Sergei Rachmaninoff The Russian Romanzasei Rachmaninoff: The Russian Romanzas

 by Georg Predota,  Interlude

The 83 Romances by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) include some of his finest and most memorable music. They are part of the Russian contribution to the great 19th-century stream of Romantic songs, and the composer cultivated the musical garden he inherited from Glinka and Tchaikovsky. Like Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff sought, above all, to capture the basic mood of a poetic text in a bright, melodic image, showing it in growth, dynamic intensity, and development.

Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1901

Meanwhile, the complexity of the piano accompaniment is dramatic and equal to the “architectonics of a plot-unfolded opera scene.” Combining the declamatory parts for voice with his supreme pianistic gifts, Rachmaninoff’s romanzas were specifically written for the Russian milieu. Once he left Russia for good at the end of 1917, he composed no more Russian songs.

6 Romances, Op. 4

Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov

The Six Romances, Op. 4, date from 1890 to 1893, and Rachmaninoff’s student years in Moscow. Demonstrating characteristically idiomatic keyboard writing, the set is informed by a distinctive clarity of texture as the piano accompaniment envelopes piercing vocal melodies of Schubertian incisiveness. “How long, my friend,” based on a poem by Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov, features expansive melodic lines and subdued pianistic colours.

Has it been so long, my friend, since I caught
your sad gaze at our farewell moment?
The ray of that farewell
penetrated my soul.

Has it been so long, my friend, since, blundering alone
in a constricting and strange crowd,
I rushed to you, distant beloved,
In a sad dream?

My desires faded… my heart ached…
Time stopped… my mind was numb…
Has it been so long ago, this calm?
But a whirlwind of reunion came rushing…

We are together anew, and the days rush along
As in a flying sea of waves,
And thoughts boil
And songs pour forth from my heart
Brimming over with thoughts of you!
(Trans. Jennifer Gliere)

6 Romances, Op. 8

Afanassi Fet

Rachmaninoff composed music to a substantial number of lyrical texts during his student days. The vast majority of these romances are not included in his first publications, but his choice of poems attests to a wide interest and sure feeling for literary quality. We already find Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev and Afanassi Fet, poets who represent some of the greatest flowering of Russian literature. However, for his second set of songs composed around 1893, Rachmaninoff relied on translations of Ukrainian and German poems.

Four of the Op. 8 set come from Heinrich Heine and Wolfgang von Goethe, and the other two from Taras Shevchenko. The “Water Lily” by Heinrich Heine is a brief two stanza poem of love between the water lilies of the lake and the bright moon above. Rachmaninoff’s setting opens and closes with a delicate but sprightly passage for the piano as the blooming of the lilies greet the moon. The vocal melody is lyrical and highly expressive as the youthful composer presents a warm and affectionate reading of Heine’s poem.

The slender water-lily
Stares at the heavens above,
And sees the moon who gazes
With the luminous eyes of love.

Blushing, she bends and lowers
Her head in a shamed retreat —
And there is the poor, pale lover,
Languishing at her feet!

12 Romances, Op. 14

Fyodor Tyutchev

In the twelve romances of Op. 14, Rachmaninoff strikingly changes the use of the piano. He places significant demands on the pianist, particularly in “Spring Waters”, based on a poem by Fyodor Tyutchev. The words conjure imagery of a violent Russian spring, breaking the ice of winter and threatening to drown the frozen fields. Dedicated to his old piano teacher Anna Ornatskaya, the piano accompaniment rushes forth with unhindered intensity and virtuosity.

White snow still covers all the fields
Yet streams already speak of spring:
Flowing, and waking the sleeping hills
Flowing, and sparkling, chattering all the while.

Proclaiming as they travel, near and far:
‘Spring is coming! Spring is coming soon!
We are the messengers of early Spring
She sent us on ahead, to let you know!

Spring is coming! Spring is coming soon!
Then come the warm and tranquil days of May,
When rosy-cheeked round dances of the young
Will follow in Spring’s train – a merry crowd!’

12 Romances, Op. 21

Sergei Rachmaninoff at 10 years old

During an interview in 1941, Rachmaninoff detailed how extra-musical impressions helped him in the process of creating music. “Ultimately, music is an expression of the composer’s individuality in its entirety,” he explained. “The composer’s music must express the spirit of the country in which he was born, his love, his faith and thoughts that have arisen under the impression of books and paintings that he loves. It should be a synthesis of the composer’s entire life experience.”

