Leopold Godowsky
Godowsky's Studies on Chopin's Études turn already demanding pieces into labyrinths of counterpoint, left-hand bravura and interlocking textures. His Passacaglia and Schubert song paraphrases share the same dense, glittering pianism.
Written to open up technical possibilities few had imagined, the Chopin studies often exist in multiple versions of a single original: black keys, white keys, tarantella, inversions, left hand alone. They remain among the most exacting works in the literature, yet the finest playing makes the polyphony sing rather than merely survive. The Passacaglia piles forty-four variations, cadenza and fugue on the opening of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony into one vast span. His Schubert lieder transcriptions keep the melodic line clear while wrapping it in rich chromatic harmony, and music drawn from the Java Suite carries gamelan colour onto the Western keyboard.
Leopold Godowsky is featured on the following titles
Études
Ian Holtham, piano. Chopin’s twenty-four Études, Op. 10 and Op. 25: perfect examples of their genre, wonderfully innovative in texture and uncompromisingly challenging in technical difficulty.
Compositions by Leopold Godowsky also appear on
Acts of Homage
Acclaimed pianist Ian Holtham marks the centenary of Brahms’s death and the bicentenary of Schubert’s birth. The programme sets Schubert’s late impromptus beside Brahms’s Handel Variations and late piano pieces, with Godowsky’s song transcriptions as a further homage.