A piano score of the recently rediscovered piano piece by Johannes Brahms, Albumblatt in A minor, has been published in an Urtext edition by Piano Street today.
The piece was discovered by the auction house Doyle of New York City, where the “Album Amicorum of Arnold Wehner” was sold for $158,500 in April last year.
The album belonged to Wehner who was director of music at Göttingen in the 1850s and contains musical contributions and quotations from important contemporary composers and musicians including Brahms, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Liszt.
Musicologists believe that Brahms wrote this piano piece in Arnold Wehner’s album in June of 1853, when he and his friend Edouard Remenyi were visiting Göttingen.
Recycled theme
The theme was also used by Brahms in the Scherzo’s trio section in his trio for piano, violin and French horn, composed 12 years later. The new finding is however not a brief sketch but a finished manuscript of a complete piano piece, clearly written and including performance markings.
Who was first?
The album was catalogued and described in Doyle New York’s sale catalogue of April 20th 2011 with the assistance of Dr. Michael Struck of the Johannes Brahms Gesamtausgabe, Kiel. However, earlier this month BBC claimed that conductor and musicologist Christopher Hogwood discovered the piece and that the world premiere was to be performed by András Schiff in a broadcast on January 21. Although Hogwood’s “discovery” appeared to be slightly misleading and the piece had already been publicly performed, the short video by BBC including an interesting discussion and samples of Schiff’s masterful performance is well worth watching: BBC Radio 3: András Schiff plays a lost work by Johannes Brahms
The new edition
A scanned copy of the manuscript has been online on Doyle New York as part of their April 2011 catalog, a transcription of it appeared on IMSLP this week and the piece will be included in Bärenreiter’s new edition of Brahms’ Horn Trio to be released in February.
Piano Street’s new urtext score may very well be the first officially published edition of this wonderful little piece. Regardless, we are happy to share it with the piano playing world for free to play and enjoy!
Please share it with your friends by posting the following link: http://www.pianostreet.com/albumblatt
…and post your comments about the piece below!
At University of California, Berkely, The Townsend Center’s Forum on the Humanities and the Public World presents eminent artists, political leaders, writers, and scholars, each representing a unique discipline, viewpoint, and medium. The series brings the humanities into dialogue with the critical issues at play in the public sphere. The Townsend Center at UC Berkeley has a long and distinguished tradition of humanistic scholarship, open dialogue, and pioneering innovation in the humanities. It is in this spirit that the Forum on the Humanities and the Public World presents leading figures from the academic and public worlds in settings designed for scholars and for the public at large.
On May 10th, 2010, the winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, pianist Garrick Ohlsson gave a lecture there entitled; “Why Chopin? and Other Questions”.
In this conversation lecture Garrick Ohlsson discusses issues such as Chopin’s relationship to the piano (3.00), Chopin and period instruments (10.28), the “pianistic” Chopin (14.55), the Nocturnes (30.22) and performs the Nocturne in D-flat major Op. 27/2 (54.33).
In the final section he answers questions from the audience:
- On emotional contents, tempo and let go (1.01.12)
- Chopin and other composers (1.04.25)
- Chopin’s relation to opera and singing (1.08.00)
Garrick Ohlsson is regarded as one of the world’s leading performers of the music of Frédéric Chopin. He is also noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as the Romantic repertoire. A prolific recording artist, Mr Ohlsson can be heard on the Arabesque, RCA Victor Red Seal, Angel, Bridge, BMG, Delos, Hänssler, Nonesuch, Telarc and Virgin Classics labels. His undertaking of the complete Beethoven sonatas for Bridge Records resulted in a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (vol. 3 in the series). His sixteen-disc set of the complete works of Chopin, originally recorded for Arabesque, was re-released by Hyperion.
Bulgaria-born pianist Alexis Weissenberg, one of the legendary performers of the twentieth century, died on January 8th in Lugano, Switzerland. He was 82. Alexis Weissenberg passed away after a long illness, people close to his family said.
