Reminiscences de Norma

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Some people will be familiar with the rightly famous paraphrase by Liszt, but I doubt many will know of this  highly obscure paraphrase, by the Austrian pianist-composer Alfred Jaëll.

Alfred Jaëll received his first music lessons from his father Eduard. Aged only eleven, he made his first overseas appearance in Italy, receiving such acclaim both there and at home in Vienna such applause that Carl Czerny offered to guide his further studies.

From 1844 Jaëll undertook concert tours through Italy, Germany, Belgium and France, and achieved considerable fame through a lengthy tour of USA and Canada in the 1850s. In 1857 he was appointed by Court Pianist by King George V of Hanover.

Despite all this, he is nowadays at best a very minor and virtually unrecorded musical footnote in the history books: if his name attracts a flicker of recognition from the connoisseur, it is probably as the husband of the pianist and pedagogue Marie Jaëll (1846-1925, née Trautmann), whose compositions have attracted some attention lately. Jaëll was on friendly terms with Liszt, who wrote warmly of his playing.

His Réminiscences de Norma, based on the opera by Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835), arguably bears some resemblance to Liszt's epic paraphrase, but is a little shorter and incorporates the famous aria Casta diva, which Liszt chose to omit.

Compared to the approximately contemporaneous treatment of Casta diva by Thalberg, Jaëll presents it in a more overtly romantic manner, whereas Thalberg remains in a world at least residually influenced by classicism.

This is my studio recording, with sheet music.

[georgey]

Perfect performance and perfectly recorded using a perfectly tuned piano.  I feel that this Jaell arrangement is well worth hearing.  How did you make sure that the piano was perfectly tuned for this CD? 

[ronde_des_sylphes]

No recording is ever perfect

The piano was maybe a touch bright, tbh. I suppose the simple answer to your question is "paying someone competent to tune it immediately before the recording"!

I have a very definite soft spot for this arrangement, but I think his introduction would work better, dramatically speaking, if it was cut to half of the length.

[georgey]

No recording is ever perfect

The piano was maybe a touch bright, tbh. I suppose the simple answer to your question is "paying someone competent to tune it immediately before the recording"!

I have a very definite soft spot for this arrangement, but I think his introduction would work better, dramatically speaking, if it was cut to half of the length.

"Cut to half the length" - I agree this might have been a good idea for Jaell to consider. 

"paying someone competent to tune it immediately before the recording" - I figured this was done.  You must have someone good that you trust.

Thanks.

[furtwaengler]

Bravo! Very nice unveiling this lost wonder. I am planning to play Liszt’s in the spring, and the one thing I can say in its favor, Casta Diva aside, is Liszt had a way of tying his ideas together to make epic, cohesive, dramatic musical arguments like a master weaver of oriental rugs. The Jaëll is a hodgepodge quilt in comparison, albeit, an entertaining one. I will always enjoy superhuman virtuosic feats performed master artists such as yourself.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Thanks! The Liszt one is definitely superior, as you say he has this way of connecting things into a narrative. I'm very fond of it, but I've always found the G maj lh octave section problematical. The Casta Diva section of this is a special little episode though; I find it a nice romantic counterpart to the more classical Thalberg transcription. Curious that Liszt never set the aria.

[quantum]

Thank you for sharing this.  Wonderful playing.  I have not heard this paraphrase before. 

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Thank you. Jaell wrote a host of paraphrases, but they are almost totally unknown. Katsaris recorded a rather salonesque one on La Traviata, and this one, I'm pleased to say, was a world premiere recording.