Collectors of this exploratory and extensive series will know
that official recordings started in 1989. What no one seems
to have known though, is that Daniel Berman, a pianist who featured
strongly in both 1987 and 1988, took personal cassette recordings
of some of these events. The twenty subsequent Danacord recordings
have thus, at a stroke, been supplemented by these early examples
of the Festival. Sound quality is an issue that should be addressed
first of all, given that these are not professional recordings
and readers might be justly concerned that they’re going
to get the kind of ‘cough, programme turn, chair scrape
and belch’ tapings that make the rounds. You needn’t
be overly concerned. It’s true that the dynamic range
is necessarily constricted on some of the earlier 1987 tapes
but the audience - a small, connoisseur collection - is very
quiet and the sound itself is not at all bad. It does also get
better as we hit 1988.
The pianists include names both well known and less so. The
programme is typically eclectic and interesting. In fact pianophiles
can enjoy these two discs without very many reservations at
all. Michael Ponti, hero of many a disc, essays a contrasting
programme, his two Henselt Etudes playing off against each other
nicely - virtuoso dynamism in the first and lyric urgency in
the second. Maybe his Moszkowski Etincelles doesn’t
sparkle with quite the delight of Old School performances, or
maybe it’s due to the rather limited sound. Berman himself
plays a convincing Andantino and Variations in the Tausig arrangement
and two famous song transcriptions, one by Godowsky whose The
Gardens of Buitenzorg he also plays. Rainer M. Klaas explores
spookier reaches in Godowsky’s Elegy (for the left hand
alone) - very cryptic - whilst Schulhoff’s Tango is bittersweet
and tart.
Peter Froundjian conjured two evocative pieces - Chaminade’s
Autrefois and Pierre Sancan’s Caprice romantique
(main gauche seule). Apart from Hamelin, of whom more in
a moment, Sancan was the only living composer represented. He
died in 2008. There is a delightful four hand expedition from
Duo Quatre Mains (Peter Rummerhöller and Manfred Theilen)
who play Schmitt’s treasurable little charmers, especially
Le cheval de Ferme-l'æil. Not to be outdone we
have a phalanx of pianists - Froundjian/Klaas/Berman - playing
Rachmaninoff’s Waltz for six hands. Pure charm suffuses
the selection from Nielsen’s Piano music for young and
old Op. 53 played by Peter Westenholz.
Nina Tichman gives us a breezy Debussy Masques whilst
Klaas is on hand with some call-to-attention Alkan; Les diablotins
from his Esquisses Op.63 is a real standout. One should
not overlook Liszt’s Les cloches de G(enève),
which we hear in its first version from Peter Froundjian. Philip
Fowke extends the roll call of superior pianism with a sensitively
filigreed Glinka-Balakirev The Lark. Marc-André
Hamelin plays his own Etude No.12 with jazzy panache and contrasts
it with the delicacy of Schumann. And Michael Struck ends proceedings
with Joseph Joachim’s Variationen über ein irisches
Elfenlied. To find a piano work by Joachim is very unusual.
It was written in 1856 but left incomplete. The homage to Brahms
includes a direct quotation from the Op.5 Piano Sonata.
This most enjoyable collection takes us back to the very beginning
of the Festival. Are there Husum Completists out there? If so,
you know what you have to do.
Jonathan Woolf
Track & performance details
CD 1 [73:49]
Adolf von HENSELT (1814-1889)
Etude in D minor, Op. 2 No. 1 [2:24]
Etude in D flat major, Op. 2 No. 2 [2:46]
Moritz MOSZKOWSKI (1854-1925)
Etincelles, Op. 36 No. 6 [2:20]
Michael Ponti (piano)
Frédéric CHOPIN (1810-49):
Bolero, Op. 19 [7:48]
Boris Bloch (piano)
Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Andantino and Variations, Op. 84 No. 1 arr. Carl Tausig (1841-71):[8:29]
Leopold GODOWSKY (1870-1938)
The Gardens of Buitenzorg [3:37]
Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Ständchen arr. Godowsky [2:40]
George GERSHWIN (1898-1938)
Summertime arr. Earl Wild (1915-2010) [2:47]
Daniel Berman (piano)
Leopold GODOWSKY
Elegy (for the left hand alone) [2:58]
Erwin SCHULHOFF (1894-1942)
Tango (Cinq Etudes de Jazz)[1:46]
Rainer M. Klaas (piano)
Richard WAGNER (1813-88)
Paraphrase des Quintetts aus 'Meistersinger' arr. Hans von Bülow
(1830-1894) [6:44]
Eckart Sellheim (piano)
Cécile CHAMINADE (1857-1944)
Autrefois, Op. 87 No. 4 [3:59]
Pierre SANCAN (1916-2008)
Caprice romantique (main gauche seule) [4:23]
Peter Froundjian (piano)
Florent SCHMITT (1870-1958)
Le cheval de Ferme-l'æil, Op. 58 No. 3 [1:41]
Le parapluie chinois, Op. 58 No. 7 [4:29]
Duo Quatre Mains (Peter Rummerhöller and Manfred Theilen
(pianos))
Sergei RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943)
Waltz for 6 hands [1:37]
Froundjian/Klaas/Berman (pianos)
Carl NIELSEN (1865-1931):
Piano music for young and old, Op. 53
No. 1 Allegretto [0:37]
No. 2 Andantino quasi Allegretto [0:39]
No. 3a Allegro scherzoso [0:46]
No. 3b Grazioso [1:01]
No. 4 Andantino [0:25]
No. 5 Allegro giocoso [0:49]
No. 6 Poco lamentoso [1:15]
No. 7 Marziale [0:42]
No. 14 Capriccioso [0:55]
No. 15 Adagio espressivo [1:05]
No. 17 Largo con fantasia [1:27]
No. 19 "Alla Bach" [0:46]
No. 21 Marcia di goffo [1:14]
Peter Westenholz (piano)
CD 2 [78:02]
Franz LISZT (1811-1886)
Klavierstück in F sharp major [2:46]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Masques [4:28]
Nina Tichman (piano)
Charles-Valentin ALKAN (1813-88)
3 Esquisses, Op. 63
No. 32 Minuettino[2:31]
No. 46 Le premier billet doux [0:58]
No. 45 Les diablotins [2:10]
Rainer M. Klaas (piano)
Franz LISZT
Les cloches de G(enève), 1st version (1836) [12:19]
Emmanuel CHABRIER
Air de Ballet [3:38]
Mauresque (Pièces pittoresques No. 5) [2:08]
Karol SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1937)
Valse romantique [4:27]
Peter Froundjian (piano)
Mikhail GLINKA (1804-57)
The Lark arr. Mily Balakirev (1837-1910) [5:29]
Fritz KRESILER (1875-1962)
Liebesleid arr.Rachmaninoff [4:22]
Philip Fowke (piano)
Jean-Philippe RAMEAU (1683-1764)
Elégie arr. Godowsky [4:01]
John IRELAND (1879-1962):
The Island Spell [3:34]
Sergei RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943)
The Floods of Spring arr. Earl Wild [3:47]
Daniel Berman (piano)
Marc-André HAMELIN (b. 1961)
Etude No. 12 (Prelude and Fugue) (1984-85) [5:43]
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-56)
Abschied (Waldszenen) [3:53]
Marc-André Hamelin (piano)
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS (1887-1959)
Ciranda No. 4 [1:31]
Roberto Szidon (piano)
Joseph JOACHIM (1831-1907)
Variationen über ein irisches Elfenlied (1856) [8:37]
Michael Struck (piano)
rec. CD 1 [1] - [16] 16-23 August 1987; CD 1 [17] - [29] and
CD 2 [1] - [17] 21-28 August 1988, CD 2 [18] 20 August 1989,
Schloss vor Husum
Daniel Berman, Boris Bloch, Philip Fowke, Peter Froundjian, Marc-André
Hamelin, Rainer M. Klaas, Michael Ponti, Eckart Sellheim, Roberto
Szidon, Nina Tichman, Peter Westenholz (piano)
