This delightful disc serves as a reminder that many keyboard practitioners from the piano’s so-called “Golden Age” also were composers. The name Mischa Levitzki (1898-1941) may not mean anything to other than hard-core pianophiles, yet he was quite popular in his day, and a big box-office draw who unfortunately died young. His compositional output for piano solo comprises eight graceful and melodious salon miniatures, including the familiar A major Waltz Op. 2 that Levitzki himself recorded several times. I’m partial to the quasi-exotic textures permeating The Enchanted Nymph, easily the most ambitious and substantial of Levitzki’s pieces. Margarita Glebov’s nuanced performance compares well alongside Stephen Hough’s recording from the early 1990s (available on The Piano Album 2, Virgin Classics).
Four pieces by Ossip Gabrilowitsch (1868-1936) prove no less captivating and skillfully composed; they wouldn’t be out of place among Grieg’s Lyric Pieces. The disc concludes with transcriptions and original works by the iconic Romantic piano legend Ignaz Friedman (1882-1948). His arrangement of Franck’s Prelude, Fugue and Variation for organ proves lighter in texture and more pianistically grateful than Harold Bauer’s more literal, relatively unwieldy piano version.
On the other hand, Friedman’s Grazioli, Stamitz, and Couperin transcriptions utilize the kind of full-bodied chords, rapid leaps, and double notes that are more difficult to execute than they sound; certainly Glebov’s suave performances make them sound easy. She fares impressively in Friedman’s original Four Op. 61 Preludes and seven of the Op. 63 Etudes, all recorded here for the first time.
It’s true that some of Friedman’s works resemble those of other composers in tone and texture; for example, Etude No. 11, marked Allegro patetico, sounds like a mash-up of Chopin’s Op. 10 No. 12 “Revolutionary” Etude and Scriabin’s Op. 8 No. 11. Nor is Friedman the most beguiling tunesmith. Still, the ingenuity and sophistication of his piano writing holds interest, and comes to life through Glebov’s colorful and polished fingerwork. Maxwell Brown’s informative booklet notes add further value to a disc that connoisseurs of the piano repertoire’s flavorful fringes will certainly enjoy.
