Catalogue Connection: 25093

The Divine Art label is nothing if not adventurous, often casting its repertoire net wider than that of many other labels, and on this new CD, the first of what promises to be a valuable two-CD exploration of Tchaikovsky’s music in versions for solo piano, we have the opportunity of being able to experience the composer’s art through the medium by which such music is hardly ever heard. Nor is this a gimmicky approach—for when this music first appeared, it was through transcriptions, either for one pianist or for two pianists at one instrument, that the majority of music-lovers initially encountered it. It is also fascinating to hear familiar music in this guise because it enables the attentive listener to concentrate upon the inner workings of this music, and thereby acquire a deeper understanding of Tchaikovsky’s genius.

Thankfully, also, we have the inestimable advantage of having Anthony Goldstone as our guide in this project, and the results are musically outstanding. Not only is this recording quality very good indeed, but also the booklet notes are particularly informative, yet it is the pianist’s committed approach which is the most compelling aspect of this programme, containing as it does, particularly effective transcriptions by Goldstone and Lippold. We are promised that Volume 2 will contain transcriptions by Pavel Pabst, which should be just as valuable as these.

Tchaikovsky’s orchestral music, not unlike Rachmaninov’s , lends itself wonderfully to piano transcriptions and paraphrases—magnificently colourful and contoured, immaculately graded and given to long-breathed gestures, which push ever forward in intensity to reach climaxes of enormous power and grandeur. Much of the composer’s romantic essence finds its way into piano versions and I can quite see why Anthony Goldstone has turned his attention, first to the orchestral and operatic music, and in the next instalment to the ballet music.

Three of the four works included on this first disc for Divine Art appear on record for the first time, although only one of these was transcribed by Tchaikovsky himself. Goldstone has become increasingly interested in recording his own realizations of Schubert’s and Mozart’s music for four hands, and his busy international career performing with his wife Caroline Clemmow has led to recordings on Divine Art and Toccata Classics in which a strong Russian theme is steadily emerging. Pianists frequently think orchestrally , while of course many orchestral composers work out their ideas first at the piano, such is the potential for cross-fertility. As Goldstone reminds us, Tchaikovsky heartily approved of eloquent transcriptions of his works, as in many ways such endeavours served to honour the music and guarantee its circulation beyond larger auditoriums.

March Slave, Op. 31 (here transcribed by Herbert Hanke) was composed in support of the Serbian/Turkish war in 1876 and has a suitably rumbustious , patriotic overtone to it, ably captured by Goldstone. It works very well as the opening item, with its catchy illumination of the melodies and a confidently projected sense of the orchestral version. Potpourri on Themes from the opera ‘Voyevoda’ (transcribed by Tchaikovsky) also emerges as in interesting, fulfilling work for piano. While Voyevoda did not get the most auspicious of inceptions, with hold-ups and mishaps getting in the way, it all came together well in the end. The opera fell into disrepair following initial successes, however, which encouraged the composer to produce this delightful mélange of highlights for piano. Goldstone manages to make the piece hang together very sturdily, tackling head-on the pseudo-orchestral effects and coaxing out a velvety cantabile tone.

The third of Tchaikovsky’s Orchestral Suites is arguably the most performed, with the ‘Theme and Variations’ (all 12, based on an original-theme) working beautifully as a stand-alone work (transcribed by Max Lippold and Goldstone), prompting this enticing and consistently alluring performance from Goldstone. The Serenade in C major, Op. 48, also transcribed by Lippold and Goldstone, was written at the same time as the 1812 Overture, not that any musical resonances can be felt between the two works, and all four movements have been skilfully negotiated for execution at the piano keyboard. The ‘Valse’ is especially well lifted from the page and would work very well as a concert piece in its own right, while the finale (‘Temo Russo’) serves as a delightful closer to the disc, shrugged off with impressive effortlessness by Goldstone.

The disc overall emerges as a creditable project, no doubt distracting Goldstone for some considerable time, not least in contributing to two of the four excellent transcriptions and in the writing of full, detailed booklet notes. His efforts are complemented by a warm, well-captured sound from Divine Art—I look forward to hearing Goldstone’s second instalment featuring Tchaikovsky’s ballet music.

