Giorgio Koukl - Complete Piano Works 2 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The pioneering work and unconventional ideas of John Cage deeply affected Western music during the second half of the 20th century. This second of two volumes completes Katrin Zenz's review of his complete works for flute. The earlier chromatic pieces include an incredible variety of extended techniques and a perplexing rhythmic complexity. The elements of chance and experimentation in the later compositions result in music that is constantly undergoing seismic shifts in form and expression. The elegance and purpose of Cage's music rests in a tenderness and devoutness that he stated should Inchsober and quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences.Inch

Polish composer Alfons Szczerbinski was a Romantic who revered Bach, Haydn and Mozart above all others. Many of his scores were lost during the First World War or destroyed by the composer himself. His most extrovert music exudes the panache and rhythmic brio of Chopin whilst his series of Chansons sans paroles display a flair for harmonic fantasy and melodic beauty reminiscent of Mendelssohn. Giorgio Koukl's second volume of Szczerbinski's complete piano music reveals yet more discoveries by this unjustly neglected composer.

The Hungarian-born composer TIBOR HARSÁNYI is now recognized as an important personality in 'L'École de Paris'. He had a lifelong interest in modern dance, represented here by the Petite suite and Trois Pièces de danse, and he also embraced jazz, which was part of the Parisian atmosphere of the inter-war period, and other influences, while keeping the Central European rhythms and tonalities of his Hungarian origins. The Trois Pièces lyriques is a rare example of Harsányi expressing torment during the turbulent years of the Second World War. GIORGIO KOUKL is a pianist/harpsichordist and composer. He studied at both the Conservatories of Zürich and Milan, where he took part in the masterclasses of Nikita Magaloff, Jacques Février, and Stanislaus Neuhaus, and with Rudolf Firkušný, friend and advocate of Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. It was through Firkušný that Koukl first encountered Martinu's music, and is now considered one of the world's leading interpreters of Martinu's piano music. As a logical continuation of this work, Koukl has recorded the complete solo piano works of Paul Le Flem, Alexander Tcherepnin, Arthur Lourié, Vítezslava Kaprálová, Witold Lutoslawski, and more recently, Alexandre Tansman and Tibor Harsányi.