Fumagalli / Riva,Adalberto Maria - Piano Music 1 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Richards Sam - Staverton Bridge [COMPACT DISCS] date 07/24/2007

Joseph Woelfl (1773-1812), a friend of the Mozart family from childhood, was one of the best-known musicians of his day he was regarded as a rival of Beethoven in Vienna and a worthy successor to Haydn in the musical life of London. His late-Classical piano music sits between Mozart, Haydn and Clementi and looks forward to Schubert and Mendelssohn. This first-ever project to examine it in any detail hopes to rescue Woelfl's once starry reputation from the folds of history. The three sonatas which open this second volume are dedicated 'a Mr L. Van Beethoven'.

The Swiss composer Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950) is best remembered for his development of Eurhythmics, which teaches the appreciation of music through movement. The buoyant miniatures recorded on this fourth album of his piano music document his fascination with dance, but nonetheless display a degree of variety some are winsome and charming, others vigorous and folk-like, and occasionally they suggest echoes of some of his French contemporaries, not least Chabrier, Debussy, Fauré and Ravel.