Rosetta Stone Archive
CHOPIN: 24 Preludes; SCHUMANN: Fantasie in C Major – Horacio Gutierrez, p. – Bridge
Noble and commanding, the Gutierrez renditions of two Romantic staples should bring repeated delights. CHOPIN: 24 Preludes, Op. 28; SCHUMANN: Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17 – Horacio Gutierrez, p. – Bridge 9479, 65:56 (10/7/16) [Distr. by Albany] ****: Horatio Gutierrez (b. 1948) addresses (rec. 26-28 March 2015) two of the Romantic pillars of keyboard composition, the 1838 Chopin Preludes, and the 1839 Fantasie of Robert Schumann, works whose rhetoric and exalted gestures – along with the Liszt b minor Sonata – virtually embody the spirit of the age. The Chopin Preludes provide a kind of Rosetta Stone for the Romantic sensibility, 24 pieces in all the major and minor tonalities whose one concession to the Classical form lies in their following the circle of fifths. Chopin had taken a copy of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier with him to Majorca, and he studiously absorbed much of Bach’s concentrated lyricism and contrapuntal models, but he eschewed any additional component to his preludes: none of them attaches to an ensuing fugue or fantasia. Instead, the mighty drama Chopin effects lies within the core of each miniature – say, in the f-sharp minor – whose angry figures relent only in the last measures. True, […]
SCHUMANN: Davidsbuendlertaenze; ELIASSON: Disegno 2; CHOPIN: Piano Sonata No. 2 “Funeral March” – Beth Levin, p. – Navona
Powerful and idiosyncratic, Beth Levin has her own ideas of “Romantic” repertory. SCHUMANN: Davidsbuendlertaenze, Op. 6; ELIASSON: Disegno 2 for Piano; CHOPIN: Piano Sonata No. 2 in b-flat, Op. 35 “Funeral March” – Beth Levin, p. – Navona NV6016, 63:00 (1/8/16) [Distr. by Parma] ****: Philadelphia-born pianist Beth Levin (b. 1950) continues to perform in a Romantic tradition set by her teachers Milan Filar, Leonard Shure, and Rudolf Serkin. On this Navona disc (rec. 27 July 2015), Levin approaches two arch Romantics, Schumann and Chopin, as well as an unfamiliar, modern contemporary, Anders Eliasson (1947-2013). The major work, the 1837 Dances of the Davids-League of Robert Schumann, allow Levin to project a variety of touches and colors rife with personality and psychic ecstasies. While commentators usually focus on the personal labyrinths involved with Florestan and Eusebius – Schumann’s extrovert and introvert projections of self – I like to characterize these eighteen “tempi of initiation” as a Rosetta Stone for Schumann’s musical syntax, opening as it does with a quote from a Clara Wieck piece – her own key tends to C Major. Davidsbuendlertaenze appear as two sets of nine dances, with occasionally repeated drooping figures and rhetorical associations. As […]
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
Cedille