In his Op. 21 Romanzas, dating from 1900 to 1902, Rachmaninoff provides a finely controlled balance between voice and accompaniment. And it is once again the piano that offers deep insight into the text. Op. 21, No. 7, “How peaceful,” sets a poem by Countess Glafira Adolfoyna Einerling. The poetess describes a sunset and contemplates the bond between man, nature, and God. Full of gentle lyricism, the music is seemingly simple, but it is easy to hear that the true essence of Rachmaninoff’s musical imagination is already found in these early romances.

How peaceful…
Look there, in the distance
Shines the river like a flame,
The fields lie like a flowered carpet
Light clouds above us…
Here there are no people…
Here there is silence…
Here is only God—and I,
Flowers—and an aging pine,
And you, my dream.

15 Romances, Op. 26

Galina Galina

It took Rachmaninoff almost four years before he returned to setting poetry. The fifteen romanzas of Op. 26 date from the summer of 1906, and they continue to explore some of the declamatory vein introduced in his Op. 21. However, one striking exception is “Before my window,” a poem by Galina Galina nee Glafira Mamoshina. She began writing poetry at the age of 9, and her first poems were published in 1895. She also published a significant number of children’s works, both poem and prosaic, notably two collections of fairy tales. The poetry of her first years is dominated by love lyrics and subjects of spiritual experiences. With consummate skill and imagination, Rachmaninoff weaves a beautiful lyrical line between the voice and the piano.

The cherry tree flowers by my window,
Pensively it flowers in its silver raiment…
And its fresh and fragrant bough
Inclines to me and beckons me…

Blissfully, I inhale in the joyful breath
Of its quivering, airy blossoms,
Their sweet aroma clouds my mind,
And they sing wordless songs of love…
(Trans. Philip Ross Bullock) 

14 Romances, Op. 34

Alexander Pushkin

The majority of poems in Rachmaninoff’s Op. 34 was suggested to the composer by Marietta Shaginyan. Of Armenian descent, she grew up in Moscow under privileged circumstances and became one of the most prolific women writers in Russian literary history. She had a lifelong fascination with music and a very close friendship with Rachmaninoff.

As he writes, “Dear Dee, what if I ask you to find me some lyrics for the love songs I’m writing now? Something tells me you must know a whole lot, if not everything, about this. And I would rather have something sad because I’m really not good at writing cheerful things.” The first song of Op. 34 is a text from Pushkin titled “The Muse.” The set also includes the famous “Vocalise,” a song without words, written for a singer of very different gifts, Antonina Nezhdanova, whose lucid tones and light, elegant coloratura had been delighting Moscow Bolshoy audiences.

6 Romances, Op. 38

Antonina Nezhdanova

Rachmaninoff was satisfied and extremely happy with his Op. 34, for “they came to me easily with little trouble. Please, God, that I may continue to work in this way.” However, Rachmaninoff was to write only one more group of songs before he went into exile. Op. 38, written during the Great War in 1916, moves away from the Romantics and turns to Symbolist poetry by Balmont, Alexander Blok, Andrey Bely, Valery Bryusov, and Fyodor Sologub, among them.

Bust of Sergei Rachmaninoff

Rachmaninoff’s interest in words now took the form not of declamation and its melodic effect but their actual sounds and the implications this had for music. That poetic resonance emerges in almost impressionist textures, and the composer writes, “if everyone wrote nature poems like that, a composer would only have to touch the text, and a song would be made.” “Daisies,” a setting of a poem by Igor Severyanin became Rachmaninoff’s favourite song. Delicately balancing the piano and voice, Rachmaninoff later made a version for piano solo, but he wrote no more Russian romanzas in exile.

Oh, see how many daisies,
Here and there,
They blossom; they are plentiful; they are abundant.
They blossom.

Their petals are three-edged, like wings,
Like white silk;
You are the summer’s might! You are abundant joy,
You are radiant multitude!

Earth prepares to flower with the dew’s draught,
Giving sap to the stalks.
Oh maidens, Oh daisy stars, I love you!
(trans. Elizabeth Wiles)

The Evolution of Rachmaninoff's Music (From 11 to 67 Years Old)

451,780 views Premiered Mar 12, 2023

Enjoy this video showing the evolution of Rachmaninoff's music from age 11 to 67 years old. 0:00 11 Years Old: Piano Piece in D Minor, 1884 0:26 12 Years Old: Romance in A Minor For Violin and Piano, 1885 1:07 15 Years Old: 4 Pieces, IV. Gavotte, 1888 1:44 17 Years Old: 2 Pieces for 6 Hands, I. Waltz, 1890 2:09 18 Years Old: Canon in E Minor, 1891 2:33 19 Years Old: Morceaux de fantaisie, Op.3, II. Prélude, 1892 3:15 20 Years Old: Suite No.1, Op.5, IV. Easter, 1893 3:46 21 Years Old: Romance in G Major, 1894 4:24 22 Years Old: Symphony No.1, Op.13, I. Allegro ma non troppo, 1895 4:56 23 Years Old: Moments musicaux, Op.16, VI. Maestoso, 1896 5:30 26 Years Old: 2 Pieces, II. Fughetta, 1899 6:15 27 Years Old: Piano Concerto No.2, Op.18, I. Moderato, 1900 7:02 29 Years Old: 12 Romances, Op.21, V. Lilacs, 1902 7:36 30 Years Old: 10 Preludes, Op.23, IV. Andante cantabile, 1903 8:22 33 Years Old: Polka italienne, 1906 8:43 34 Years Old: Piano Sonata No.1, Op.28, I. Allegro moderato, 1907 9:09 36 Years Old: Piano Concerto No.3, Op.30, I. Allegro ma non tanto, 1909 9:50 37 Years Old: Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, Op.31, XII. We Sing to Thee, 1910 10:27 38 Years Old: Etudes-tableaux, Op.33, VI. Allegro con fuoco, 1911 11:14 39 Years Old: 14 Romances, Op.34, XIV. Vocalise, 1912 11:46 40 Years Old: Piano Sonata No.2, Op.36, I. Allegro agitato, 1913 12:33 42 Years Old: All-Night Vigil, Op.37, VI. Ave Maria, 1915 13:03 43 Years Old: Etudes-tableaux, Op.39, VI. Little Red Riding Hood, 1916 13:47 44 Years Old: Fragments, 1917 14:31 53 Years Old: Piano Concerto No.4, Op.40, I. Allegro vivace, 1926 15:17 58 Years Old: Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op.42, XIV. Andante, 1931 15:45 61 Years Old: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op.43, XXIV. A tempo un poco meno mosso, 1934 16:40 63 Years Old: Symphony No.3, Op.44, I. Allegro moderato, 1936 17:11 67 Years Old: Symphonic Dances, Op.45, I. Non Allegro, 1940 Composer(s): Sergei Rachmaninoff Original Music: Sergei Rachmaninoff © (1884-1940)

Moved to Tears

by Frances Wilson, Interlude

Music has the power to tug at the heartstrings, and evoking emotion is the main purpose of music – whether it’s joy or sadness, excitement or meditation. A certain melody or line of a song, a falling phrase, the delayed gratification of a resolved harmony – all these factors make music interesting, exciting, calming, pleasurable and moving.

Tears and chills – or “tingles” – on hearing music are a physiological response which activates the parasympathetic nervous system, as well as the reward-related brain regions of the brain. Studies have shown that around 25% of the population experience this reaction to music. But it’s much more than a pure physiological response. Classical music in particular steers a mysterious path through our senses, triggering unexpected and powerful emotional responses, which sometimes result in tears – and not just tears of sadness.

Tears flow spontaneously in response to a release of tension, perhaps at the end of a particularly engrossing performance. Certain pieces of music can remind us of past events, experiences and people, triggering memories and associated emotions. At other times, we may feel tearfully awestruck in the face of the greatness or sheer beauty of the music.

This last response has a name – Stendhal Syndrome – and while the syndrome is more commonly associated with art, it can be applied equally to the powerful emotional reaction which music provokes.

A psychosomatic disorder, Stendhal Syndrome, or hyperkulturemia, causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, sweating, disorientation, fainting, tears and confusion when someone is looking at artwork (or hearing a piece of music) with which he or she connects emotionally on a profound level. The phenomenon, also called ‘Florence Syndrome’, is named after the French author Marie-Henri Beyle , who wrote under the pen-name of ‘Stendhal’. While visiting the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, he became overcome with emotion and noted his reactions:

“I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty … I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations … Everything spoke so vividly to my soul.”

While there is some debate as to whether the syndrome actually exists, there is no doubt that music (and art and literature) can have a very profound effect on our emotional responses.

Certain pieces are well-known tear-jerkers, including:

Mahler: Adagio from Symphony No. 9 in D

Schubert: Winterreise

Personal tragedy portrayed in hauntingly beautiful music.

Elgar: Cello Concerto

Wistful soaring melodies and a sense of hope and anguish, particularly in the final movement, this is Elgar’s tragic masterpiece. 

Allegri: Miserere

Ethereal chords combined with plainchant, the exquisite simplicity and beauty of this music is guaranteed to set the tears flowing. 

Rachmaninoff: Slow movement, Piano Concerto No. 2

Put simply, this is sublimely beautiful music.

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 | Khatia Buniatishvili,

3,415,689 views Apr 10, 2021 #KhatiaBuniatishvili #Rachmaninoff

Khatia Buniatishvili, Neeme Järvi and the Verbier Festival Orchestra perform Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 at the Verbier Festival in 2011. Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943) wrote his third Piano Concerto in 1909 at the Ivanovka country estate 550 kilometers south east of Moscow. Rachmaninoff spent the summer months here from 1890 until his emigration to the US in 1917. The three movements of the piece recall the structure of typical solo concerts of the Romantic era. Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 was premiered by the New York Symphony Orchestra on November 28, 1909 in New York, conducted by Walter Damrosch. Rachmaninoff, who had been practicing the concert on a silent piano during his Atlantic voyage, played the solo part himself. As a child, pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, born in 1987 in Tblisi, Georgia, was considered a wunderkind. She began to play the piano at the age of three and gave her first concert with the Tblisi concert orchestra at the age of six. International performances followed when she was ten. In 2008, she gave her US debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Since then, Buniatishvili has been regularly invited to many high-profile festivals and has given concerts in the world’s most renowned concert halls, for instance at Vienna’s Musikverein, at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and at the Berlin Philharmonic. She has won the highly respected Echo Classic Award twice. The Verbier Festival is one of the most prestigious classical music events in the world. The quality of the participating artists as well as the originality of the programs have established the festival as a highlight of the music season. It takes place for two weeks in late July and early August in the mountain resort of Verbier, in Switzerland. (00:00) Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 (00:20) I. Allegro ma non tanto (16:52) II. Intermezzo: Adagio (26:20) III. Finale: Alla breve

Ignaz Friedman (1882-1948) The Pianist and Composer

By Georg Predota, Interlude

Ignaz Friedman is considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. Performing around the globe, Friedman lived in Berlin, Copenhagen, Italy, and from 1940 onwards, in Sydney, Australia. Friedman performed well over 3,000 concerts during his career, and his reputation as a performer was legendary. Rachmaninoff was greatly impressed by Friedman’s playing and considered him “a great virtuoso in a style more romantic than his own.”

Ignaz Friedman

Not to be outdone, Vladimir Horowitz described him as his technical superior and added “Ignaz Friedman was a great artist. He had wonderful fingers and a very personal, individual way of playing, even if some of his ideas were very strange to me.” It is less well-known that Friedman was an astute editor. He issued the complete works of Chopin, earning high praise from Claude Debussy. Friedman also edited a number of works by Schumann and Liszt alongside Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias and produced a large number of transcriptions and arrangements. His genius as a pianist, however, has greatly overshadowed his work as a composer. The vast majority of his roughly 90 works are essentially unknown today. I believe it’s high time to meet Ignaz Friedman the composer. So let’s get started with Friedman’s set of variations on a very popular theme by Paganini.

Transcription by Ignaz Friedman

Friedman was a child prodigy with incredible pianistic potential, and he also appears to have started composing at an early age. The earliest mention of an original composition, played by Friedman in a concert on 11 March 1898 makes mention of a piano trio. The critic writes, “Friedman’s trio for piano, violin, and cello shows talent but elements of the composer’s talent should be kept aside until he’s mature to produce something artistically valid.” That particular composition did not survive, and it may well have been destroyed after Friedman read the review. We do know that he studied composition privately with Hugo Riemann in Leipzig. In fact, Riemann presented a reference letter to Friedman. “Herr Ignaz Friedman was my student in piano and composition from the autumn of 1900 until the autumn of 1901. I gladly attest to the fact that he has a very strong talent for the profession of musician… Also in original composition, he has shown talent and considerable promise.” Friedman would soon include his original compositions in his recital programs, such as the four piano pieces Op. 27, which “possess the melodic invention of the character pieces of Schumann, Grieg, and Brahms with the lush harmonic inventiveness of Chopin, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff mingling with some Polish folkloric inspiration.” 

While salon pieces for domestic consumption presently don’t rank particularly high, they were once the foundation of an entire musical culture. It is worth remembering that outstanding composers and performers wrote salon pieces that contained musical allusions, jokes, and even brief moments of contemplation. After all, they addressed highly educated and artistically inclined audiences. It was left to the technical skill of the professional performer to “bring out the modulations, diversify the sound, introduce subtle shades of articulation, and highlight the changing moods.” They are not merely museum pieces, but a significant part of Western musical heritage. Yet their reception history has been less than kind from the very beginning. Karol Szymanowski complained about Friedman’s works being printed on the verso of his score. He writes, “It always irks me to see on the final page of my Sonata and Variations the list of hundreds of Friedman’s horrible ditties; I admit it is childish of me, but I gladly admit it. Friedman’s five charming waltzes for piano four hands date from 1912, and these “ditties” are saturated with pianistic gestures best left to the professionals.” 

For Harold C. Schonberg, a renowned and long-time critic of the New York Times, music “begins with Bach, Handel, and Gluck.” As he once wrote, “I do not want a modern approach to Bach, I want Bach’s approach to Bach.” Schoenberg greatly admired Friedman the pianist, and probably also Friedman’s Passacaglia in F minor, Op. 44, dedicated to his fellow pianist Josef Hofman. The work begins in the style of Bach with a statement of the passacaglia theme in the base. However, the chromatic nature of Friedman’s theme provides some indication of the bold developments to come. Initially, the theme is kept in the bass but soon transfers to the right hand with an increasingly fast accompaniment. Not entirely unexpected, Friedman presents an inverted version of the theme almost entirely obscured by dense chromatic harmonies. It takes a power tremolando for the main theme to return to the bass register. Some additional counterpoints and deceptive cadences bring the work to a simple close in F major. A commentator wrote, “With a final suggestion of the theme landing on an E flat, could it have possibly been a tribute to the end of Chopin’s F Major Prelude?” 

Ignaz Friedman’s Mazurka score

For Schonberg, “Friedman’s style was completely his own, and it was marked by a combination of incredible technique, musical freedom (some called it eccentricity), a tone that simply soared, and a naturally big approach, with dynamic extremes that tended to make a Chopin mazurka sound like an epic. He handled a melodic line inimitably, deftly outlining it against the bass, never allowing it to sag, always providing interest with a unique stress or accent. As he thought big, he played big. Friedman was a force, a powerful, unusual, original pianist, sometimes erratic but always fascinating, and always full of imagination and daring.” Friedman’s native affinity with the Mazurka is heard not only in his rousing recordings of Chopin mazurkas but also in a series of his own mazurka compositions, which combine pianistic and compositional refinement with idiosyncratic, rustic charm. The originality and beauty of the Friedman mazurkas confirms that he was a master of the character piece. Although harmonically complex yet always tonal, Friedman lets the beauty and poignancy of the melody shine through, while rhythm becomes a signpost to the genre. As a performer writes, “Pianistically accessible, Friedman’s works demand technical and musical perfection.”

I

For Friedman, Poland evoked poverty and anti-Semitism, yet it also provided his cultural base. As a pianist, he represented the musical culture of Vienna and Berlin, “and to a lesser extent, Poland, the land of his origins, which had “imposed upon him the dual status of Pole and Jew.” Friedman spoke Polish elegantly, “infused with archaisms inspired by romantic poets.” He was an ardent supporter of Polish autonomy, but he never considered returning to live in Poland after it had gained independence. Situated between self-destructive Russia and militarist Prussia, Poland had been partitioned. Foreign occupation led to “the air in Poland always being oppressive; one breathes in elements of melancholy there that constrict the heart, and one always has the feeling that life is not completely real.” Friedman and his generation remained undisturbed by Modernism. “His sympathy was with the rural culture of Poland, first shaped while dancing with peasants in their villages… He felt very much Polish, down to earth, not intellectually, but really felt the power of the earth.” 

