Korngold/ Schmidt: Music for Strings & Piano Left Hand
Our Price: $11.53
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.10 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more CD details
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
CD Details
Composer: Erich Wolfgang KorngoldComposer: Franz Schmidt
Performer: Leon Fleisher
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1998-05-19
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
- Suite for 2 Violins, Cello & Piano Left Hand, OP. 23: Praludium und Fuge - Kraftig und bestimmt
- Suite for 2 Violins, Cello & Piano Left Hand, OP. 23: Walzer - Nicht schnell, anmutig
- Suite for 2 Violins, Cello & Piano Left Hand, OP. 23: Groteske - Molgich rasch
- Suite for 2 Violins, Cello & Piano Left Hand, OP. 23: Lied - Schilt und innig - Nicht zu langsam
- Suite for 2 Violins, Cello & Piano Left Hand, OP. 23: Rondo - Finale (Variationen) - Schnell, heftig
- Quintet in G Major for 2 Violins, Viola, Cello & Piano Left Hand: Lebhaft, docht nicht schnell
- Quintet in G Major for 2 Violins, Viola, Cello & Piano Left Hand: Adagio
- Quintet in G Major for 2 Violins, Viola, Cello & Piano Left Hand: Sehr ruhig
- Quintet in G Major for 2 Violins, Viola, Cello & Piano Left Hand: Sehr lebhaft
Music reviews of Korngold/ Schmidt: Music for Strings & Piano Left Hand
Music Review: Korngold the real masterpiece here, finely balancing its straussian languidness and a more bartokian muscularity
Rating: 5 Stars
Now that he has recovered the use of his right hand, it can be said that there was at least one positive side to the illness ("focal dystonia" it is called) that afflicted Leon Fleisher in 1965 (he was 37 then) and cut short the fantastic career that should have been opened to him: to have enabled him to explore rare repertoire for the left-hand alone, and especially all those compositions initiated by the famous Paul Wittgenstein, the commissioner of, among others, Ravel's left-hand PC, Prokofiev's (his 4th), Britten's Diversions. Or I should rather say: there might have been a positive side. Because, at least on record, Fleisher didn't nearly offer as much of those discoveries as he might have. The liner notes mention that Franz Schmidt wrote 5 compositions for Wittgenstein other than this Quintet for Piano Left-Hand and String Quartet: a solo Toccata, two concertante works (both have just been recorded by Carlo Grante, Schmidt: Concertane Variations/Concerto for The Left Hand) and two other Piano Quintets. With all due respect (admiration even), what has Fleisher been doing all these years?
There must be a story to the present recordings as well, and I'd love to know it: both compositions were recorded in 1991 and 1993, but released by Sony only in 1998. Why? Anyway, let's welcome what we do get, rather than lament what we don't and might have.
Korngold's Suite op 23 is a superb composition, one of the best I've heard of this composer whose music I often find too late-romantically over-bloated and sentimentally lyrical. It starts with an impressively powerful statement played by solo piano, a kind of angry Rachmaninoff-like Bach choral-prelude and is followed by what is said to be a fugue but sounds much more like a series of variations (and wonderfully imaginative ones too) on, if my ears are right (the notes, very scanty on this piece, don't mention it), the B-A-C-H theme. The third movement is an equally impressive scherzo of bartokian vigor - not what I expected from Korngold, whose music I've known to be more swooning and fussy, a style well illustrated by the second movement Waltz, which sounds like an arrangement straight out of Rosenkavalier. But the 4th (and second slow) movement avoids that kind of sentimentality: it is a kind of "time-at-a-standstill" movement, with some daring harmonies, evocative of some Mahler "adagio" finale (think of the 3rd Symphony, the 9th or Das Lied) for Piano Quartet. The finale is (another?) series of variations, starting like merry Brahms, but soon moving in more unexpected and modern stylistic areas, muscular and vigorous and similar to the scherzo (around the 3-minute mark), then into regions of burning Brahmsian lyricism, and later still of wonderful coloristic subtlety and evocative power (try the mysterious trills at 5:30). This must be one of the great masterpieces of Late-Romantic chamber music.
