PIANO SOLO, NEW EDITIONS
Froberger: Selected Works for Keyboard
Henle Urtext HN 1361, £8.50
Bach-Busoni: Chorale Preludes
Henle Urtext HN 1293, £20.50
Scarlatti, D: Selected Piano Sonatas, Vol.4
Henle Urtext HN 581, £23.99
Beethoven: Bagatelle in A minor, ‘Für Elise’
Henle Urtext HN 1347, £3.50
Webern: Variations Op.27
Henle Urtext HN 1344, £11.95
Chopin (ed. Flamm): 24 Preludes Op.28, Prelude Op.45
Bärenreiter BA 9610, £13.00
Haydn: Late Piano Sonatas
Bärenreiter 10804, £20.50
MartinŮ: Easy Piano Pieces and Dances
Bärenreiter BA 9586, £9.00
Durand, Marie-Auguste (ed. Francis): Waltzes
Alfred 46070, £9.95
This month's Henle batch is bookended by composers more read-about than actually played. Johann Jackob Froberger's dates (1616-67) place him among a vague ‘pre-Bach’ group. Of his keyboard works, Kunzelmann publishes a short £8.20 selection, Schott a larger £10.50 one, and Bärenreiter runs to 11 volumes (£34-£46 each). This Henle is the perfect sampler, containing a toccata, fantasia, canzon, set of variations, and a useful historical preface.
The Bach-Busoni piano transcriptions are from organ originals. Grandiosity prevails, some textures spreading over three staves. Bass octaves greatly outnumber excursions into high treble. The best-known melody among the ten here is ‘Wachet auf’; while ‘Aus tiefer Not’, a set of five fugal expositions in six parts, is strictly for very advanced score-readers and probably as much polyphony as two hands can physically cope with.
The new Scarlatti album contains 32 sonatas, Kirkpatrick-numbered between 1 and 532 and including K.29 (L.461) in D, of which the extravagantly hand-crossed two-manual harpsichord writing makes ideal editing-seminar material. Editor Rolf Koenen ingeniously superimposes alternative piano-friendly allocations onto Scarlatti's original ‘M’ (LH) and ‘D’ (RH) signs. A few on-stave layouts elsewhere, though authentic, may confuse modern sight-readers. Nevertheless, a generous selection. Although there is a later version of Beethoven's ‘Für Elise’ with many surprises, such as LH starting after the downbeats rather than on them – and offering both versions would have been a considerable scoop – Henle here confines itself to the usual one. And pianists not allergic to the Second Viennese School in principle and aware of markings beyond the notes (dynamics, articulations and so on) will find Webern's Variations technically not too difficult. Henle's Preface, as ever, is invaluable.
Bärenreiter's eye-catchingly colour-coded covers range from Chopin pink to – for Haydn – what my childhood watercolour paint-box used to call gamboge. Streetwise Chopinists will rush to check those famous editorial debating points: bar 3 of number 20, for instance, and synchronised rhythms (or not?) in number 9. There are not only 16 pages with notes on these, but – pricelessly – several facsimiles too. Pick of the month, possibly.
The eight Haydn sonatas comprise Hob.XVI:40-42 and 48-52, though the absence of thematic incipits forces you to flick through the book to find out exactly which they are. (They include both the late E flats and the ‘English’ in C.) Expensive? Not if you count the spacious layout, helpful fingering, and 16-page preface plus notes on performance practice. The notoriously prolific Bohuslav MartinǶ (1890-1959) wrote a lot for piano but rarely idiomatically (he was a violinist, not pianist) or simply. This album's idea is praiseworthy but most pieces in it are pastiche or charmless. The best is ‘Christmas’; possibly the dullest (neglected until 2011, no doubt rightly) is ‘Crotchets and Quavers’. More gratefully written are the six Waltzes (among Op.83-96) by Marie-Auguste Durand (1830-1909, the same as the French publisher). The music is salon-style, with no Chopinesque subtlety nor much Weberish brilliance. Alfred's edition is clear and its helpful introduction even offers analyses for pupils without a clue about form.
PIANO, FOUR HANDS
Alexander et al. Alfred's Premier Piano Course, Duet 5 & 6
Alfred £8.50 each
Dennis Alexander: Imperial Concertante
Alfred 46066, £6.95
Karen Beres & Christopher Hahn: The Pianist's Guide to Standard Teaching and Performance Concertos
Alfred 46083, £16.95
Mozart: Concerto No.26 K.537 ‘Coronation’
2-piano reduction, solo piano part and cadenzas, Bärenreiter BA 10495-90, £21.00
Three Romantic Piano Concertos
2-piano reductions, Schirmer Vol 2127, £16.99
Here are Volumes 5 and 6, no less, of Alfred's duet series. Lots of comfortable and granny-pleasing music here, the best-known contributors (among eight) probably being Dennis Alexander, Melody Bober and Martha Mier – all good preparation for grown-up Mozart, Schubert and so on. Similarly, Alexander's ‘Imperial Concertante’ can usefully precede, say, Kabalevsky or Alec Rowley's Miniature Concerto. The accompaniment is for second piano: there is no reference to any orchestral version. A full 133 pages of pedagogical advice on this work and 269 (!) other concertos comes from Beres and Hahn. Repertoire is mostly for beginners, with the ‘Imperial’ placed at Level 5 and Beethoven 2 (the hardest by miles) at Level 10.
Mozart's ‘Coronation’ Concerto, possibly the least inspiring of the late ones, used to be further hampered by the lack of any Mozart cadenza. Bärenreiter plugs the gap admirably (and justifies its higher-than-others price) by adding cadenzas by Müller, Reinecke and Reger. The normal two-piano reduction is enhanced by a separate copy of the solo part alone, designed for performances directed from the keyboard. An admirable package.
Finally, an unmissable two-piano run-through standby for the conservatoire studio cupboard: three whole concertos (Schumann, Grieg and Rachmaninoff's second) under one cover. The Grieg has the bonus of the composer's second thoughts, as relayed by editor Percy Grainger. Bargain of the year, or I'm no judge.
