Release Date: 31 March 2006
Label: Marco Polo
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 636943526729
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: GODOWSKY
Description
Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938)Piano Music, Vol. 7 - Transcriptions of Bach Cello Suites The great Polish-American pianist Leopold Godowsky was bornat Soshly, a village near the Lithuanian city of Vilnius, in 1870, the son of adoctor. The first signs of his exceptional musical ability were clear by theage of three and he wrote his first compositions four years later, in 1879making his first public appearance as a pianist. There followed a series ofconcerts in Germany and Poland and a very short period of study with Ernst Rudorff,a pupil of Clara Schumann and of Moscheles, at the Berlin Musikhochschule. Fourmonths at the Hochschule proved enough and in the same year, 1884, Godowskymade his first appearance in the United States in Boston, under the auspices ofthe Clara Louise Kellogg Concert Company, then touring with that singer andwith the singer Emma Thursby. 1885 brought appearances at the New York Casino,in weekly alternation with the Venezuelan pianist Teresa Carreno, and thefollowing year he undertook a tour of Canada with the Belgian violinist OvideMusin, for whom Saint-Sa?½ns had written his Morceau de concert. In thehope of studying with Liszt, Godowsky returned to Europe, but, learning ofLiszt's death from a newspaper, he travelled, instead, to Paris, with theobject of studying with Camille Saint-Sa?½ns, distinguished equally as a pianistand a composer. Saint-Sa?½ns was impressed by Godowsky's playing and suggestedthat he should adopt him, on condition that he changed his name, a suggestionthat Godowsky rejected. For the better part of three years, however, theirrelationship continued, with Sundays spent together, Godowsky playing toSaint-Sa?½ns, before the latter played to his disciple his own compositions. Thecontact was a valuable one and allowed Godowsky to meet leading figures in contemporarymusical life, including Tchaikovsky, whose music he played in that composer'spresence at the Paris chamber-music society, La Trompette. In 1927, sixyears after the death of Saint-Sa?½ns, Godowsky transcribed for piano his mentor'sLa cygne (The Swan), from the Carnival of the Animals, and on hisown deathbed in 1938 had a friend play this to him.In 1890 Godowsky returned to America, where he joined thestaff of the New York College of Music, married, and took out Americancitizenship. While continuing his career as a performer, he visited Philadelphia in 1894 and 1895, as the head of the piano department at the music schoolfounded by Gilbert Raynold Combs, and from 1895 to 1900 led the piano departmentof the Chicago Conservatory. A successful concert in Berlin persuaded him tosettle there in the latter year, teaching and using the city as his base for concerttours throughout Europe and the Near East. In 1909 he moved to Vienna to direct the piano masterclass at the Akademie der Tonkunst.There were American tours between 1912 and 1914 and with theoutbreak of war Godowsky settled again in the United States, giving concertsand clarifying his innovati
Tracklisting
Walter Hofbauer; Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice ; Marek Stilec
SLOVAK STATE PO:POLLACK
Nuremberg Phil Chor/Kvso
Danubius Quartet
Walter:Budapest Strauss Symp O
Various Artists
New Budapest Quartet:Prunyi
Duarte:Slovak Radio Symphony
Emanuele Delucchi
Scherbakov
Scherbakov
Scherbak
Scherbak
Scherbakov
Scherbakov
Konstantin Scherbakov