The Franz Schmidt G. major Quintet is recorded more often, but it is usually played in Friedrich Wührer's arrangement for two hands, so it is good to have it in its original form. That said, I am not as taken with the piece as with Korngold's Suite. It has much of the post-Brahms, Rosenkavalier-evocative languidness of Korngold but little of the latter's muscle. The first movement ("lively, but not fast") is playful and easy-going rather than animated, and the third movement scherzo begins with a "ruhig" indication (calm), with its development returning regularly to that mood after going through more animated (and, here, definitely fugal!) sections. Only is the finale animated and playful, and again quite Brahmsian in character I find, but without Brahms' unique textures. As a result the Quintet feels as a continuously slow-moving or at least relaxed piece, and, at respectively 11:26 and 10:25, I find that the two first movements outstay their welcome (and the 8 minutes of the scherzo aren't far behind). At 4:05 in the slow movement (2nd movement) comes a nice passage in stubborn, dotted rhythms, evocative of a despaired funeral march It lasts less than two minutes.
Fleisher is joined by a stellar cast of stringers and they play with unfailing beauty of tone. TT 75 minutes. Liner notes not very informative on the Korngold piece.I'll file this CD under Korngold, but it is, first and foremost, a fine tribute to the artistry of Leon Fleisher.
Classical CDs
Music Genres
Bestsellers in Classical CDs
Winterscapesby London Philharmonic
Prophetic Voice; Published: 2000-07; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $2.75
Price in other shops:
The Queen, the Bear, & the Bumblebeeby Dini Petty
Children's Group; Published: 2001-03; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $13.38
Price in other shops:
Classical Kids - Beethoven Lives Upstairs CdrRelease date: 2000-04-05; Music CD
Best price: $24.98
Tchaikovsky (Life and Works (Naxos))by Malcolm Sinclair, Jeremy Siepmann
Naxos; Published: 2003-11; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $35.99
![Jose Carreras - Jubileum Concert [VHS] Image](/images/Jose-Carreras-Jubileum-Concert-VHS-1584481471-X.jpg){kind=small}
Jose Carreras - Jose Carreras - Jubileum Concert [VHS]Sling Shot; Release date: 2000-04-18; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $5.86
Price in other shops:
![Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker / Nureyev, Park, Royal Ballet [VHS] Image](/images/Tchaikovsky-The-Nutcracker-Nureyev-Park-Royal-Ballet-VHS-156127092X-X.jpg){kind=small}
Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker / Nureyev, Park, Royal Ballet [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1997-09-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.89
Price in other shops:
![Lonely Town Lonley Street / Sergeant's Early Dream [VHS] Image](/images/Lonely-Town-Lonley-Street-Sergeant-Early-Dream-VHS-1561270857-X.jpg){kind=small}
Rambert Dance Company - Lonely Town Lonley Street / Sergeant's Early Dream [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1997-10-28; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops:
Winter Music: Composing the Northby John Luther Adams
Wesleyan; Published: 2004-11-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $25.21
Price in other shops:
![Puccini - La Fanciulla del West / Santi, Domingo, Neblett, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS] Image](/images/Puccini-La-Fanciulla-del-West-Santi-Domingo-Neblett-Royal-Opera-Covent-Garden-VHS-0769720382-X.jpg){kind=small}
Puccini - La Fanciulla del West / Santi, Domingo, Neblett, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1999-05-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $6.38
Price in other shops:
![Verdi - Falstaff / Giulini, Bruson, Ricciarelli, Nucci, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS] Image](/images/Verdi-Falstaff-Giulini-Bruson-Ricciarelli-Nucci-Royal-Opera-Covent-Garden-VHS-0769720358-X.jpg){kind=small}
Verdi - Falstaff / Giulini, Bruson, Ricciarelli, Nucci, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1999-05-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $12.95
Price in other shops:
Similar CDs
Shostakovich: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2,Opp.35,102 / Piano Quintet,Op.57Release date: 1999-11-23; Music CD
Best price: $6.15
Price in other shops:
Simpson: The Complete Solo Piano MusicRelease date: 1996-02-09; Music CD
Best price: $13.88
Price in other shops:
Franz Schmidt: The String QuartetsRelease date: 1996-04-02; Music CD
Best price: $11.95
Price in other shops:
Franz Schmidt: Beethoven Variations Piano ConcertoRelease date: 2010-07-27; Music CD
Best price: $9.00
Price in other shops: