This series should keep going indefinitely, given the gems it turns up, and the imaginative cadre of like-minded, or unlike-minded pianists, who are drawn to Husum for the annual festival there. The selected fruits of that festival are released in single discs, a distillation of the many good and rare things to be heard. Some of the repertoire, it’s true, is rarer than others but in the main this is the place to go for imaginative programming selected from the byways of the piano repertoire.
Disc number 24 in the series holds the Best of 2012. Joseph Moog proves a strong exponent of Liszt. I recall reviewing one of his very earliest discs, possibly his first, and being less than impressed by the fuss about his name, but he seems to have matured significantly in the last few years, and technical skill is now matched by interpretative insight. Sofja Gülbadamova plays Fauré’s early Op.19 Ballade in a way that seems to me to be hardly inferior to Angela Hewitt’s recent Hyperion performance. She then allows herself a genial stroll through two of Reynaldo Hahn’sLe Rossignol éperdu - the one droll, the other more urgent and brisk, though hardly tragique. She finished her selection with real rarities, four of the 1926 Croquembouches by Claude Delvincourt. These food pieces - of which she plays four (there are actually 12 in all) - include a cock-eyed plum pudding, which sounds like Three Blind Mice in rapid time, and a castor oil finale, Huile de ricin, which acts as a kind of fugal laxative.
It’s appropriate to move from the occasional cod-baroque gestures of this last to Granados’s immersion in Scarlatti. Sandro Russo plays two of the Sonatas Inéditas in fine style. Gianluca Luisi, meanwhile, excavates Joseph Marx’s Prelude and Fugue, a compellingly unstable edifice crowned by a powerful peroration. Amir Tebenikhin brings us four of Glière’s Op.30 Preludes and these evocative pieces, alternately limpid, Rachmaninovian and powerfully assertive, are among the highlights of this disc. A flair for dance informs the trio of small-scaled pieces selected by Hubert Rutkowski. Adolf Gutmann was a Chopin student, who was with his master when he died. His Nocturne is decorative and lyrical, cast securely in Chopin’s mould. Julian Fontana is better represented on disc these days and his A la Mazurka whizzes by in under a minute. Szymanowski’s 1926 Mazurka, Op.50 No.1 exemplifies the Polish lineage perfectly. Finally Duo Grau/Schumacher parade Chabrier’s Trois valses romantiques, No.3, a thoroughly engaging and most enjoyable finale to another splendid festival year. Terrific notes too by Peter Grove.
Jonathan Woolf
Details
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Adelaide arranged Franz Liszt, S466iii/LW A58 (1846) [8:56]
Franz LISZT (1811-1886)
Valse mélancolique S210, LW A57a (1839) [4:26]
Joseph Moog (piano)
Gabriel FAURÉ (1745-1924)
Ballade Op.19 (1880) [14:35]
Reynaldo HAHN (1874-1947)
Le Rossignol éperdu (1912); Nos 28 Matinée parisienne [3:58] and Chérubin tragique [2:07]
Claude DELVINCOURT (188-1954)
Croquembouches (1926); No.4 Grenadine [2:39]: No.6 Plum pudding [1:08]: No.10 Pets de none [1:39]: No.12 Huile de ricin [2:57]
Sofja Gülbadamova (piano)
Domenico SCARLATTI (1685-1757)
Veintiseis Sonatas Inéditas arranged Enrique Granados (1867-1916) ; No.7 in G minor after Kk102/L89 [2:18]: No.18 in G major after Kk547, L528 [2:17]
Sandro Russo (piano)
Joseph MARX (1882-1964)
Prelude [3:09] and Fugue [7:43] (1916) [10:52]
Gianluca Luisi (piano)
Reinhold GLIÈRE (1875-1956)
Preludes Op.30 (1907): No.1 in C major [1:18]: No.5 in D major [3:26]: No.9 in E major [3:00]; No,11 in F major [2:15]
Amir Tebenikhin (piano)
Adolf GUTMANN (1819-1882)
Nocturne in A flat major Op.8 No.1 (1844) [2:52]
Julian FONTANA (1810-1869)
A la Mazurka (1833) [0:54]
Karol SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1937)
Mazurka Op.50 No.1 (1926) [1:54]
Hubert Rutkowski (piano)
Emmanuel CHABRIER (1841-1894)
Trois valses romantiques, No.3 (1883) [6:09]
Duo Grau/Schumacher
