Composer: Leo Ornstein
Performer: Arsentiy Kharitonov
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0167
Release: 2013
Size: 288 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
17 Waltzes
01. No. 1.
02. No. 2.
03. No. 3.
04. No. 4.
05. No. 5.
06. No. 6.
07. No. 7.
08. No. 8.
09. No. 9.
10. No. 10.
11. No. 11.
12. No. 12.
13. No. 13.
14. No. 14.
15. No. 15.
16. No. 16.
17. No. 17.
Suite russe, Op. 12
18. I. Doumka
19. II. Extase
20. III. Barcarole
21. IV. Melancolie
22. V. Danse burlesque
23. VI. Berceuse
24. VII. Chanson pathetique
25. A Morning in the Woods
The Russian-born American pianist-composer Leo Ornstein (1893–2002) lived long enough – an astonishing 109 years – to see his music both fall into and re-emerge from obscurity. Although there have been isolated recordings of Ornstein’s piano music over the years, this series is the first ever attempt to document its major landmarks. With his earliest surviving work dating from around 1905 and his last from 1990, Ornstein’s music naturally embraces a range of styles, extending on this second CD of his piano music from the Rachmaninov-like Suite Russe (1914) to the brittle but urgent Impressionism of A Morning in the Woods (1971). The meat of this disc is the extraordinary sequence of seventeen Waltzes Ornstein composed, largely in the 1960s and ’70s, which vary from the sexily languorous to the boldly tempestuous, requiring the fearless virtuosity that Arsentiy Kharitonov brings to them here.