Listen & tracks
3 of 10 tracks have a preview · 7 works · 66:26
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Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in B-flat major, No. 27, K.595Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 3 movements30:30
- 1 i. Allegro 13:54
- 2 ii. Larghetto in E-flat major 7:41
- 3 iii. Allegro 8:55
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4 Andante spianato and Grand Polonaise Brillante in E-flat major, Op. 22 Frédéric Chopin 11:58
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5 The Angel, Op. 1 Nikolai Medtner 4:27
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6 Dance Suite for Piano Artur Schnabel Foxtrot 3:03
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7 Melody from Orfeo Christoph Willibald Gluck 3:22
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8 Paraphrase de concert sur Rigoletto, S.434 Franz Liszt 7:47
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9 Air on a G String (from BWV 1068) Johann Sebastian Bach 5:19
Recorded at the Bruce Mason Centre on 9 September 1996 with Peter Scholes conducting, the programme opens with Mozart’s last piano concerto and moves into solo showpieces: Chopin’s Andante spianato and Grand Polonaise Brillante, Medtner’s early The Angel, a Foxtrot from Schnabel’s Dance Suite, Gluck’s melody from Orfeo, Liszt’s Rigoletto paraphrase, and Bach’s Air on a G String in Tozer’s own arrangement.
The release belongs to Move’s series of Tozer concert documents, preserving a night when the pianist was especially inspired in a work he had played often since the 1970s.
In the artist’s words
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 than 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 him 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.
Artists
Geoffrey Tozer
piano
Geoffrey Tozer (1954–2009) was an Australian concert pianist and composer of the first rank, gifted with perfect pitch, a boundless musical memory, and the ability to improvise, transpose instantly into any key, or reduce an orchestral score at sight.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
composer
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He wrote over 600 works, many of them pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic and choral music, and remains among the most enduringly popular of classical composers.
Frédéric Chopin
composer
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the early Romantic period. He wrote almost exclusively for the piano and remains one of its defining poetic voices.
Nikolai Medtner
composer
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.
Christoph Willibald Gluck
composer
Christoph Willibald Gluck stripped opera of empty display and put drama first. His reform works, from Orfeo ed Euridice to Iphigénie en Tauride, fuse Italian melody with French theatrical force in music of noble simplicity and human passion.
Franz Liszt
composer
Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic era. His vast output reshaped piano technique, invented the symphonic poem and pushed harmony toward the twentieth century.
Johann Sebastian Bach
composer
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was a German composer and organist of the late Baroque. His sacred and secular music for choir, orchestra, organ and solo instruments remains among the foundations of the Western concert and church repertory.
Artur Schnabel
composer
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".
Digital booklet
Digital booklet Notes, texts and credits — read online or download the PDF Download the PDFPerformers
- Geoffrey Tozer · piano
- Auckland Sinfonietta · orchestra · tracks 1–3
- Peter Scholes · conductor · tracks 1–3
Technical credits
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Contributor
Peter Wyllie Johnston
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Mastering Engineer
Martin Wright
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Venue
Bruce Mason Centre, Auckland
Details
- List price
- $20.00 AUD
- Total playing time
- 66 minutes 26 seconds
- Release date
- 11 Dec 2014
- Category
- Classical
- Musical work copyright
- © 2014 Move Records
- Sound recording copyright
- ℗ 2014 Move Records
- Catalogue
- MD 3387
- EAN
- 9314574338720
More to explore
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Geoffrey Tozer in Concert: Hobart 1991
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Geoffrey Tozer in Concert: Auckland 1990
Recorded live with the Auckland Symphonia under Vladimir Verbitsky, Geoffrey Tozer plays Rachmaninov’s complete Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.
Pieces from Childhood
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