Rarities of Piano Music at Schloss vor Husum from the 2023 festival
Contents listed after review
rec. 2023, Schloss vor Husum, Denmark
Danacord DACOCD979 [80]

When I discovered the recordings made at the Husum rarities of piano music festival in the mid 1990s I was overwhelmed. Early in my classical listening I discovered the vast unexplored landscapes of unplayed piano repertoire. I wanted to hear as much as I could, picking up recordings of Tausig and Friedman, Godowsky and Alkan, Cui and Blumenfeld and whatever else I could lay my hands on as it appeared and here was a festival and recording company actually promoting it! Of course the world is a different place now and there is so much that I never expected to hear available at the touch of a play button but I still feel like a kid in a toy shop when I see Danacord have put up the latest release details; I hope that feeling never stops.

Admittedly there aren’t as many gaps filled as there used to be but there are always some and what a year this is. Daniel Grimwood kicks off in admirable style with three pieces by William Sterndale Bennett; his piano concertos have appeared on disc and Ilona Prunyi recorded three solo CDs in 1992 but his piano music is mostly neglected. Orphaned by the age of three he was brought up by his paternal grandfather John Bennett who gave him guidance sufficient to qualify him for free entry to the Royal Academy of Music that had been founded only four years earlier in 1822. He remained there for a decade. Mendelssohn heard him in 1833 and was impressed enough to invite him to Leipzig, a city he visited several times; he also played one of his piano concertos with Mendelssohn on the podium. The influence of Mendelssohn can certainly be heard especially in the opening pastorale that is as near to a song without words as one can imagine, its right hand melody played over a rolling left hand accompaniment. The rondino is a finger twister – even Grimwood loses half a bar but covers it very well – and the capriccio alternates a staccato motif with a more dramatic major key passages. He continues with the gigantic Grosses Konzertsolo that Liszt wrote between 1849 and 1851 eventually arranging it for two pianos as the concerto pathètique, a guise that it is a little more familiar in. He wrote it with composer-pianist Adolf von Henselt in mind and that is clear from some of the stretches in the faster passage work; Grimwood has made a special study of Henselt’s piano works and has recorded the two books of études so the immense technical challenges of this work are well within his grasp and this is a fabulous performance in all respects. The booklet writes that those who view Liszt as an empty showman will find fodder for their cannons but adds such idle criticism misses the point. Indeed it does; yes there is a lot of bombast in the writing but I have always loved the lyrical themes and will admit that they are amongst my favourite in his output. The piece, cast in one long movement with two extended lyrical sections, is a precursor to works such as the Sonata in B minor and the wonderful second Ballade and as such forms an important part of his catalogue. Thanks to Grimwood for getting it out there. He ends with a small Romance that I have never come across by a Liszt pupil who played duets with the master, Sophie Menter. Another song without words it has a lovely melody over a richly harmonised arpeggio accompaniment that reminds one of pieces such as Henselt’s Wiegenlied. I wonder if the final few bars are actually written by Grimwood? The printed score finishes at 4:12 but then Grimwood plays another forty seconds or so of music very much fitting the style of the piece but ending on a dominant chord – did he prelude into the next piece in his recital in the style of the 19^th century pianists? If he did that work alas is not included here.

From one female pianist composer to another but one who is far more obscure, Jeanette Dillon. She was born in Orléans in 1823, a prodigy who learned piano from her mother and harmony from organist Marius Gueit. She appeared to find her spiritual home in the organ loft and became the organist at the cathedral in Meaux though she also gave piano recitals and was by all accounts a gifted improviser. Her early death limited what we hear of her though hopefully manuscripts exist of pieces that we know of but which did not reach publication. She performed the ten pieces that comprise her Contes fantastiques de Hoffmann in March 1853, just a year before her untimely death. Jean-Frédéric Neuberger played the entire work, all 75 minutes of it, at the 2023 festival and will go on to perform it in Paris and, we hope, will record it. We hear him in the first piece the violin of Cremona which opens in virtuosic mood, an energetic can-can that has echoes of Alkan before moving into more lyrical territory. As a whole the work has something of an operatic fantasy about it with it new themes and highly contrasted melodic, contemplative and heroically virtuosic passages. Do not listen for violin impersonations; Dillon herself describes the piece as capturing the essence of Hoffmann’s story and the characters therein; Councillor Krespel and his daughter Antonie and their shared love of music, a love that ultimately causes her demise. It is unusual and refreshing to hear a piece from the mid 19^th century that doesn’t make you immediately think Oh this sounds like Liszt or Schumann and I am eager to hear the whole set.

