Piano Recital: Antti Siirala

Description

Schubert: Piano TranscriptionsFranz Liszt (1811-1886) • Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938) Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) • Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953)One of the great players of his time, the Polish-American pianist Leopold Godowsky was born in Lithuania in 1870. The first signs of his exceptional musical ability were clear by the age of three and he wrote his first compositions four years later, in 1879 making his first public appearance as a pianist. There followed a series of concerts in Germany and Poland and, in 1884, his first appearance in the United States in Boston. In 1886, hoping to study with Liszt, he returned to Europe, but, learning of the latter’s death from a newspaper, he travelled, instead, to Paris, with the object of studying with Camille Saint-Saëns, distinguished equally as a pianist and a composer. Saint-Saëns was impressed by Godowsky’s playing and suggested that he should adopt him, on condition that he changed his name, a proposal that Godowsky rejected. For some three years, however, their relationship continued. The contact was a valuable one and allowed Godowsky to meet leading figures in contemporary musical life. In 1890 he returned to America, where he taught and continued his career as a performer. Ten years later he settled in Berlin, his base for concert tours throughout Europe and the Near East. In 1909 he moved to Vienna to direct the piano master-class at the Akademie der Tonkunst. There were American tours between 1912 and 1914 and with the outbreak of war Godowsky settled again in the United States, giving concerts and clarifying his innovative theories of keyboard technique in a series of editions and publications. At the same time he continued to write music of his own for the piano. He gave his last concert in the United States in 1922, but continued to tour throughout the world, acknowledged as one of the leading virtuosi of his time. His career as a performer was curtailed by a stroke in 1930, and until his death in 1938 he was unable to play. He now increasingly pinned his hopes for a lasting place in the history of music on his compositions and transcriptions for the piano, an ambition largely unrealised. Following tradition, Godowsky included in his repertoire transcriptions of varying degrees of elaboration. Gute Nacht (Good night) is a transcription of the first song of Winterreise, setting the sombre tone of the work, as the protagonist departs in the night, leaving his beloved to sleep. The song is presented first in simple form, gradually further elaborated, as further elements are added, without destroying the prevailing mood. Morgengruss (Morning greeting) is from the earlier Schubert cycle Die schöne Müllerin (The Maid of the Mill) and is treated with greater elaboration. The young miller greets his master’s daughter, who turns her head away. The last work by Godowsky here included is of another kind, an original composition rather than a transcription