'Arlésienne (transcribed Godowsky 1920s)
[1:49]
Carl BOHM (1844-1920)
Calm As The Night (Still wie die Nacht) Op.326 No.27 (transcribed
Godowsky 1920s) [3:44]
Fritz KREISLER (1875-1962)
Rondino on a theme by Beethoven (transcribed Godowsky 1916) [3:59]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
The Swan (transcribed Godowsky 1920s) [2:38]
Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Ständchen (Serenade), Op. 17 No. 2 (transcribed Godowsky 1920s)
[2:51]
Leopold GODOWSKY (1870-1938)
Symphonische Metamorphosen Johann Strauss'cher Themen, Drei Walzer-paraphrasen
für das Pianoforte zum Concert Vortrag (1912): Künstlerleben
[16:38]; Die Fledermaus [12:14]; Wein, Weib und Gesang
[13:17]
Carlo Grante (piano)
rec. Studio Glanzing, Vienna and Sla Civica di Ponte San Nicolò,
Padova, undated [2011]
MUSIC & ARTS CD-1259 [65:37]
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The seventh volume in Carlo Grante’s ‘Godowsky Edition’ ranges
from the three extensive and pyrotechnic Johann Strauss transcriptions
to the gentle evocations of Saint-Saëns’ Swan. They
show Godowsky writing on both the grandest and most intimate
of scales, therefore, in a programme that keeps its powder dry
until unleashing the Strauss trio as the final pieces in the
ten-track programme.
Grante’s immersion in Godowsky’s muse is by now
an extensive as anyone alive, I should think. One can take for
granted thorough preparation and a confident awareness of stylistic
and technical niceties. He takes two of Godowsky’s Albéniz
transcriptions, Triana from the second book of Iberia,
and the Tango in D and plays them with delicious awareness of
their buoyant warmth. The rhythmic snap of Triana is
especially commendable, so too its textual clarity, and the
tastefully refined way Grante brings it to life. Most transcriptions
of the Tango cede to Kreisler’s for the violin, but Godowsky’s
purely pianistic reworking is faithful and only modestly elaborate.
There follows a lovely sequence of equally modestly sized refashionings,
music that is wittily and warmly embellished but not smothered.
The Adagietto from L'Arlésienne is delightfully
done and Karl Böhm’s lovely song Still wie die
Nacht receives a suitably beautiful transcription. This
is one of the highlights of the disc and shows Grante at his
most plangent and sensitive. Another is The Swan, dappled
and draped with refinement and great warmth by Godowsky, and
pianist, alike. Kreisler does in fact appear but under his own
name in the shape of his Rondino on a theme by Beethoven,
transcribed (or at least published) in 1916, and played with
the necessary wit here. Godowsky’s rippling carapace adds
textual allure to Richard Strauss’s Ständchen.
The three big Johann Strauss metamorphoses, or paraphrases,
or arrangements - the last of which seems an inadequate word
in the circumstances - present considerable demands on the performer.
Künstlerleben is extremely tough and Grante proves
a commendable guide. However if critical stakes are to be raised,
Marc-André Hamelin [Hyperion CDA67626] plays it with
an even greater sense of fantasy, colour, whip-crack virtuosity
and bravura. He is noticeably quicker than Grante in all three
of these Strauss transcriptions and this increased adrenalin
ensures that his performances are now the contemporary marker
in this repertoire. Grante sounds just a touch heavy, especially
in Die Fledermaus, after such galvanising drive.
Nevertheless collectors of this unfurling series will find very
much to their liking here.
Jonathan Woolf
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