Brahms' Hungarian Dances: Cedric Tiberghie
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Transcriptions: Godowsky
Rating: * * * * *
Cedric Tiberghien's new Brahms album offers a tantalising preview of what we might expect when the pianist plays with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra next year. If the
young French pianist brings such fluttering grace to Brahms' often sturdy textures, then next April's Ravel Concerto promises to be better than a Parisian getaway.
While devoted Brahmsians will turn first to the eight pieces of the composer's Opus 76 and remain spellbound through to the final wisps of the closing Capriccio, other punters might eagerly take up the opportunity to hear Brahms' own arrangements of his Hungarian Dances.
These may be almost too familiar for some, but Tiberghien rings changes. The first has dark menace brooding in its bars, the third is a lilting delight, while the popular fifth and six have all the flamboyance of a gypsy czardas band in their step.
If Tiberghien's account of the Brahms Opus 39 sweeps you away to Waltzland, as well they might in this wonderfully airy recording, then Marc-Andre Hamelin's new collection of Strauss arrangements and original works by Leopold Godowsky could well be heaven in triple time.
Wine Woman and Song is given a veritable symphonic stretching, with quite a few nods to Debussy along the way, before Strauss' familiar tune enters. At the other end of the scale, a poignant "idealised" version of an Oscar Straus Last Waltz comes in a transcription by Hamelin's own father from a piano roll that its composer cut. Hamelin is a supreme virtuoso supreme, and Hyperion knows how to capture his art to the last flick of glitter. Yet in the understated, sometimes world-weary, little waltzes of Godowksy's own Walzermasken and Triakontameron, the Canadian pianist plays with a sympathy and understanding all his own.
William Dart
