Geoffrey Tozer in Concert: Takapuna 1996
Auckland Sinfonietta
Between 1965 and 1996, Geoffrey Tozer performed twenty-four of the twenty-seven Mozart concertos in public performances in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, England, Singapore and the United States of America.
Tozer regarded the music of Mozart, with that of Bach and Beethoven, as being at the core of his repertoire and, at least until the mid 1980s, was more associated with the music of Mozart that of any other composer. When the great Mozartian Ingrid Haebler visited Melbourne in February 1965, The Age reported that she considered his playing ‘brilliant’. Five years later in London, Tozer made his debut playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15 in the Royal Albert Hall to enormous acclaim. Later, when Tozer attended Haebler’s concert at the Albert Hall, she complimented in her programme, writing ‘I would have much rather been listening to you’.
In 1980 in Australia, Tozer gave a stupendous performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.16 with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The entire performance was filmed and, with Tozer’s performance of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto is an Australian national treasure, one that is still awaiting release 34 years later. Tozer first performed Mozart’s final concerto in the 1970s and he played it frequently throughout his career. He seems to have been especially inspired for the performance in Takapuna, Auckland and probably never surpassed the quality of his performance there on 9 September 1996.
Notes © 2014 Peter Wyllie Johnston
Artist
Geoffrey Tozer
Geoffrey Tozer was an artist of the first rank, a consummate musician, a concert pianist and recitalist with few peers, possessing perfect pitch, a boundless musical memory, the ability to improvise, to transpose instantly into any key or to create on the piano a richly textured reduction of an orchestral score at sight.
Audio previews
Track Listing
- Allegro 13:52
- Larghetto in E-flat major 7:40
- Allegro 8:49
- Andante spianoato and Grand Polonaise Brillante in E-flat major, Op. 22 Frédéric Chopin 11:52
- The Angel, Op. 1 Nikolai Medtner 4:22
- Dance Suite for Piano: Foxtrot Artur Schnabel 2:58
- Melody from Orfeo Christoph Willibald Gluck 3:17
- Paraphrase de concert sur Rigoletto, S.434 Franz Liszt 7:43
- Air on a G string, (from BWV 1068) Johann Sebastian Bach 5:19
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in B-flat major, No. 27, K.595 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performers
Composers
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers.
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer, virtuoso pianist, and music teacher. He was one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano".
Nikolai Medtner
Nikolai Karlovich Medtner (Russian: Никола́й Ка́рлович Ме́тнер, Nikoláj Kárlovič Métner; 5 January 1880 [O.S. 24 December 1879] – 13 November 1951) was a Russian composer and pianist. A younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano. His works include fourteen piano sonatas, three violin sonatas, three piano concerti, a piano quintet, two works for two pianos, many shorter piano pieces, a few shorter works for violin and piano, and 108 songs including two substantial works for vocalise. His 38 Skazki (generally known as "Fairy Tales" in English but more correctly translated as "Tales") for piano solo contain some of his most original music and are as central to his output as the piano sonatas.
Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel (17 April, 1882 – 15 August, 1951) was an Austrian classical pianist, who also composed and taught. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura. Among the 20th century's most respected and most important pianists, his playing displayed marked vitality, profundity and spirituality in the Austro-German classics, particularly the works of Beethoven and Schubert. His performances of these compositions have often been hailed as models of interpretative penetration, and his best-known recordings are those of the Beethoven piano sonatas. Harold C. Schonberg referred to Schnabel as "the man who invented Beethoven".
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher. As a composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the "Neudeutsche Schule" ("New German School").
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity.
Where to buy
Geoffrey Tozer in Concert: Takapuna 1996 is available for download from the iTunes Music Store.
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Geoffrey Tozer in Concert: Takapuna 1996 is available as as CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer secure online ordering.
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Product details
- List price
- $20.00 AUD
- Total playing time
- 65 minutes 52 seconds
- Release date
- December 2014
- Copyright
- © 2014 Move Records
- Phonogram
- ℗ 2014 Move Records
- Category
- Classical
- Catalogue number
- MD 3387
- Barcode
- EAN 9314574338720
