- Camiel Boomsma
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- albums
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Heritage of Fire
Wagner & Liszt
From the day of her birth in 1918, Friedelind Wagner had little choice but to cope with both the legacy and the burden of being a descendant of one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time, Richard Wagner. Friedelind Wagner was Richard Wagner’s independent-minded granddaughter. She was not the outcast of her family, as often claimed, but a heroic rebel. She despised her mothers adoration for Adolf Hitler and was the only member of the Wagner family who fled Germany in protest. Because of her strong opposition against the Nazi’s she went to England and later to New York with the help of the famous conductor Arturo Toscanini. Once she arrived in New York she broadcast, lectured and published against the Nazis. Later on she would write her memoirs: Heritage of Fire. The history connected to Wagner and Liszt is as overwhelming and ambivalent as his music. It’s a world in itself full of contradictions, love, conflicts, beauty and ideals. This is in many ways reflected in the life of Friedelind Wagner and in the music of Wagner and Liszt.
Tannhaüser and Parsifal.
In terms of complete mastery of the piano, Leopold Godowsky belongs to the giants of the Romantic era and was almost completely self-taught. His approach of his ‘Scènes from Tannhauser’ is highly pianistic and personal and is different from most transcriptions. By adding inner voices and beautiful accompaniments in the left hand Godowsky aims for an original view on piano technique without disregarding Wagner’s original score.
With my Parsifal-transcriptions I have tried to capture the magical atmosphere of this music. I have taken the sonority of the piano as a basis upon which to find a good balance between the epic and the intimate.
Franz Liszt.
The b-minor Sonata is an incredible musical journey and is in many ways comparable to Wagner’s grand scale music dramas. Pianist Alfred Brendel called this sonata the most powerful and intelligent after Beethoven and Schubert. The sense of transformation is unique in Liszt’s sonata with the musical material constantly reinventing itself. The final page of the piece goes from euphoria to sudden introspection and with the final bass note all tension is resolved.
Etcetera Records | 1 October 2022 |
etcetera-records.com
For a signed copy please send an e-mail to: camielboomsma@gmail.com