Goldenweiser - Piano Sonata-Fantasia (Part 1/2)

Piano Sonata-Fantasia Op. 37 "Song of Sorrow" (1957-1959)

Alexander Goldenweiser (1875-1961) was commonly recognized as an outstanding Russian pianist and interpreter of Bach and Scriabin. He attended the Moscow Conservatory in 1889, studying with many of the great 19th-century Russian pedagogues (Arensky, Taneyev, Siloti). In 1906, he became professor of piano at the conservatory, a position he held for over 50 years until his death. His greatest pupils included Feinberg, Kabalevsky, Kapustin, Nikolayeva, and Lazar Berman.

Goldenweiser composed both small and large-scale pieces during two stages of his life: as a student in the 1910s and as a mature professor after 1930. However, he rarely performed his music during his lifetime and many of his works were not published until after his death. In Goldenweiser's compositions, the music of Rachmaninov, Medtner, and Scriabin are evident influences.

According to Jonathan Powell, "The [Sonata-fantasia, Op. 37] was written in memory of Goldenweiser's long-time friend Alexander Goedicke, and is subtitled ["Song of Sorrow"]... It is Goldenweiser's most ambitious single work for the instrument, and is perhaps the darkest, with its sombre mood and, at times, densely chromatic harmonies. Both the key (B flat minor) and thematism (consisting of short melodic motifs with dotted rhythms predominating) remind one of Rachmaninov (his Second Sonata) and Scriabin (his Second and Third Sonatas) and thus draw the listener to a period some fifty years before the actual date of composition to the pre-Revolutionary era, when Goedicke, Goldenweiser, Rachmaninov and Scriabin inhabited a very different Russia from that of the post-Stalin era. By contrast, the stark rhetoric and clear contrapuntal textures of the [Sonata-fantasia] are far more contemporary in style."

Category:

Music

Tags:

• scriabin
• rachmaninov
• medtner

[ReturnOfTheStienway]

So much for the fermata's right after. If i did not see the score I would have thought it was just an eighth rest.

[ReturnOfTheStienway]

6:18... there is finally an abrupt difference in tempo notation... a rit. with some breath marks. I did not feel anything "breaths"

[ReturnOfTheStienway]

Good music... but I would prefer an interpretation with a closer attention to rhythm at certain parts- I think the effect would be much different. All the notes are there...

[arriaru]

Alexander Goldenweiser was a teacher Nikolai Kapustin at the Moscow Conservatory

[Pianobelgium]

Is that beginning adagio lugubre? :s

[ddsoco]

WTF does that mean as it relates to this piece?

[photonwaves]

Than you dear Hex.

With such a beautiful music, you chanel is still alive !

[NOPQ8]

Oh yeah! I've find it! That's what I want to hear from music! Please, write a massage to me with names of composers that make sounds like this beautiful one!!!! Please!

[scriabinwasmydad]

beautiful music ...