Composer: Moritz Moszkowski
Performer: Jakub Haufa
Orchestra: Sinfonia Varsovia
Conductor: Ian Hobson
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0523
Release: 2019
Size: 575 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Johanna d’Arc – Symphonic Poem in Four Movements, Op. 19
01. I. Johannas Hirtenleben
02. II. Innere Zerwürfnisse – Rückerinnerungen
03. III. Einzug der Sieger zur Krönung in Reims
04. IV. Johanna in der Gefangenschaft
The Polish composer Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1925) is best remembered for a handful of virtuoso piano pieces, but he also produced a substantial body of orchestral music, most of it unperformed for decades. Astonishingly, he was only in his early twenties when he wrote his monumental ‘Symphonic Poem in Four Movements’ Johanna d’Arc – heard here in its first recording – a vast symphonic fresco depicting the life, death and transfiguration of the heroine of Friedrich Schiller’s 1801 play, Die Jungfrau von Orleans. Moszkowski admitted to the influence of Wagner and Raff on the work – but he also managed to prefigure the musical language of the Hollywood epics of sixty years later. As pianist, Ian Hobson has a long-standing relationship with Toccata Classics, and this is the fourth recording he has made in his alter ego as conductor – at the helm of the Sinfonia Varsovia, as with his previous albums, which uncovered the early orchestral music of Martinu. This is the first of a series of Ian Hobson recordings for Toccata Classics that will focus on Moszkowski’s piano and orchestral music.