Josef Hofmann - Grand Piano

Advantages: Cherkassky playing at his best in wide range of solo works
Disadvantages: No Godowsky included

...derided by critics for its size and other supposed weaknesses, resulting in its unfair neglect. Cherkassky makes the whole listening experience enjoyable, presenting it like a symphony for piano as one organic whole. I have heard the opening of the first movement made to sound trite by another pianist who played it staccato. It is marked staccato in the score, but Cherkassky gives it a staccato feel, while skillfully using the pedal to make it sound grandiose rather than trite. There is also the work Kaleidoskop by Josef Hofmann, Cherkassky' s teacher. This is a musical portrayal of the kaleidoscope, a popular toy (more popular in the nineteenth century, but still seen around today) which consists of a cylinder in which colours tumble as it is turned making ever changing patterns. Cherkassky expresses these multi-colours musically... Read review

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Advantages: Romantic, passionate and beautiful
Disadvantages: Unless you have a heart of stone absolutely none whatsoever

...by the conductor Josef Stransky and supposedly approved by the composer himself. Leslie J. Rogers asked Rachmaninov whether he wanted cuts made, to which the composer had responded that he had no objections about cuts being made if it was thought that it would improve the work, although he himself would probably have presented the symphony complete. It is also well known that Rachmaninov himself often made cuts to his own works like the Third and Fourth Piano Concertos, the Second Piano Sonata, as well as many other works, so his passiveness about the Symphony's many cuts can well be understood. The new harmonic innovations made by his fellow countryman Alexander Scriabin in the 1910s and the complete dismissal of Rachmaninov's music in the progressive 1920s and '30s as "old-fashioned" (which of course is true when compared with the really progressive... Read review

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Advantages: Excellent selection and performance of piano works by Frank Bridge
Disadvantages: A few pieces are not very interesting

...Frank Bridge was an early twentieth century English composer. His works are not widely known, but are played increasingly, and more recordings are becoming available. Some of his later works, such as his piano sonata, were influenced by Scriabin. This CD is the second of three, and covers a wide range of styles, but mostly in his earlier style. Most of the pieces on this CD are fairly easy to listen to, and can be enjoyed by the majority of classical music lovers. The opening piece, Etude Rhapsodique, is an etude appropriately played by Jacobs, in the grand manner (of Liszt and other nineteenth century virtuosi), full of late nineteenth century panache, but with Bridge's own distinctive voice. The second piece, Berceuse, is played beautifully, a gentle piece as the name would suggest (a lullaby) but again with Bridge's own... Read review

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