Laurent Wagschal - Godowsky: The Art of Transcription (2016)

Celebrated in his time as one of the greatest pianists, with narcotics technical, Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938) was almost exclusively for the piano, a huge catalog of over four hundred pieces of which more than half, like Liszt, are transcriptions, arrangements or paraphrases. Like Liszt, the goal is not to give a true and literal transcription of the original, this is the least we can say! The work is completely reworked with great freedom, giving rise to actual appropriations, recompositions quite personal - these achievements become works as many as Godowsky Chopin, Schubert and Bach. Besides the traditional transcription of works originally written for other instruments or training and the composition of large paraphrases, specificity and originality of his work is to have often used as a base initially written pieces for the piano, in this which it pioneered. The pianist Laurent Wagschal, which can already boast a good thirty discographic achievements, underlines how here Godowsky made his, certainly, but how the original genius of the work he transforms remains intact, indestructible.

Tracklist:

01. Study No. 5 in D-Flat Major After Etude, Op. 10 No. 3 (Transcription for the Left Hand Alone by Godowsky)
02. Study No. 13 in E-Flat Minor After Etude, Op.10 No. 6 (Transcription for the Left Hand Alone by Godowsky)
03. Study No. 34 in C-Sharp Minor After Etude, Op. 25 No. 5 (Second Version in Form of a Mazurka) [Transcription by Godowsky]
04. Study No. 45 in E Major After Trois nouvelles études No. 2, B. 130 (First Version) [Transcription by Godowsky]
05. Violin Sonata in G Minor, BWV 1001: I. Adagio
06. Violin Sonata in G Minor, BWV 1001: II. Fuga
07. Violin Sonata in G Minor, BWV 1001: III. Siciliana
08. Violin Sonata in G Minor, BWV 1001: IV. Presto
09. Heidenröslein (Transcribed by Godowsky)
10. Wiegenlied (Transcribed by Godowsky)
11. Moment musical in F Minor, Op.94, D. 780: III. Allegro moderato (Transcribed in F-Sharp Minor by Godowsky)
12. Die Schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: VIII. Morgengruss (Transcribed By Godowsky)
13. Ballet Music from Rosamunde (Transcribed by Godowsky)
14. Die Winterreise, D. 911: I. Gute Nacht
15. Du bist wie eine Blume
16. Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes from Wein, Weib und Gesang, Op. 333 (Transcribed by Godowsky)
17. España in D Major, Op. 165: II. Tango (Transcribed by Godowsky)
18. Le Carnaval Des Animaux: XIII. Le Cygne (Transcribed By Godowsky)
19. The Star-Spangled Banner (Transcribed by Godowsky)