Moriz Rosenthal was taught both by Mikuli, the famous pupil of Chopin who helped pass on certain approaches to the purported "authentic" method of performing Chopin's music, and also by Liszt. Rosenthal was amongst Liszt's most brilliant students.
His recordings all come toward the end of his career, when his early fire and power had mellowed into a spirit of deep poetry. His playing is probably the most "colourful" of the Liszt students who recorded, with a command of keyboard tone and subtle chordal voicings of wonderful precision and perfectly nuanced shaping. His use of rubato is also sometimes very "19th century" but always absolutely compelling and never merely mannered.
This performance, from 1928, is Rosenthal's own paraphrase of the famous Schult-Evler treatment of themes from the Blue Danube Waltz (so it's a paraphrase of a paraphrase if you like!).
4 фев 2008
