|
 Carl's CD with Godowsky's Java Suite is finally out.
Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938), a Polish-born pianist and composer, was considered a piano prodigy from an early age. He claimed that he had no teacher that he could remember, although he did spend time with Camille Saint-Saëns discussing theory.
He wrote prolifically throughout his life, mostly for the piano. His Java Suite for solo piano, written in 1920, consists of 12 pieces, in four parts, and commemorates his impressions and feelings from his journey to Indonesia. The Java Suite is a virtuoso Indonesian sequence rife with the dulcet tintinnabulation of the gamelan. This music is much more akin to the Eastern experiments of Britten, Koechlin and Hovhaness than it is to the usually tinpot 'finery' of Ketelbey and a hundred other purveyors of the tame 'mystic Orient.' The music is light but not intellectually bankrupt: approachable without kitsch; affecting without being wince-making.
Buy the CD on Amazon.
|
