Between Performance and Notation: How did Carl Reinecke understand Mozart’s piano concerto No.26 K.537?
(2024)
author(s): Mako Kodama
published in: KC Research Portal
Carl Reinecke (1824-1910) was a German composer, pianist, conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and professor at the Leipzig Conservatory. His piano performances were admired by Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt, and he was reputed as "the greatest and most sincere Mozart player of his time."However, you may be surprised on listening for the first time to his performances preserved on piano rolls, since there is noticeable use of expressive practices such as manual asynchrony, unnotated arpeggiation, and rubato (flexibility of rhythm and tempo), which is quite far from the kind of performance style that is considered good today.
This research clarifies the features of the performance practices audible in early piano rolls, such as those by Reinecke. It focuses on how he arranged and notated the Larghetto from Mozart's Piano Concerto No.26 K.537 for piano solo, how he performed it on piano roll (1905), and how he described the performance of the movement in his book Zur Wiederbelebung der Mozart'schen Clavier-Concerte (1891). The discrepancies between the three source materials give an insight into the implied performance practices of Reinecke’s time and his tacit knowledge. The research culminates with personal experimentation and reflection on how these performance practices can expand the freedom and possibilities of the author’s performances.
Pedro Pérez de Albéniz: Fortepiano Fantasies
(2019)
author(s): Julián Turiel Lobo
published in: KC Research Portal
I have always felt curious about the time periods between composers such as Antonio Soler or Domenico Scarlatti, belonging to the first half of the 18th century, and others like Enrique Granados, Isaac Albeniz or Manuel de Falla, who were active between the end of the 19th-century and the first half of the 20th-century.
During the last decades, research has been done about some of the most important composers of this period. Among all of them, Pedro Pérez de Albéniz (1795-1855) stands out. His importance as a composer and, above all, as a teacher was fundamental in creating a solid and successful piano school in Spain. His pianism is inspired, in order of increasing importance, by Spanish folklore, Italian opera and the pianistic writing and resources used in 19th-century Paris, and is influenced by two capital figures: Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1785-1849) and Henri Herz (1803-1888).
Finally, his fantasies are the most ambitious works of his catalog. They are the ones that best exhibit the characteristics of his pianistic language. They are essential to understanding where Pedro Albéniz can be placed within the Spanish piano literature and illustrate how deep Romanticism had come at this time in the context of the Spanish piano.