Eugen d’Albert (1864-1932)
Piano Music 1
Suite in Fünf Sätzen, op.1 (c.1880)
Impromptu in D flat Major (c.1900-1915)
Albumblatt in D flat Major (c.1891)
Vier Klavierstücke, op.16 (1898)
Sofja Gülbadamova (piano)
rec. 2023, Villa Teresa, Coswig, Germany
Grand Piano GP969 [63]
Just the other day, I walked past the birthplace of Eugen d’Albert. Sadly, the house has gone, its site now occupied by a footbridge over the M8 motorway at Charing Cross in Glasgow. Curiously, this Scottish-born pianist and composer strongly eschewed the Auld Country; he became first a naturalised German and later a Swiss citizen.
Born on 10 April 1864, d’Albert was a prodigy who, following his early general education in Glasgow, entered London’s National Training School for Music (now the Royal College of Music). He studied under such luminaries as Ebenezer Prout, John Stainer, Arthur Sullivan and Ernst Pauer. After winning the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1881, he journeyed to Vienna for further study before embarking on a legendary international career as a virtuoso pianist.
Celebrated for his interpretations of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Liszt, he earned acclaim across Europe, drawing frequent comparisons to Ferruccio Busoni. Gradually, composition usurped his playing. He went on to write twenty-one operas, including his 1903 masterpiece Tiefland, two piano concertos, a symphony, chamber music, lieder and numerous solo piano works.
D’Albert also left a mark on musical leadership. He served as director of the Berlin Hochschule für Musik from 1907, and held the post of Kapellmeister to the Court of Weimar. He was prolific not only in composition and performance. He was married six times, including to the pianist-singer Teresa Carreño. He died in Riga on 3 March 1932, there specifically to secure a divorce from his sixth wife.
If we are looking for a hermeneutic through which to enjoy d’Albert’s music, we ought to know that his piano writing blends Lisztian, orchestral-scale sonority with Bach- and Brahms-derived contrapuntal discipline. It is further influenced by the dramatic, operatic expressiveness he cultivated as the composer of Tiefland.
I am beholden to the liner notes for information on the music on this disc.
The Suite in Fünf Sätzen is clearly one of d’Albert’s earliest works. In 1881, he met Hans Richter, who championed him after a London concerto triumph, brought him to Vienna and introduced him to Brahms and Liszt, decisively advancing his career. Sometime during these meetings, the young composer played them his Suite, which looks back to the Baroque era. The five movements are Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gavotte and Musette, and finally a Gigue. Yet this is not really pastiche. This early Suite brought striking harmonies that would have appeared quite bold at that time. The booklet suggests that it may have been a “homage to Johann Sebastian Bach, whose organ works he later arranged for the piano”. I was particularly taken by the ruminative Sarabande and the wildly contrapuntal Gigue, but the Gavotte and Musette remain most popular – if anything of his can nowadays be called popular.
A bonus to this disc is a world premiere recording. As the liner notes explain, there is a fascinating back story to Impromptu in D flat major. Johannes Brahms and Eugen d’Albert knew each other well despite an age difference of thirty-one years. D’Albert’s last wife, Hilde Fels, spent her final years in a retirement home where the Brahms Society performed. In the 1970s, she passed to the society the key from the composer’s last grand piano along with several sheets of manuscript paper. Among them was the said Impromptu, dedicated to the Swiss patron Mathilde Schwarzenbach, a member of a prominent Zurich family. The manuscript lay forgotten until pianist Sofja Gülbadamova discovered and revived it after more than a hundred years. It is deliciously romantic and not a moment too long. Impromptus often seem spontaneous or even improvisatory, but here we have a well-crafted, self-contained miniature. It is my favourite number on this album.
Little is known about the dreamy Albumblatt in D flat Major. The notes suggest that it may have been written around the time when the composer first heard Teresa Carreño at a concert in Berlin. He was bowled over by her talent and her beauty. The piece is wistful rather than passionate. Carreño and d’Albert were married in London in 1892.
The Vier Klavierstücke op.16 are the longest work on this disc. It would be easy to listen to these four pieces as a Sonata, but they lack the structural coherence of that form. The set begins with a long, nearly ten-minute Waltz in A flat. It is typically graceful but occasionally explodes into a burst of passion. The Scherzo is vivacious and fleet of foot, but is complemented by a violent central section. The capricious Intermezzo constantly changes mood from wistful to playful.
The final Klavierstück is a long and challenging Ballade, a dark lugubrious piece that pays homage to the musical idiom of Franz Liszt. While the explicit narrative behind it is not stated, it is suggested that – just as Liszt’s Ballades were evocations of the classical tale of Hero and Leander – d’Albert may also have been inspired by this legend. The story goes that Hero waits nightly for Leander, who swims the Hellespont to reach her; a storm drowns him, and she leaps to join him. It is certainly grim and disturbing.
I feel that the Vier Klavierstücke can be played as a group or as individual concert pieces. Perhaps the final Ballade is just a touch too long to be fully successful in the recital room, but there is much beauty and drama in it.
The recital is played on d’Albert’s 1898 Hamburg‑built Steinway. It was lost for decades, rediscovered in Munich, restored in 2020, and is now at the Villa Teresa in Coswig. It has regained its place as one of the region’s finest historic concert grands.
Full details on the Russian pianist Sofja Gülbadamova can be found on her official webpage. Born in Moscow, she trained at the Gnessin Special Musical College and later in Lübeck under James Tocco and Paris under Jacques Rouvier. She has won several major international piano competitions, including the 2008 Concours International pour Piano in Aix-en-Provence, the Francis Poulenc Competition, and the 2010 International Rosario Marciano Piano Competition, where she took home the Grand Prix. She has many recordings to her credit and has developed a particular passion for the piano works of Ernst von Dohnányi.
The performance she gives here is full of poise, colour and warmth, and shows a commanding grasp of d’Albert’s idiom. It is supported by great recorded sound and helpful (essential) liner notes.
I thoroughly enjoyed this disc of piano music composed by a fellow Glaswegian. This is Volume 1, so one hopes there will be more discs to follow. I look forward to reviewing them.
John France
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