Composer: Samuel Barber, Amy Marcy Cheney Beach, George Gershwin, Earl Wild
Performer: Claire Huangci
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Alpha
Catalogue: ALPHA1071
Release: 2024
Size: 2.48 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
Beach: Variations on Balkan Themes, Op. 60
02. Thema: Adagio
03. Variation I: Più mosso
04. Variation II: Maestoso
05. Variation III: Allegro ma non troppo
06. Variation IV: Andante alla Barcarola
07. Variation V: Largo con molta espressione
08. Variation VI: Quasi Fantasia – Allegro all’ Ongarese
09. Variation VII: Vivace – Valse lento
10. Variation VIII: Con vigore – Lento calmato
11. Marcia funebre
12. Cadenza: Grave – Quasi fantasia
Barber: Piano Sonata, Op. 26
13. I. Allegro energico
14. II. Allegro vivace e leggero
15. III. Adagio mesto
16. IV. Fuga: Allegro con spirito
Wild: 7 Virtuoso Etudes after Gershwin
17. I. Liza
18. II. Somebody Loves me
19. III. The Man I Love
20. IV. Embraceable You
21. V. Lady be Good
22. VI. I Got Rhythm
23. VII. Fasinatin’ Rhythm
Presented as ‘An Experiment in Modern Music’ when it was premiered in 1924, Rhapsody in Blue made George Gershwin famous, and he soon set to work on a version for solo piano, recorded here by Claire Huangci. In her first solo disc for Alpha Classics, Claire was keen to celebrate this centenary alongside her roots in America, where she was born, studied music and made her debut as a concert artist at the age of nine. The brilliant improviser and transcriber Earl Wild (1915-2010) took Gershwin’s songs (Liza, Fascinatin’ Rhythm, Somebody Loves Me, I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, Oh, Lady Be Good, The Man I Love) to form the basis of his Seven Virtuoso Etudes for solo piano. Equally virtuosic is the Op. 26 Sonata by Samuel Barber, whom Vladimir Horowitz (who premiered the work in Havana in December 1949) regarded as one of the few Americans capable of writing for the piano. The New Hampshire-born composer Amy Beach took her inspiration from the folk music of both the New World and the Balkans, while retaining her harmonic language inherited from the Romantics. Her Variations Op. 60 (1904) bear witness to these influences.