This first of two volumes dedicated to transcriptions and paraphrases for piano of Tchaikovsky’s Orchestral and Operatic oeuvre is a revelation from start to finish. It is well documented that Tchaikovsky was not only a master pianist himself, but also a fine arranger of his own works, so this disc will help us no end in understanding and appreciating not only this unheralded gift of the composer, but also the acumen of other musicians who strove to bring Tchaikovsky’s wondrous melodies to a wider audience.

Written in just five days in November 1876, the “Marche Slave” is one of Tchaikovsky’s most rousing works. Built on Serbian tunes and on the Russian National Anthem “God Save the Tsar”, the March created a bedlam of enthusiasm at its premiere in the same month and year, and this induced the composer to write a version for solo piano, also in 1876. The transcription recorded here is by one H. Hanke and was published in Russia about 1904. Unfortunately, we know nothing about this person, not even whether it was a man or a woman, but what can be ascertained is that H. Hanke was a true virtuoso. The piano version of this famous piece is a staggering conception and it does not in any way spare the performer the difficulty and the stamina required to bring it off.

“The Voyevoda” was Tchaikovsky’s first opera based on Ostrovsky’s play “A Dream on the Volga”. Premiered at the Bolshoi in 1869, the work was a success, but for some unknown reason, it fell into oblivion after just 5 performances. In his disappointment Tchaikovsky later destroyed the full score manuscript, but miraculously most of the orchestral parts and other material survived and the work was reconstructed by Yuri Kochurov in the 1940’s. The “Potpourri’ on this recording is by H. Cramer but this is only a pseudonym of Tchaikovsky himself, a strong enough proof that the composer had total faith in this, his first operatic venture, and indeed why not, as the opera is absolutely brimming with sumptuous arias, choruses and ensembles of exceptional melodic invention. The “Potpourri’ is just a tantalizing taster but well worth hearing. The Suite No 3 and Serenade for Strings were composed in 1884 and 1880 respectively, and both command a legion of admirers.

The “Theme and Variations” (4th movement) is frequently performed separately from the rest of the Suite. This is due not only for its marvelously laid out structure, but also for its well judged length and scintillating tunes, particularly the final “polonaise’. The Serenade, with its famous “waltz’, is a heartfelt work, and Tchaikovsky had a special predilection for it. Maybe he knew that it would be one of his greatest successes, and even the grudge that Nikolai Rubinstein had for the composer disappeared once he heard it performed.

The transcriptions on this disc are by the performer himself and Max Lippold, an obscure pianist who made several arrangements of Russian orchestral music way back in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Renditions are imbued with a high dose of exciting pianism but the lyrical quality of the music is dealt with gentle finesse and subtle expressiveness. Sound and balance are first-rate. I’m looking forward to Volume 2.

Anthony Goldstone is proving increasingly fearless in his examination of the transcriptive arts either alone, as here, or with his wife Caroline Clemmow. This latest venture concentrates on Tchaikovsky and is the first volume devoted to orchestral and operatic music. One was transcribed by Tchaikovsky himself, though he hid behind the academically plausible pseudonym ‘H. Cramer’ – it has a historic ring to it. The others were the work of a variety of transcribers, amongst them Anthony Goldstone.

The Marche slave is the work of Herbert Hanke, and is heard here in its first ever recording. If you think you’ll miss the brash, self-confident colour of the nationalistic orchestral version, you’ll find compensation via the commanding panache Goldstone presents. The various Serbian melodies are brought out splendidly and the martial/Tsarist climax is genuinely exciting in this performance. The Potpourri on themes from the opera The Voyevoda is the work of Cramer (Tchaikovsky), and this has been recorded before. Still, when there’s so much rich chording, drama and mobile left hand to be heard, no one should easily pass up the chance to hear Goldstone’s insouciant virtuosity.

Max Lippold and Goldstone transcribed the Theme and Variations from the Orchestral Suite No.3 in G major – an orchestral favourite. It would be more accurate to say that Lippold did the historic groundwork, though exactly when is not quite clear – Lippold seems to have died in the 1930s – and Goldstone has amended aspects of Lippold’s work. Whether forthright or droll, this is a splendidly assured performance. One of the highlights is the naughty fugato, which in a piano transcription can be enjoyed in all its naked wit. Galumphing or religiose, galvanic or dancing, reposeful or resplendent, Goldstone brings out the work’s richly characterful qualities with great facility and communicative spirit. He ends with another transcription courtesy of Lippold, the Serenade in C major. Both this and the Theme and Variations are première recordings, and the Serenade is notable for the cultured and cultivated tonal qualities Goldstone brings. That and playfulness too, conjured with a sense of breadth and tonal imagination, and warm phrasing.

