Album insights
Joseph Marx and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, both Austrians and extraordinary pianists, maintained a lifelong friendship despite a fifteen-year age gap and a forced separation during World War II when Korngold, a Jew, lived in exile in America. Marx, an esteemed educator, was the director of the Vienna State Academy and even taught Korngold's younger son for a period after the war. The two composers, along with other colleagues, organized alternative Salzburg Festivals as a response to the dominance of the International Society for New Music by Schoenberg, aiming to showcase the best new music while critiquing serial techniques. The concerts garnered publicity but angered the official committee and the IGNM founder, Edward J. Dent. The CD features their piano concertos written around that time, highlighting the strength of late Romantic ideals in music even in the 1920s and each composer's unique musical style in response to the revolutionary ideas of the time.
Joseph Marx, a master of harmonic complexity influenced by Schumann, Brahms, and Reger, penned the Romantic Piano Concerto in E major without an opus number in 1918/9. The piece, rarely performed since the 1930s, demonstrates Marx's brilliance as a composer and orchestrator within a traditional 19th-century framework. In contrast, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Piano Concerto in C major for the left hand, Op. 17, showcases his innovative harmonic language and melodic richness, pushing boundaries both tonally and formally. Composed as a single movement with intricate orchestration and virtuosic piano writing, Korngold's concerto stands as a symphonic poem emphasizing musical tension and expression.
Korngold's concerto, commissioned by the celebrated pianist Paul Wittgenstein, exudes a distinct 20th-century character, marked by originality in harmony and tonality. The composition, symbolizing a symphonic journey, introduces themes with a tonal clash, intricate melodic development, and a mix of lyrical and rhythmically intense passages true to Korngold's style. The work unfolds in an intense yet concentrated manner, showcasing Korngold's musical genius and unconventional harmonies. Despite the challenging solo part, the concerto was revived later by pianist Gary Graffman, drawing attention to this pioneering and enduring piece penned by a musical virtuoso centuries ahead of his time.