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!
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.
“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.
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
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
The Moscow Conservatory piano school enjoys pride of place among Russia’s musical institutions. Its outstanding graduates have included Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Medtner, Richter, Gilels, Ashkenazy and Pletnev. Yet while their mastery transcends any process of formal teaching, behind these great names lies a teaching process whose workings are little known to the outside world – except in occasional publications such as Heinrich Neuhaus’ The Art of Piano Playing. The Russian Piano School offers a further and fuller insight into the views on technique and interpretation of several of the 20th century’s greatest Russian teachers and performers. Contributions come from the elder generation of Alexander Goldenweiser (a friend and contemporary of Rachmaninov), his pupil Samuel Feinberg, Heinrich Neuhaus and Konstantin Igumnov, as well as from a younger generation including Yakov Flier, Lev Oborin, Yakov Zak, and Grigorii Ginzburg, who tutored many master pianists of the present day. The book addresses several of the major technical and interpretative problems facing the pianist. This book should be of interest to both piano teachers and students, to professional performers, and also to many amateurs who aspire to reach beyond the first foothills of Parnassus.
Part One offers a series of writings that illustrate the philosophy and methods of the school:
The Road to Artistry, Samuil Feinberg
Advice from a Pianist and Teacher, Alexander Goldenweiser
Some Principles of Pianoforte Technique, Lev Oborin
Some Remarks on Technique, Konstantin Igumnov
Notes on Mastery of the Piano, Grigorii Ginzburg
Part Two gives a privileged insight into the classroom methods of various teachers as they work with students on that repertoire in which Russian artists have always particularly excelled – Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev:
Beethoven’s Appassionata: A Performer’s Commentary, Samuil Feinberg
Three Answers to Questions about Beethoven’s Sonata Appassionata, Sviatoslav Richter
Work on Beethoven’s Sonata in A major Opus 101, Heinrich Neuhaus
Chopin Etudes (based on classes with Samuil Feinberg), Maria Eshchenko
Reflections on Chopin’s Fourth Ballade, Yakov Flier
Notes on Chopin’s Ballade in F minor, Alexander Goldenweiser
Chopin’s Fourth Ballade in F minor, Konstantin Igumnov
Lessons with Yakov Flier (on Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No 1 and Prokofiev’s Sonata No 3), Nina Lelchuk Lelchuk
Yakov Zak as Teacher (on Liszt’s B-minor Sonata, Schumann’s Etudes Symphoniques, and Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody), Olga Stupakova
Christopher Barnes, professor of Slavic languages at the University of Toronto, has translated hitherto unavailable essays, critiques and lectures from the leading teaching lights at the Moscow Conservatoire. Pursuing a parallel interest in music, he studied piano privately and is known as a lecturer-recitalist and a broadcaster on Russian musical topics. He is currently at work on a monograph on Scriabin and a history of Russian pianism.
Alan Walker’s three-volume biography of Franz Liszt, which took him 25 years to complete, has been very influential. Common adjectives attached to the work include “monumental” and “magisterial” and it is said to have “unearthed much new material and provided a strong stimulus for further research”. Walker himself says that when he found, as a BBC producer compiling notes for program announcers, that “there wasn’t a decent book in English on Liszt”, he eventually decided to write one himself, but was determined “not to make a major statement that couldn’t be supported by documents …and because Liszt himself was a traveler the archives were everywhere.”
The final volume of Walker’s monumental study (Franz Liszt, Vol. 1: The Virtuoso Years, 1811-47, Franz Liszt, Vol. 2: The Weimar Years, 1848-61, Franz Liszt, Volume 3: The Final Years, 1861-1886) draws upon some recent scholarship to present a more complete picture of Liszt’s life and achievements than had been previously possible. Liszt’s remarkably peripatetic existence creates manifold challenges for the conscientious scholar but Walker is more than equal to the task. His narrative is copiously footnoted yet never seems to bog down in minutiae. In fact, quite the opposite: the prose is so lively that the reader is often swept along by the narrative. A particularly fascinating section concerns the infamous Cosima Liszt-Hans von BĂĽlow-Richard Wagner triangle, which is skillfully dissected by Walker to separate legend from accurate history. Liszt emerges as an unmistakably generous and self-effacing man in his later years whose prodigious gifts as a composer and pianist were undimmed until the very end. Walker provides frequent musical examples throughout, and his comments on them are not too technical for the general reader. Walker’s meticulously researched and engagingly written book is well illustrated and contains numerous musical examples and insightful analyses. It is an impressive conclusion to a biography that should become the standard work on its subject.
