Erich Wolfgang Korngold; Franz Schmidt - Music for Strings and Piano Left Hand (Leon Fleisher)

Information

Composer: Erich Wolfgang Korngold; Franz Schmidt

• Korngold - Suite for 2 violins, cello & piano left hand, Op. 23
• Schmidt - Quintet in G major for 2 violins, viola, cello & piano left hand

Leon Fleisher, piano

Joseph Silverstein, violin

Jaime Laredo, violin

Joel Smirnoff, violin

Michael Tree, viola

Yo-Yo Ma, cello

Date: 1991; 1993

Label: Sony

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Review

Music for one-handed piano is naturally less well-known than music involving both hands. But begin to explore the astonishing range of music commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein – the celebrated pianist who lost his right arm during World War I – and some unexpected gems emerge. The latest is Korngold’s Suite for Two Violins, Cello and Piano Left Hand, which has come to CD at last. Fleisher, Silverstein, Laredo and Ma give a performance stamped with both authority and a deep appreciation of the combination of Viennese Romanticism and bursts of expressionist fantasy that was characteristic of Korngold at the time of this work. Their sweep, grandeur, beauty of tone and lightness of touch are exemplary. Equally crucially, they never lose sight of the work’s shape. The Suite can now take its rightful place as one of Korngold’s most significant chamber works. Further recordings of it are expected.

The Quintet by Schmidt (Fleisher, Silverstein and Ma are joined by Joel Smirnoff and Michael Tree) is another previously buried treasure. Lighter and more transparent in texture than the Korngold, this work harks back more to Bruckner and Brahms; its tone is lyrical, intense and utterly compelling. Schmidt wrote no fewer than six compositions for Wittgenstein, and one hopes that this recording will inspire their further exploration.

— Jessica Duchen

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Erich Wolfgang Korngold (May 29, 1897 – November 29, 1957) was an Austrian-born composer and child prodigy, hailed as a genius in early 20th-century classical music. He gained early fame for his operas, particularly Die tote Stadt (1920), before fleeing Nazi-occupied Austria in the 1930s. In Hollywood, Korngold became a pioneer of film music, composing lush, romantic scores for films like The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which won him an Academy Award. He wrote scores for 16 Hollywood films in all, and is considered one of the founders of film music, along with Max Steiner and Alfred Newman.

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Franz Schmidt (22 December 1874 – 11 February 1939) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. A piano student of Theodor Leschetizky and a composition pupil of Anton Bruckner, he began his career as a cellist with the Vienna Court Opera, where he experienced professional tensions with Gustav Mahler. Schmidt later taught composition at the Vienna Staatsakademie and served as director of the Musikhochschule (1927–31). His music, sometimes compared to Max Reger, includes the opera Notre Dame, the oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln, four symphonies, left-hand works for Paul Wittgenstein, and organ works.

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Leon Fleisher (23 July 1928 – 2 August 2020) was a pianist, conductor and teacher. Born in San Francisco, he began studying with Artur Schnabel at the age of nine. He became widely recognized for his interpretations of concertos by Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven, particularly in recordings with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. In 1964, focal dystonia caused the loss of use of his right hand, leading him to focus on left-hand repertoire before later regaining partial mobility. He also taught for more than six decades at institutions including the Peabody Institute and the Curtis Institute of Music.

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