These qualities are reinforced by the excellent recording, and good notes. Ballets next, and that should be fun.

For such a powerful work as Tchaikovsky ‘s Marche slave, which conveys its powerful imagery through its impressive orchestration, to come to life when played on a single piano, requires an interpretation that sees right through the notes printed on the score and focuses on the spirit and raison d’être behind the music. And pianist Anthony Goldstone delivers such an interpretation. He overrides the technical demands (this “transcription de concert” by H. Hanke is loaded with them), and by doing so, delivers as rousing and scenic a version as 80 orchestral musicians. The only thing missing is cymbals attached to his feet.

This version of the Marche slave is a world première recording, and so are the Theme and Variations from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in G major, Op. 55 and the Serenade in C major for String Orchestra, Op. 48 both transcribed for the keyboard by Max Lippold and Anthony Goldstone himself. His arrangement of the famous Waltz in the Serenade is both scholarly and whimsical. In every instance, Goldstone displays an uncanny ability to clearly define the melodic lines that run throughout these scores, and never allows his perfectly judged use of the sustain pedal to muddle the quasi-orchestral textures. This level of musicianship makes the orchestra redundant.

Highly recommended to all pianophiles and Tchaikovsky fans alike!

The very word “transcription” raises the hackles and fuels the ambivalence levels of some music lovers: “it’s a compromise” and “it’s simply not quite the real thing” are just two of the standard reactions from serial doubters. I will refrain, in this small space, from reciting the honourable history of composer-authorised transcriptions, and point listeners to the latest release from pianist Anthony Goldstone, an underrated musician with an unrivalled pedigree in his tireless championship of the art of the transcription: his two-piano performance, with wife Caroline Clemmow, of Taneyev’s arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is a classic of the genre. Now here, on his own, he plays a thumpingly effective version of the Marche Slave, Tchaikovsky’s own compelling arrangement of themes from The Voyevoda and other rarities culminating with a magnificent account of the Serenade For Strings which completely defies expectations and comes brilliantly and sonorously to life in the hands of this consummate expert and masterly technician.

Anthony Goldstone is unofficially something like the U.K. professor emeritus of piano. After a successful concert career which included a letter of thanks and praise from Benjamin Britten himself, Goldstone has settled in to spend the past few years arranging, transcribing, completing, discovering and otherwise generating new works for the piano repertoire, then recording them for the Divine Art label. One can hear his arrangements in ‘The Piano at the Ballet’, an homage to gypsy music, and world premieres of numerous works of the Russian romantics.

Here he presents arrangements of Tchaikovsky, both familiar works ( Marche slave , Serenade for Strings ) and perhaps somewhat less so: the finale of the third orchestral suite, a ‘Potpourri’ on themes from The Voyevoda . It’s a pleasant program but probably only of interest to the serious Tchaikovsky fan. I am one of those sad people who don’t much like the Marche slave , and “naked” in a piano transcription it doesn’t grow any warmer, but the virtuosity required is considerable and Goldstone has all of it. The transcriber, someone named Hanke, is a bit of a mystery, and even Goldstone’s impressive detective work couldn’t crack the case. Tchaikovsky himself arranged the Potpourri on themes from his opera The Voyevoda , and published it under a pseudonym. Goldstone has cleared the composer of responsibility for the piano Marche . The pen name was a good idea in this case; the potpourri is structurally just that, jumping from tune to tune with little order, though it all sounds very pretty.

The two transcriptions by Anthony Goldstone himself with Max Lippold are the most successful. The first is of the variations from Orchestral Suite No 3 , and although one can miss certain orchestral colors, like the cor anglais solo, the piano version is surprisingly effective, and definitely a great pleasure to hear. Goldstone’s fingers can really fly at moments like the incursion of the ‘Dies irae’ tune. The Serenade for Strings is the CD’s highlight for me: it’s one of my favorite works, and the transcription by Goldstone and Lippold is both exceptionally good and blessed with its own witty little touches. I approached with trepidation, because a piano’s sustaining power has nothing on the polish of orchestral strings, but the transcribers know this and have accounted for it, and the playing here transcends all such qualms. It’s indeed an extremely good performance, the waltz a delight and the trickiest bits to make work on a piano – the introduction and élégie – are handled beautifully.