Born in Sofia, the noted Jewish-born, French pianist of Bulgarian birth, Alexis Weissenberg, was taught to play the piano by his mother. Several members of her family were Vienna Conservatory-trained musicians, and he grew up in an environment where the sight-reading of chamber music was as common as watching television is for most children today. His second piano teacher was a disciplinarian dentist, his third Bulgaria’s top composer and pedagogue, Pancho Vladigerov, at whose house Weissenberg heard Dinu Lipatti perform.
At age 10, Alexis Weissenberg gave his first recital, performing, among other works, an etude of his own composition. Shortly thereafter, Weissenberg and his mother attempted to flee Bulgaria for Turkey as fascist terror deepened. They were caught and thrown in a concentration camp. “Only three elements remained constant,” Weissenberg recalled. “Silence, singing, and crying.” What saved the pair was an accordion Weissenberg had been given as a gift by an aunt. A German guard who liked music let Weissenberg play and after three months put the Weissenbergs on a train to Istanbul, throwing the accordion into their compartment through an open window as they left.
In 1945 they made their way to Turkey and then to Israel (then Palestine), where Alexis Weissenberg studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Music with Leo Kestenberg. In 1945 he made his first appearance as a soloist with an orchestra. Later he performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Bernstein. He left his accordion with a group of children after playing an outdoor concert and departed for the USA in 1946. He enrolled at the Juilliard School of Music, studying with Olga Samaroff and at times with Artur Schnabel and Wanda Landowska. He also made contact with Vladimir Horowitz, who urged Weissenberg to enter the Leventritt Award competition.
Weissenberg won the award in 1947, and his career was launched. His USA debut came in 1947, playing Sergei Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (or Philadelphia Orchestra) under the baton of George Szell.
After touring extensively the USA and Europe, Alexis Weissenberg moved in 1956 to Paris, eventually becoming a French citizen. For a decade beginning around that time, he took a hiatus from performing, subjecting himself to a reconstruction of his keyboard technique. In 1966 he resumed his career by giving a recital in Paris; later that year he gave Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in Berlin under Herbert von Karajan, who called him “one of the best pianists of our time”. Subsequently he toured all over the world, and remained active into old age.
“Without music life would be a mistake.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Aleksey Igudesman and Hyung-ki Joo are two classical musicians who have taken the world by storm with their unique and hilarious theatrical shows, which combine comedy with classical music and popular culture. Their clips on YouTube, to date, have gathered over 15 million hits, and they have appeared live on television in several countries, including an exclusive interview for CNN.
Equally comfortable performing in classical concert halls, as well as in stadiums in front of crowds of 18,000, their unified dream is to make classical music accessible to a wider and younger audience. Aleksey Igudesman and Richard Hyung-ki Joo have been working together since their very first meeting, at the age of 12, when they were pupils of the Yehudi Menuhin School. Very much inspired by Menuhin, their unified dream was to bring classical music to a larger audience.
Now, years later, following in the footsteps of luminaries such as Victor Borge, Dudley Moore, and even Glenn Gould, they have created a ground-breaking show that defies categorization and by marrying humour with music, they have come closer to realizing their dream.
December 31, 2011:
World Record of the Most Dancing Violinists
Igudesman and Joo searched the world and recruited the greatest dancing violinists who travelled at their own expense to create a world record of the Igudesman and Joo “Most Dancing Violinists” for UNICEF. Conducted by legendary Bond actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Sir Roger Moore, and ably assisted by the violin virtuoso Julian Rachlin, the Morrison Jig came alive in a unique way as they created the world record they journeyed so far and wide to achieve. Keep them dancing in perpetuity by donating to UNICEF in honor of UNICEF Austria’s 50th Birthday and the world record.
Where is the Remote Control?