Alfonso Soldano is represented by a Bortkiewicz Nocturne and one of his masterful transcriptions of Rachmaninov songs, all of which he played and has recorded for Divine Art records (Divine Art Recordings DDA25215 review). Rachmaninov’s songs are so beautiful and not heard half as often as they deserve but thanks to his glorious accompaniments and rich vocal lines they are perfect as the basis for piano transcriptions – Rachmaninov even transcribed two of them himself, Lilacs and Daisies, as did his friend Alexander Siloti, Child, though art as lovely as a flower and Vocalise. Several pianists have continued that tradition and Soldano’s are a worthy addition to that canon. I found the divine art recording lacking in warmth so it is good to have at least this one in richer sound. He also recorded Bortkiewicz for the same label and includes the delicious Nocturne from his three pieces Op 24. It combines Bortkiewicz’s easy melodic and romantic style with early Scriabin – the first of the Op 32 poèmes comes to mind.

Alexander von Zemlinsky is perhaps best known as Schoenberg’s teacher and his orchestral and vocal music, while not very well known has at least attracted some top flight performers. We do not tend to think piano music and there are really only a handful of works written in his twenties. The four Fantasies on poems of Richard Dehmel were played by the festival’s founder Peter Froundjian in the 2008 festival and now we get to hear all four played by Andrey Gugnin. Each fantasy is headed by one of Dehmel’s poems and we hear Voice of the Evening, Woodland bliss, Love and Song of the beetle. The first three are slow and feature the kind of lush chromaticism of Richard Strauss and, not surprisingly, early Schoenberg with the second being more extended and bringing in a more decorated final verse when the poet tells that within the welcoming branches he belongs wholly to you. The gently lilting final fantasy is an affectionate picture of the May Beetle sharing some of the humour of Mahler’s writing; it would make for a wonderful encore. Grieg’s Bachlein is a perfect follow up, sharing as it does some of the same kind of shimmering figuration. Gugnin brings a wonderfully hushed meditative mood to the poems while finding the gentle humour in the last two numbers. 

The works of Leopold Godowsky have often featured at Husum and we have three pieces here, two of the études after Chopin and a rarity in his meditation. The études are perhaps not so infamous as they once were with several complete versions available including those by Marc-André Hamelin and Konstantin Scherbakov but they remain as breathtaking as ever. Vadym Kholodenko makes light work of one of the most fiendish, his Ignis fatuus, will’o the wisp étude based on Chopin’s already tricky chromatic study Op 10 No 2. The chromatic writing goes into the left hand and the right hand is given an unending series of triplet chords that dance over the constant sequence of four semiquavers…and all played as lightly as possible…oh, and on the reprise the left hand is given a tune to play alongside the semiquavers. None of these difficulties are audible in Kholodenko’s feather-light playing. He couples it with the beautiful left hand version of Op 10 No 6 with its gossamer web of figuration wrapping around Chopin’s melancholy melody. Less melancholic but still haunting is the melody to Godowsky’s meditation from 1930 which appears in versions for both hands and left hand alone, the version that Gabrielian plays. Those familiar with his Gardens of Buitenzorg will recognise the complex interweaving of texture and chromatic but resolutely tonal harmony; a welcome outing for an example of Godowsky’s original and often overlooked music. Another melody brings the recital to an end but this is far more familiar, the flute solo from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. Often heard in Sgambati’s marvellous transcription and occasionally in that by Abram Chasins – there’s a wonderful recording by Abbey Simon – it has also been transcribed by Ignaz Friedman but Gabrielian plays the version by Alexander Siloti who gives a more romantic feel to the accompaniment while remaining faithful to the mood. Gabrielian is quite touching with lovely pianissimo playing.

Once again a feast for pianophiles with some real discoveries. The performances can’t be faulted and all the performers respond to that sense of exploration and wonder that makes this festival such a success. Long may that continue.

Rob Challinor

Previous review: John France (August 2024)
Reviews of other recordings from Schloss vor Husum are available here

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Contents
William Sterndale Bennett (1816-1875)
Three pieces, Op 28 (1846-49)
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Grosses Konzertsolo (1850)
Sophie Mentor (1846-1918)
Romance, Op 5 (1907)
Daniel Grimwood (piano)
Juliette Dillon (1823-1854)
Contes fantastiques de Hoffmann, No 6 Le violon de Crémone (1847)
Jean-Frédéric Neuberger (piano)
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) 
Night is sorrowful, Op 26 No 12 – arr. Alfonso Soldano (b.1986)
Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952)
Nocturne, Op 24 No 1: Diana
Alfonso Soldano (piano)
Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942)
Fantasien über Gedichte con Richard Dehmel, Op 9 (1898-1900)
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Lyric pieces Bk.7 Bächlein, Op 62 No 4
Andrey Gugnin (piano)
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) arr. Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938)
Studies on Chopin’s études
No 4 after Op 10 No 2 Ignis fatuus
No 6 after Op 10 No 6 for left hand
Vadym Kholodenko (piano)
Leopold Godowsky
Meditation (1930)
Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) arr. Alexander Siloti (1862-1945)
Melody from Orfeo ed Euridice
Tanya Gabrielian (piano)