Curious Tchaikovsky fans should therefore check this out. Aficionados and connoisseurs will enjoy a great deal, especially thanks to Goldstone’s sympathetic pianism and his ability to deploy considerable virtuosity when necessary. He would be even better-flattered by more state-of-the-art sound; this is a bit glassy, and so closely miked that the church acoustic sounds more like a sitting room. Still, it’s not something that will impair your enjoyment. Volume 2 will contain excerpts from the three ballets; as a previous recording has hinted, these pieces have potential on the piano. I very much look forward to hearing Goldstone take them on.

British pianist Anthony Goldstone launches the first of two volumes dedicated to solo piano transcriptions of Tchaikovsky scores: this first devotes itself to orchestral concert works and operatic music. Goldstone makes his bravura mark from the outset, with a transcription of the 1876 Slavonic March , a piece Tchaikovsky created in five days to promote the Russian Music Society’s aid of victims of the war between Serbia and Turkey. The piece incorporates a number of anthems and Serbian melodies, and the 1904 arrangement by the otherwise mysterious H. Hanke has Goldstone’s wrists, articulation and stamina each tested in the course of a galloping panorama of nationalist fervor.

Tchaikovsky wrote his opera The Voyevoda around 1868, based on an Ostrovsky libretto about a regional governor. Tchaikovsky first arranged the Entr’acte and Dance of the Chambermaids for piano duet and the his so-called Potpourri on Themes from the Opera The Voyevoda under a pseudonym: H. Cramer. The fourteen-minute collation has no great melodic impulse, but it casts a distinctly Russian glow via folk song settings and Slavic rhythms. A snappy martial tune appears that Tchaikovsky subjects to contrapuntal development, rather knotty under the hands, it seems. A more heavily Russian dance emerges with four-square rhythm and thick bass chords, until a series of ostinati in the right hand urge us forward in a sound like the Catacombs section of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition . The last section sounds a bit like silent movie music, choppily sentimental.

The Suite No. 3 in G Major (1884) culminates in its most often performed section, the last movement Theme and Variations that Max Lippold (d. 1934) arranged for piano solo. Goldstone has emended his own knowledge of the orchestral version to fill out textures and enrich the piano’s approximation of symphonic effects. The theme and twelve variations each assumes a distinct national character, modulating to distant keys, like B Minor, and suddenly, in Variation Four , bursting into the Dies Irae , which would become a standard Rachmaninov ploy. The fifth variation offers an intricate fugato that shows off Goldstone’s capacity for Bach organ sonority. A syncopated scherzo follows, a kind of competition test-piece for the fingers. The next variant, which features an English horn solo and strings, evokes the English countryside. We shift rapidly into A Major for a Russian dance that could easily be interpolated into any Tchaikovsky ballet. The piano must next imitate a solo violin’s recitative-parlando and usher in a Waltz in B Minor over a drone pedal tone on A. After a transition via quick imitation and antiphons in Variation 11 , only the massive polonaise remains, an extended finale of breadth and lyrico-dramatic excitement. The curtain-raising effect of the polonaise has something of Chopin’s Op. 22 about it, the upbeat plunging us into a gallant world of aristocratic, militant gestures. The episodes bounce heroically with typical Tchaikovsky ballet fervor, and Goldstone makes us want to hurry to hear our favorite renditions with the orchestra under Kempe, Boult, Kondrashin, Scherman, and Matacic.

The piano would ordinarily be the last place I’d seek to hear Tchaikovsky’s 1880 Serenade in C for Strings, a piece I first heard with the exalted BSO string section under Koussevitzky. Tchaikovsky claimed the Serenade evolved “from inner conviction. It is a heartfelt piece.” From its opening on four chords in C, it descends to A Minor plaintively outlining the main theme for its opening Pezzo in forma di Sonatina with its tragic mood. Goldstone paces this basically classical structure, which lacks a development section proper, in broad periods, the piano’s voices a model of textural clarity, if not of tonal warmth. The abridged cyclicism to which the work conforms occurs at the movement’s end, in which the opening material reappears, a gesture Tchaikovsky brings back in the last movement, both as the four-note motto theme and then by literal recall. Without the various string choirs to form the sound world of this piece, it sounds like a piano reduction for expository purposes in counterpoint in a class devoted to form-and-analysis.

