Search - Margarita Glebov :: Gabrilowitsch, Levitzki & Friedman: Original Works & Transcriptions for Solo Piano

What was called 'the Golden Age of Pianism' - the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth - also saw the final flourish of the composer-pianist, a tradition that had begun with Mozart and Beethoven. This release presents little or unknown music by some of the last lions of the keyboard who were also composers, many of these pieces in their first recordings. The handful of works left by Mischa Levitzi (1898-1941) are charming miniatures, most of them waltzes. The pieces by Ossip Gabrilowitsch (1878-1936) - the son-in-law of Mark Twain - are rather more ambitious but remain modest in scope. The works of Ignaz Friedman (1882-1948) - both original compositions and transcriptions - point to a substantial body of music that has yet to be fully explored.