“A conscientious scholar passionate about his subject, Mr. Walker makes the man and his age come to life. These three volumes will be the definitive work to which all subsequent Liszt biographies will aspire.”
- Harold C. Schonberg, Wall Street Journal
“What distinguishes Walker from Liszt’s dozens of earlier biographers is that he is equally strong on the music and the life. A formidable musicologist with a lively polemical style, he discusses the composer’s works with greater understanding and clarity than any previous biographer. And whereas many have recycled the same erroneous, often damaging information, Walker has relied on his own prodigious, globe-trotting research, a project spanning twenty-five years. The result is a textured portrait of Liszt and his times without rival.”
- Time Magazine
“If you want the single best study of Franz Liszt, and one at a surprisingly reasonable price at that, Alan Walker’s study is the one to get. It has won numerous awards, understandably, and can be recommended without a moment’s hesitation. It’s a long undertaking to read from 1811 (or rather, from the chapters on Liszt’s family background) to his death (and, again, the musical context of his surviving family members). But it’s also sufficiently readable to make even bedtime reading as much as responding to the work as a scholarly study. Enjoyable. Illuminating. Gripping. Definitive.”
- Classical Net
In a series of lively essays that tell us much not only about the phenomenon that was Franz Liszt but also about the musical and cultural life of nineteenth- century Europe, Alan Walker muses on aspects of Liszt’s life and work that he was unable to explore in his acclaimed three-volume biography of the great composer and pianist. Topics include Liszt’s contributions to the Lied, the lifelong impact of his encounter with Beethoven, his influence on students who became famous in their own right, his accomplishments in transcribing and editing the works of other composers, and his innovative piano technique. One chapter is devoted to the Sonata in B Minor, perhaps Liszt’s single most celebrated composition.
“If only I do not die here.” After falling ill during a visit to Bayreuth, Franz Liszt uttered this melancholy refrain throughout his final days, which were spent in rented rooms in a house opposite Wahnfried, the home of his daughter Cosima and his deceased son-in-law Richard Wagner. Attended by incompetent doctors and ignored and treated coldly by his daughter, the great composer endured needless pain and indignity, according to a knowledgeable eyewitness. Lina Schmalhausen, his student, caregiver, and close companion, recorded in her diary a graphic description of her teacher’s illness and death. Alan Walker here presents this never-before-published account of Liszt’s demise in the summer of 1886.
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”:
The Moscow Conservatory piano school enjoys pride of place among Russia’s musical institutions. Its outstanding graduates have included Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Medtner, Richter, Gilels, Ashkenazy and Pletnev. Yet while their mastery transcends any process of formal teaching, behind these great names lies a teaching process whose workings are little known to the outside world – except in occasional publications such as Heinrich Neuhaus’ The Art of Piano Playing.
Alan Walker’s three-volume biography of Franz Liszt, which took him 25 years to complete, has been very influential. Common adjectives attached to the work include “monumental” and “magisterial” and it is said to have “unearthed much new material and provided a strong stimulus for further research”. Walker himself says that when he found, as a BBC producer compiling notes for program announcers, that “there wasn’t a decent book in English on Liszt”, he eventually decided to write one himself, but was determined “not to make a major statement that couldn’t be supported by documents …and because Liszt himself was a traveler the archives were everywhere.”
A particularly fascinating section concerns the infamous Cosima Liszt-Hans von Bülow-Richard Wagner triangle, which is skillfully dissected by Walker to separate legend from accurate history. Liszt emerges as an unmistakably generous and self-effacing man in his later years whose prodigious gifts as a composer and pianist were undimmed until the very end. Walker provides frequent musical examples throughout, and his comments on them are not too technical for the general reader. Walker’s meticulously researched and engagingly written book is well illustrated and contains numerous musical examples and insightful analyses. It is an impressive conclusion to a biography that should become the standard work on its subject.
