The Godowsky Collection, Vol. 2. - book review

The Godowsky Collection, Vol 2 edited through Millan Sachania. Carl Fischer (65 Bleecker St fresh York, NY 10012), 2001. 439 pp $4995 Difficult.

The Godowsky Collection, Vol 2 is a collection of Godowsky's transcriptions and arrangements of selections from the music of Schubert and J Bach and cadenzas for three Mozart concertos. Among the pieces through Schubert are twelve of his best-loved lays arranged for piano solo, along with a compounded F-sharp minor version of the F-minor jiffy Musical, D. 780, No. 3 and a transcription of ballet music from Rosamunde, D 797 Transcriptions of Bach's first three Sonatas for Unaccompanied Violin, and the next to the first third and fifth Suites for Unaccompanied Violoncello tread on the heels of The volume concludes with sum of two units cadenzas for Mozart's Concerto in E-flat Major for sum of two units Pianos, K. 365, a cadenza for his Concerto in A Major, K 488 and sum of two units cadenzas for the Concerto in C Minor, K 491

The Introductory Essay and Biographical delineation by Godowsky scholar and editor Millan Sachania are the greatest in quantity valuable aspects of this enormous tome, indeed worth the $4995 purchase price, for libraries, musicologists, performing artists and teachers interested in sharpening their perspective upon the style and performance practices of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sachania includes Godowsky's forewords to the first editions of these works, giving us his musical philosophy, performance suggestions and insight into the humility and honor with which he approached the masterworks he transcribed and elaborated.

Godowsky's elaborations (his preferr term) commanded the venerate of the greatest artists of his time. According to Sachania, Rachmaninoff referr to Godowsky as "the sole musician of this age who has given a lasting, a real contribution to the exhibition of piano music." Sachania further relates that great pianists, Josef Hofmann, Theodor Leschetizky and Vladimir de Pachmann, press outed their profoundest admiration for Godowsky's playing of his Chopin arrangements, whose difficulties present the appearanceed inconceivable to them. With similar documentation of the value of the mind that produc the music that tread on the heels ofs the volume proceeds with the Schubert ballad transcriptions.

Each Schubert canzonet is prefaced by the original pleasing succession of sounds and all of the line s attesting to Godowsky's respect for the originals and his ne to share the import of the true copys with the performer.

The greatest in quantity intriguing aspect of Godowsky's transcriptions evidenced in the two the Schubert songs and Bach sonatas and suites is the contrapuntal layering of materials, derived from the original compositions, with overlapping and simultaneous statements of melodies, melodic fragments and motives. Linkages between phrases involve chromatic lines, and there are harmonic changes as well as added rhythmic complexities (for example, three against two) The sweetness of sound often is divided between the hands and sometimes involves projection from an interior location.

In comparison with other transcriptions of Bach's music, the horizontal of difficulty is considerably greater in the Godowsky versions. The collection demands a sophisticated horizontal of technique and/or interpretative maturity. individual of the least technically demanding pieces in the collection is the Andante (Aria) from Bach's Sonata No. 3 in A Minor for Unaccompanied Violin, BWV 1002 The ornaments are measured and written without it is in C major and it requires the hand span of a ninth. Voicing, or the ability to throw melodic material in outer and inner voices, as well as interpretative maturity that will sustain interest above long phrase spans, present the biggest challenges.

The profundity of these transcriptions and the availability of this convolution provide a new window into the genius of Bach and his ability to inspire other great artists.

In the foreword to the 1921 edition of the cadenzas for the first and third moves of the Concerto in E-flat Major, K 365 by dint of Mozart, Godowsky stated his philosophy of cadenzas: "Provision for the interpolation of a unrestrained cadenza in a concerto may be considered as a privilege granted the performer to furnish personal commentary on the thematic material of the original work." Godowsky's cadenzas are amazing amalgamations of superimposed themes with sum of two units to four running in parallel, various contrapuntal strategies being played without in remote keys with canons abounding.

The page layout is extremely clear and spacious, with a whole s carrying as few as single or two measures of music--essential to the prosperous reading of music of this complexity.

Sachania's analysis in the Introductory Essay would have been enhanced by dint of the addition of measure numbers within the music. Nonetheless, the collection and commentary are an invaluable resource to pianists, pedagogues and researchers who are interested in the mode of speech interpretation and understanding of the pair the original and the elaborated masterpieces in this contortion Reviewed by Ruth J. Holme Lubbock Texas.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Music Teachers National Association, Inc.

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