Alfred Grünfeld (1852-1924): Debussy - Golliwog's Cakewalk

Grünfeld was the first great pianist to make any kind of commercial recordings, which he commenced in 1899.

He left recordings of works by Bach, Chopin, Schumann, Grieg, Debussy, Liszt, Brahms and others; but Grünfeld was known primarily as a provider of light entertainment music in Vienna, and his arrangements of Strauss's music are his most famous and enduring legacy.

His expertise at performance of other more serious music is not widely appreciated: even in his own time he was deprecated as not being a performer of "serious" music. Only those who knew him best wrote of his great skill at performing the music for which he was not generally well known. He was in fact the foremost pianist in Vienna in the later 1800s and into the early 20th century.

Here I hope a few recordings may convince that this was a very fine pianist indeed, fully expressing many 19th century techniques (eg. the rubato and non-synchronisation of the hands) and expressive attitudes to the music. Note especially the very particular facility Grünfeld had at producing elegant, lilting rhythms.

This recording of Debussy's "Golliwog's Cakewalk" from the Childrens' Corner suite was made in 1914.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Alfred
• Grünfeld
• piano
• classical
• recording
• debussy
• golliwog
• cakewalk
• childrens
• corner

[d60944]

I am quite surprised by the lack of comments on this - surely the earliest performance of this work recorded, and far, far better than the composer's own piano roll of the work. Scott Joplin was still composing when Grunfeld recorded this (!)

[hjhassani]

its great!

[TashJonesUk]

this is such an amazing song, the piano gets right into my skin. it shows even with rthe poor quality, it's so much better than most things recorded well.

[milkyleah]

Very interesting piece of history. I like the expressive middle section and the clarity throughout. Charming! Thanks for the post.

[smithsherman]

A beautiful example of unsteady-steadiness.

A superimposition of two rhythmic approaches simultaneously.This performance aesthetic is Extinct today.