With the changes that occurred in musical life between the two World Wars came the gradual disappearance of virtuoso pianists who composed and performed their own showpieces or heart-melting miniatures. Their legacy of album leaves and encores sleep in libraries, waiting for some enterprising and curious pianist to give them a new life. Stephen Hough contributed a successful rescue operation a few years ago with his two “Piano Albums” for Virgin. Now, here comes Donald Manildi, curator of the International Piano Archives at the University of Maryland (IPAM), who obviously has access to longtime out-of-print scores or even manuscripts. The pieces succeed one another without the slightest hint of boredom, thanks to Manildi’s judicious programming. There are many pearls in this collection, from Vladimir Horowitz’s mischievous Danse excentrique to Raymond Lewenthal’s (himself a hell of a pianist) devilish Concert Paraphrase on Glière’s Russian Sailor’s Dance–Hamelin would do marvels with this one. Manildi doesn’t limit himself to the well-known turn-of-the-century piano legends, be it Hofmann, Rosenthal, Levitzki, Gabrilowitsch, or Friedman, but instead adds several unexpected names that spice up the collection. Hearing Glenn Gould’s atonal Piano Piece No. 1 or Ernst Levy’s Hindemithian Piano Piece No. 6 immediately after Cherkassky’s ultra-romantic Prélude pathétique and before Iturbi’s picturesque Pequeña danza española is like witnessing the clash of irreconcilable worlds. And to demonstrate that virtuoso pianists of today are reviving this long-forgotten tradition, Manildi includes a Ländler by Marc-Andre Hamelin, as charming as any of his predecessors’ pianistic jewels. Manildi’s playing is honest and straightforward in expression, without over-inflated rubato–even when the music offers space for some more nonchalance and freedom of phrasing, as in Levitzki’s melancholy Valse tzigane. The sound is a bit boxy and wrapped up in what seems to these ears an artificial resonance, but it’s still agreeable. Piano buffs will rejoice.