We live in an age in which the market economy tyrannizes over art. The quality of an artwork is judged by the quantity of sales. We all squint at the sales-volume statistics, the chart placement and the commercial media presence. The more popular, the better. Everyone wants to be a superstar! But in consequence, we all too often lose sight of the true meaning of music: the uplifting union of feeling and intellect, the intimate and profoundly emotional expression of the soul. The humour project BEING GIDON KREMER takes a critical and entertaining look at classical music through a magnifying glass. By means of this close-up, they hope to achieve a healthy distance from all forms of commercial dumbing-down. So lets laugh together about whats laughable, and marvel afresh at musics endless marvels!
Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica, Aleksey Igudesman and Richard Hyung-ki Joo wish you a wonderful musical journey:
Elaborating on musical styles: Alla Molto Turca…
The Youtube classic: Rachmaninov had really BIG hands…
“The funniest show on music and the life of musicians I have seen since the great Victor Borge. I couldnt stop crying of laughter for the whole evening. Go see these gifted musicians. What they show is life at its funniest side. It isn‘t just entertaining, it is hilarious!”
- Gidon Kremer – violinist
Igudesman and Joo are not only musical virtuosi but also comic maestros. Any thing they touch turns to gold and I am enchanted by them every time I see them. Definitely one of the funniest and most entertaining shows I have ever seen and I can’t wait to see them again in action!”
- Mischa Maisky – cellist
“This new book by Boris Berman is a must read for those who care about the music of Prokofiev. It is a very in-depth guide by someone who has obviously spent many years thinking about and playing the music of this great genius. Bravo to Boris Berman!”
- Yefim Bronfman
Boris Berman, renowned concert pianist and teacher, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on Sergei Prokofiev. In this book published by Yale University Press, he draws on his intimate knowledge of Prokofiev’s work to guide music lovers and pianists through the composer’s nine piano sonatas. These cherished works, composed between 1910 and 1951, are today considered an indispensable part of the repertoire of every serious concert pianist. The book, written with a deep appreciation of Prokofiev’s style and creativity, looks at the sonatas within the context of Prokofiev’s complete oeuvre. For each sonata, Berman provides general information about the work and a discussion of the composition’s details and features, and in a section entitled “Master Class” he offers suggestions for interpretation and specific advice for performing. Berman also corrects for the first time various misprints in published scores and includes a helpful glossary of musical terms.
Boris Berman is professor of piano, Yale University School of Music, and an internationally renowned concert pianist. He has recorded Prokofiev’s complete works for piano solo on the Chandos Records label. His book Notes from the Pianist’s Bench, published by Yale University Press, was selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title in 2001.
Franz Liszt’s 12 Transcendental Etudes from 1851 are a set of pieces designed to develop technique while beeing musically engaging and enjoyable at the same time. They are considered some of the legendary virtuoso’s most demanding music.
1. Listen to the complete recordings by Claudio Arrau and Boris Berezovsky while following along in the scores!
2. Share your thoughts: Which are your favorite etudes and interpretations? Please post a comment here!
Click the pianist’s name to start the playback and then the “View Score” link.
The Transcendental Etudes S. 139 began in 1826, as a set of youthful and far less technically demanding exercises called the Étude en douze exercices (Study in twelve exercises) S. 136. Liszt then elaborated on these pieces considerably, and the far more technically difficult exercises called the Douze Grandes Études (Twelve Great Studies) S. 137 were then published in 1837. The Transcendental Etudes S. 139 are revisions of his Douze Grandes Etudes. As the third and final version, this set was published in 1852 and dedicated to Carl Czerny, Liszt’s piano teacher, and himself a prolific composer of etudes. The set included simplifications, for the most part; in addition to many other reductions, Liszt removed all stretches of greater than a tenth, making the piece more suitable for pianists with smaller hands and less technical skill. However, the fourth etude of the final set, Mazeppa, is actually more demanding than its 1837 version, since it very frequently alters and crosses the hand to create a “galloping” effect. When revising the 1837 set of etudes, Liszt added programmatic titles to all but the Etudes Nos. 2 and 10. These titles are in French and German. Later, one of Liszt’s editors Ferruccio Busoni gave the name Fusées (“Rockets”) to the Etude No. 2, and the name Appassionata to the Etude No. 10; however, Busoni’s titles are not commonly used or well known.
