Review: MusicWebInternational
William Sterndale Bennett
Three Pieces Op. 28 (1848-1849)
1. Introduzione e Pastorale
2. Rondino
3. Capriccio
Franz Liszt
4. Großes Konzertsolo
Sophie Menter
5. Romance Op. 5 (1907)
Juliette Dillon
10 Contes fantastique de Hoffmann (1847)
6. Le violon de Crémone
Sergei Rachmaninov / Alfonso Soldano
7. Night is sorrowful Op. 26 No. 12
Sergei Bortkiewicz
8. Nocturne Op. 24, No. 1 (Diana)
Alexander von Zemlinsky
Fantasien über Gedichte von Richard Dehmel Op. 9 (1898-1900)
9. Stimme des Abends
10. Waldseligkeit
11. Liebe
12. Käferlied
Edvard Grieg
Lyric Pieces, Book 7
13. Bächlein Op. 62 No. 4
Frédéric Chopin / Leopold Godowsky
Studies on Chopin’s Etudes
14. No. 4 on Op. 10 No. 2 (Ignis fatuus)
15. No. 6 on Op. 10 No. 6 (for the left hand)
Leopold Godowsky
16. Meditation (1930)
Christoph Willibald Gluck / Alexander Siloti
17. Melody from ‘Orfeo ed Euridice
Husum CD 2023 ©
A wise man once said, if you don’t have a success model, look around at what everyone else is doing and do the opposite.
When Peter Froundjian planned the first solo piano evening of his new festival in 1987, he did not have Beethoven or Schubert in mind, but rather Godowsky and Alkan. It was not Alfred Brendel or Sir András Schiff on the billboard, but young up-and-coming pianists like Marc-André Hamelin and Stephen Hough. No grand concert hall in Amsterdam or London, but a castle on the North German coast, in the town of Husum. In fact, ‘Rarities of Piano Music’ was as far removed from a standard piano recital as could be imagined. It was only going to go one of
two ways: ‘belly up‘, or a jubilant success.
We can indeed learn a good deal from paying attention to those who came before us, but we can’t guarantee success by imitating them. A person’s inner life can never be documented. This may account for why nobody has copied Froundjian. If you believe in the Asian model of production – making replicas of everything from electronics and cars to whisky – why is there no Rarities of Piano Music Festival in Shanghai or Tokyo? Or anywhere else, for that matter. The concept looks simple enough, but Froundjian has refined the execution to an art-form: digging out the right (but novel) repertoire, matching pianists to little-known pieces and composers, is far from easy. In this respect, the annual album of highlights from the previous year’s concerts continues
to prove that Froundjian is in a class of his own.
RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 2024
CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 979
EAN: 5709499979006