Friedman’s compositions possess great melodic beauty and harmonic inventiveness, clothed in the character of the late Romanticism. Composed in 1918, Stimmungen (Moods) presents nine instrumental poems dedicated to Sergei Rachmaninoff. Friedman enjoyed a cordial relationship with Rachmaninoff, who tried to invite him for a visit to his house in New York in 1927. Rachmaninoff writes, “Evidently, to receive you as a guest is as difficult as buying asparagus at Christmas. I propose the following. It is possible to come for dinner on 30 December? I promise to release you at ten so you can go and play cards.” Rachmaninoff’s musical and technical influence is clearly audible in this set, as is Friedman’s love for the pensive and passionate music of Grieg, and the city of Vienna. The German title “Stimmung” implies harmony between the instrument and an internal spiritual condition. Friedman projects a number of moods connected to Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Grieg, and Scriabin. “The mysterious and soulful final piece is a small set of variations in Russian style with lush harmonic wanderings that bring the set to a somber close.”

Commentators and critics tended to focus on Friedman’s technical prowess. Joseph Marx writes, “Weightlessly, his hands glide on the keys, his fingers move only as much as necessary, every small movement is controlled. Everything seems so effortless that pianistic problems disappear like snow in the sun. One can hardly follow him as his hands run over the keys so quickly. Nevertheless, everything remains so clear, as though a light veil covered the playing and removed the brilliance, a certain shiny tone that salon players sometimes have. But I don’t say to myself that it is a mistake, on the contrary. The shadings in the pianissimi are astonishing as the scale goes from p to pppp, as rich as his poco forte to fff.” And the leading Hungarian critic Aladar Toth added, “Compared to mechanical technique, Friedman’s technique is a true recreation in its poetic, unconstrained, and impulsive free variety… The sensuous magic of the piano sounds could almost daze or even fool the listener for minutes. But the old mixer of tone colors doesn’t give up and spreads out the silks and velvets and expensive furs to an ever-dwindling public. However, Friedman’s most infamous charlatanisms have more in common with art and poetry than those young bravura player who, with their factory-made techniques, earn millions of dollars in America.” 

Friedman’s Vienna debut on 22 November 1904 created a sensation after he played three virtuoso piano concerti, Brahms D minor, Tchaikovsky B-flat minor, and Liszt E-flat major. The teenage Friedman had come to Vienna to study with the famed Theodore Leschetizky, himself a student of Carl Czerny. Initially, Leschetizky told him “that he would be better off to play tuba,” and sent him to his assistant Malwine Brée. Essentially, Brée helped students solve mechanical problems, and she “offered a pragmatic and musical wrist exercise to develop an even touch.” Friedman later said that “it all began with a definite technical scheme, but that only went so far as great piano playing is concerned. It was only the beginning, which every pianist should have. Then the greatness of Leschetizky came in.” Eventually, Friedman became Leschetiziky’s favorite student, and he appointed him as an assistant. Leschetizky later said that Friedman “possessed the three prerequisites needed to make a great musician: Slavic origins, Jewish heritage, and child prodigy.” During his Vienna years, Friedman performed a number of transcriptions by Schulz-Evler and Godowsky, and he set to work on a number of themes sung by Viennese court opera baritone Eduard Gärtner.

Ignaz Friedman: 6 Wiener Tänze nach Motiven von Eduard Gärtner (Joseph Banowetz, piano) 

Friedman’s Piano Quintet score

Among the surviving Friedman compositions, his Piano Quintet in C minor is regarded as his finest piece. Composed in 1918, the circumstances surrounding the compositions are still vague, but it “has been suggested that it may have been inspired by the death of the composer’s father and that the theme of the third movement, derived from Polish folk music, maybe a tribute to him.” We do know, however, that the work is dedicated to Maria Christina, Archduchess of Austria and Queen Regent of Spain. The somber mood of the opening movement might well have been inspired by the horror of World War I, “while the melancholy ending might be a musical glance at a world that had gone forever.” That melancholy is most prominently heard in a waltz-like section that might have come straight from Strauss’ Rosenkavalier. The expressive second movement features an expansive set of themes and variations. The theme is basically a succession of three short motifs, and every successive variation sounds like an independent miniature. The concluding finale is titled “Epilogue,” and features a Polish folk tune that undergoes a number of transformations. Naxos Music has issued the complete recordings of Ignaz Friedman between 1923 and 1941, and a number of performers have taken on his compositions. Together, we are finally getting a more complete picture of one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century.