The famously lovely Valse seems to undergo a kind Pierre Boulez dissection in this keyboard version, and it becomes a salon answer to Weber’s Invitation to the Dance . For the ultimate in this movement’s potential for refined tragedy, listen to what Furtwaengler achieves; and unfortunately, he recorded only the second and fourth movements! The descending bass line helps define the ensuing Elegia movement in D Major; the piano version rather simplifies Tchaikovsky’s clever use of scale motives. The lovely melody over flowing arpeggios now sounds balletic, a forerunner of Prokofiev by way of Rachmaninov. Goldstone’s line moves briskly, in rather hard patina, but the textural clarity, poised and nobly supple, warrants our admiration. After the fermata , the main melody sounds like clever improvising in chromatic scales at a piano bar. Goldstone manages to impart a sense of mystery to the opening of the Finale: Tema ruso , with its own potpourri of Russian folk songs and dances. In this regard, the affinity between this movement and the genuine piano piece, the Dumka , Op. 59 , seems to have been realized. The main theme under Goldstone does indeed a luminous keyboard sound, and his polyphony quite sweeps us along to the end, the tail swallowed by the head of the opening in what has been a fascinating excursion into Tchaikovsky, that musical and academic tussle whose victor is likely the composer.

This first of two volumes of Tchaikovsky transcriptions (the second will cover the ballets) has the exhilaration not just of the music itself — that moment, for instance, in the Marche slave (transcribed by one H Hanke) when the Russian national anthem, so peculiarly Tchaikovskian, strides in — but of defiant medium-crossing. The glorious Serenade for Strings could not be better calculated for such forces, but creating stringiness on an essentially percussive instrument (as in this previously unrecorded transcription by Max Lippold, elaborated by Goldstone) brings an added zest.

This is more a musicological exercise – and a very good one – than a piano recital for pleasure. The notes by Anthony Goldstone do credit to his exhaustive research and one has to compliment him on recording all this music with the necessary virtuosity and enormous stamina which is required.

Also praise for his taking the trouble to give us precise track timings for every point he makes (why is it not routine by now?).

But the actual playing on the piano in the church round the corner from his Alkborough village it is rather basic pianism; it would need, say, a Pletnev to bring this orchestral music to life on the piano. The brick walls probably don’t help dampen the rather harsh recorded tone.

So this is one for the Tchaikovsky completist and student; not high on the Goldstone list for collectors of this pianist’s remarkable recorded legacy, which will maintain his presence in catalogues of the distant future.

Piano versions, sometimes called redactions or transcriptions, of fully orchestrated works will never be a substitute for them. But I love to hear them for a better look into the inner structure of the originals.

Take for example the Divine Art CD titled “Tchaikovsky: Rare Transcriptions and Paraphrases, Volume 1, Orchestral and Opera.” Here pianist Anthony Goldstone plays selections by Tchaikovsky: “Marche slave,” “Potpourri on Themes from the Opera ‘The Voyevoda’,” “Theme and Variations from ‘Orchestral Suite No 3′,” and the delightful “Serenade in C major for string orchestra.”

The first transcription is by H. Hanke, the second by Tchaikovsky, and the last two by Max Lippold and Goldstone. If one has never heard the originals, these selections are all wonderful; and then one can go on to marvel at the fully “fleshed out” orchestral versions on other recordings. And what awaits in Volume 2, Divine Arts?

One of the pianist stalwarts of our age, Anthony Goldstone has always provided me with the greatest of pleasure by the consistency of his interpretations. He delights in the unusual in his choice of material and this Divine CD dda25093 is no exception. Max Lippold, H Hanke and Tchaikovsky himself are the arrangers of these four works. The most unusual is the selection from the early opera The Voyevoda .

The name ‘H Cramer’ is in fact Tchaikovsky! Reference books list him as Henri Cramer although this may be an invented catch phrase or nom de plume . The selection is most familiar in its customary orchestral setting, but these performances re-enhance their popularity.