Sergei Bortkiewicz Etude Op.15 No.8 Performed By Moriz Rosenthal

A little background on this etude:

Bortkiewicz's lifelong friend, Hugo van Dalen, the Dutch pianist and composer (1888-1967) told him that it was through his playing of the Etude Op. 15, No. 8 that he had met his wife. She liked the piece so much that she came up to van Dalen to ask the composer's name. This acquaintance led to their marriage, as a result of which Bortkiewicz unofficially named this etude the Verlobungsetude or Betrothal etude.

Bortkiewicz was so grateful that Moriz Rosenthal recorded this etude that he later dedicated a set of his Lamentations and Consolations Op.17 No.1 to 4 to Rosenthal.

Do enjoy this beautifully composed etude, interpreted by the legendary pianist Moriz Rosenthal. His interpretation has added a whole new dimension to this etude. There are times where the music sounds like it's coming from a music box, and at times when it sounds like playing on a bass guitar - Incredible!

Apologies for the rather poor audio in advance. This was recorded directly from cassette recorder to PC. After which, many noise filters were used to reduce the strange ambient background noise that came from nowhere.

A special thanks to my dear friend Hiroyuki for helping me with this - you did most of the work, here finally is the outcome, 8 years later!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Sergei
• Bortkiewicz
• Moriz
• Rosenthal
• Etude
• Piano
• Hugo
• van
• Dalen
• Betrothal
• Verlobungsetude

[neiltassoni]

Stunning. Where did you procure the score, if i may ask?

[sparkle1272001]

@neiltassoni Do drop me an email thru Youtube with your email address and I'll send the links or scores. It seems Youtube doesn't allow URLs to be posted in the Comments section.

[tuberobotto]

@sparkle1272001 Hi! This is truly a rare chance to come across Bortkiewitz's piano music. His first piano concerto in Bbm is an unending favorite of mine coz it has some of the most interesting themes and melodic structure outside of Scriabin and Borodin. Truly Russian without sounding so much like Tchaikowsky. Thanks so much for this upload. I wonder if you've heard of his piece called "The Fountain"? If you have it, could you upload it please? Thanks again.

[sparkle1272001]

@tuberobotto Greetings, thank you for your comments. I didn't know Bortkiewicz has a piece called The Fountain, do you know which opus number that is? :)

[17mathieu]

Fantastic piece and great interpretation as always by Mr. Rosenthal. This has made me want to learn the piece myself!

[kmpiano1]

thanks!  beautiful music!

[MrNimblefingers36]

@mkeysou812 So right! Movie music - and bad movie music at that, but I agree well played.

[terryregnar]

Great piece, good playing, but I prefer Katsaris's take on it...

[aardvaark069]

Rosenthal handles with great beauty and respect.

[mkeysou812]

over sentimentalized pap, well played mind you

[palmerplantagenet]

@bludgeonbunny palmerplantagenet meant to send the above to 'steps222' but mistakenly did not check that his son's 'bludgeonbunny' was still signed in on computer at the time. Since I'm on here again with a few extra characters remaining, just let me say 'steps222' s adjectival "anachronistic" is obviously correct. Be that as it may, these ears still hear a pleasing, albeit popular, flavor, one might even feel reminiscent of Carlos Gardel!

[bludgeonbunny]

@palmerplantagenet Many early Hollywood arrangers were born in the late 1800s, intent on sharing the tremendous prosperity generated by the new movie studios, and of course later they came due to the anschluss. Such arrangers as Stone, Wasserman, Whitney, Morgan, Duke, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and many fine others were obviously influenced by such as Ravel and Rachmaninoff, even if their 'serious' work was different. The American public wanted sentimentality - e.g. to experience easy tears.

[steps222]

@palmerplantagenet

I've long loved this music, and Rosenthal's performance is by far the most musical I've heard. To say that this is Hollywood music is anachronistic, since it was written in the 1st decade of the 20th century. Hollywood composers were influenced by composers like Chopin and Bortkiewicz. So they sound like SB, not he like them. Not that there's anything wrong with Harold Arlen.

[palmerplantagenet]

Rosenthal plays very sensitively, And with sincerity - no contrived effects. The delightful music sounds perhaps 60% Scriabin, and 40% a serious popular song of the 30's-40's dressed up by one of those fascinating Hollywood arrangers of that era.