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"Songs Without Words"
The heart of this collection is 15 of
Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, those eternally lovely miniatures,
well selected and played by Murray Perahia with the lyrical sense
the music needs. Too bad he didn't record them all. The disc
opens with four of Busoni's Bach transcriptions, all organ chorale
preludes based on sung hymns.These, too, are well done, very
clear and fleet and with impressive agility in "Nun freut
euch, lieben Christen g'mein". The conclusion is four of
Liszt's brilliant arrangements of Schubert songs, again played
with wonderful lyricism and some high drama that indicates that
Murray Perahia knows the original songs and their texts very
well. --Leslie Gerber |
Reviewer: Christopher Smith from Chapel
Hill, North Carolina
I didn't know what to expect when
I bought this recording, since I had only heard one of the twenty
three selections presented here before. Overall I found it to
be a true revelation, and I've listened to it many times since
with growing pleasure. In selecting these pieces, it seems that
Perahia has given himself a well-deserved break from taking on
heavyweight interpretations of Handel and Bach, and a relaxed,
unselfconscious pleasure shines through in his playing. With
his understated elegance and crystalline tone, you couldn't ask
for a better interpreter.Although the recording is named after
the selections from the Mendelssohn pieces of the same name,
the real highlights for me are the Bach and Schubert transcriptions
done by Busoni and Liszt respectively. With the Bach you have
some glorious organ works infused with subtle touches of late-nineteenth
century romanticism, which fleshes them out just a little without
diminishing their highly refined qualities. All four selections
are serene masterpieces, beautifully executed. The Schubert transcriptions
however, are a wonder, pure and simple. I don't know Schubert's
songs, but have most of his Sonatas and all of his Impromptus
and Moments Musicaux. With these four pieces, I feel like I've
discovered another set of Impromptus, because they have all the
unbounded lyricism and deceptive mood changes that make the Impromptus
such masterpieces. It seems to me that Liszt remained very faithful
to the spirit and sublime simplicity of Schubert's melodies here,
eschewing the romantic flourishes and breathtaking technical
demands that characterize his own compositions. Once I heard
these pieces, I was reminded too that Perahia is a superb exponent
of Schubert, with his recording of the Impromptus being among
the very best. The Mendelssohn complements the other selections
very well, and I'm glad this recording introduced me to them,
but they are comparatively light compared to the Bach and Schubert
transcriptions. They seem to fall somewhere between Chopin's
Nocturnes and some of his Etudes and Preludes, but on the whole
they don't have the same kind of atmospheric drama that Chopin
could conjure forth in the space of a few minutes. Still, I can't
really fault Mendelssohn here simply because he's not quite a
Bach, a Schubert, or a Chopin. So buy this recording--it's incredibly
soothing and meditative without being in any way superficial,
and it'll bring a lot of listening pleasure. |
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