About the Arrau recordings
Arrau was entering his seventies when these performances were taped—in quad—in March 1974. An omnicompetent technique was intact, while expressiveness, suggesting the wisdom of a lifetime, blossomed. “Feux-follets” is punctilious yet quirky, leisurely and glowing, which is to say, not hustled. “Mazeppa” evinces more a canter than a gallop—virtuosically scintillant if not pyrotechnically coruscating—but still grandly compelling. If you want the fast-forward spin, try Freddy Kempf. The remaining Études are magisterial in any company, that is, even the best of today’s pianists could learn from them. “Paysage” is all rapture; “Ricordanza” (which Busoni compared to a bundle of faded love letters) is a steady spate of surprises and felicities, like fond memories awakening; the expressive crescendo of “Harmonies du soir” takes one’s breath. And so on.
- Fanfare Magazine
About the Berezovsky recordings
Liszt’s Douze Etudes d’exécution transcendante and pianist Boris Berezovsky were made for one another: under the extreme difficulty of execution and acrobatic tour de force of the Etudes Transcendantesis hidden a romantic musician steeped in poetry, Liszt. And behind the diabolical virtuosity and fantastic digital agility of the pianist, there is a performer of extreme sensitivity, Boris Berezovsky. We should not be obsessed with his curriculum vitae as an ace of the keyboard – he was born in 1969, studied with pianist Elisso Virsaladze at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow where he won the Gold Medal in the Tchaikovsky Competition and has since then led an international career – because with time Boris has learnt to sublimate his impressive technique and to simply put it at the service of the music. This film reveals to us a Berezovsky who is literally unequalled in his mastery of the terrible pitfalls of the Etudes Transcendantes – he even breaks a piano string… – and immerses us in the Romantic world of Liszt.
- Medici.tv
Classical Piano Blog – Top Picks 2011
Highly recommended reading on Piano Street’s Classical Piano Blog:
Anderson & Roe – When Words Fade –
Featuring Songs of the Night From Vivaldi to Radiohead
Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe form one of the most thrilling young piano duos performing today. The debut release from Anderson & Roe on the Steinway & Sons label is a showstopper captured in spectacular audiophile-quality sound by multi-Grammy-winning producer Steven Epstein.
The pair’s adrenalized concerts have been dazzling audiences around the world. Now Steinway makes 12 of their eclectic and electrifying performances available for your personal playlist. When Words Fade features original piano four-hand arrangements of vocal repertoire and popular songs by composers from Vivaldi, Rachmaninov, and Schubert to Michael Jackson, Radiohead, and Coldplay.
Packaged with the CD is a bonus DVD featuring dramatizations that re-interpret four of the wordless piano duos and their emotional potency with a modern twist.
“13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg” is a set of new pieces inspired by the aria of the Goldbergs, the piece that is the subject of the original variations themselves. Twelve composers were commissioned to write these solo piano works by the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival in 2004, where they were originally played by the pianist Gilbert Kalish.
No one variation exceeds 4 minutes. From baroque tinged to unmistakably Chopin to fugal, the variations on the Goldbergs take the listener’s lens on the iconic pieces and throw it into an entirely different realm. Pianist Gilbert Kalish then arranged the collection for its debut as a whole work, adding Bach’s theme to the beginning and to the end, and inserting Bach’s Variation 13 in the middle.
However, Kalish clearly states it is up to the pianist to decide how to perform these works, whether as a whole or specific movement(s) only.
In September 2011 Tritone Records announced the World Premiere release of 13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE GOLDBERG – new re-imaginings of Bach’s iconic Goldberg Variations by today’s most remarkable composers.
Hear pianist Lara Downes play and talk about the project:
Piano Street caught up with Lara Downes for six short questions on the project and album “13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg”:
Patrick Jovell: As we have seen on the video, you were virtually raised on The Goldberg Variations. How is it that particularly this work has earned such historic landmark status in western art music?
Lara Downes: The Goldberg Variations are important in so many ways. For one thing, the piece is considered to be the most ambitious work ever composed for harpsichord, so it stands out as a monument of its own time, as the largest keyboard work produced during the Baroque period.
The piece exists on a level that is radically different from its contemporary compositions in terms of its structural expansiveness.
PJ: Isn’t it true that this work demonstrates not only Bach’s exceptional musical range but also his exceptional abilities as a performer?
LD: Ironically, it is exactly this virtuosic scope and breadth that may have condemned the work to relative obscurity for so many years. The work demands exceptional interpretive and technical skills from a performer, and the negotiations involved in transitioning a work originally composed for the harpsichord to the modern piano would have been particularly sensitive on this large scale.
PJ: Can you describe the work’s path from obscurity up to the grand concert stages?
LD: After Wanda Landowska’s pioneering revival of Bach’s keyboard music in the early part of the 20th century (during which she performed and recorded the Goldbergs on the harpsichord), it fell to Glenn Gould, who chose the variations for his sensational 1955 debut recording, to bring the work to its current place of truly iconic status within the piano repertoire as well as the larger cultural consciousness.
PJ: What actually happened to the work in the hands of Gould’s?
LD: Gould’s energetic, audacious and thoroughly unique interpretation generated a new kind of appreciation for Bach’s music by combining the sensibilities of the harpsichord with the romantic potential and expanded resources of the concert grand. His recording captured the imagination of an entire generation, and brought the Goldbergs, and classical music itself, to life for thousands of new listeners.
PJ: How would you sum up the potential of this masterpiece?
LD: I think it’s the capacity of this work for reinvention and rejuvenation that has earned the Goldbergs such landmark status in the classical tradition. This music seems to speak to generation after generation with a sustained purity, energy and sense of vastness. This is what captures me and keeps me coming back, time and again, to this one piece of music. When I listen to the Goldbergs, I forget about my individual concerns, troubles, perspectives – and I enter a sphere of infinite possibility and vision.
PJ: In this context the contributing composers were both historically inspired and thankful, I guess?
LD: 13 WAYS of Looking at the Goldberg is, to me, a wonderful acknowledgment of that possibility. This project celebrates the history of Bach’s monumental piece of music, its journeys across the centuries and the generations. In thirteen new voices, this music answers back across time and place to Bach, with all the gratitude and affection that
we musicians owe him, now and always.
The project was inspired by the poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a
Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens, a minimalist and mind-blowing portrait of
perspective. The fifth stanza of that poem includes the basic idea of
the “13 Ways” project:
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
The pieces:
Bach: Aria, from Goldberg Variations BWV 988
C. Curtis-Smith: Rube Goldberg Variation
Jennifer Higdon: The Gilmore Variation
Mischa Sarche Zupko: Ghost Variation
Stanley Walden: Fantasy Variation
Bright Sheng: Variation Fugato
Derek Bermel: Kontraphunktus
Bach: Variation 13 from Goldberg Variations
David Del Tredici: My Goldberg (Gymnopedie No. 1)
Fred Lerdahl: Chasing Goldberg
William Bolcom: Yet Another Goldberg Variation (for left hand alone)
(Canon Inversa)
Lukas Foss: Goldmore Variation
Ralf Gothoni: Variation on Variation with Variation
Fred Hersch: Melancholy Minuet
Bach: Aria (reprise) from Goldberg Variations
Brahms – Albumblatt in A minor
András Schiff plays “Albumblatt” in A minor by Johannes Brahms
“This new book by Boris Berman is a must read for those who care about the music of Prokofiev. It is a very in-depth guide by someone who has obviously spent many years thinking about and playing the music of this great genius. Bravo to Boris Berman!” 
Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe form one of the most thrilling young piano duos performing today. The debut release from Anderson & Roe on the Steinway & Sons label is a showstopper captured in spectacular audiophile-quality sound by multi-Grammy-winning producer Steven Epstein. 
Piano Street caught up with Lara Downes for six short questions on the project and album “13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg”:
