Customer Reviews

Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words- selections / Grieg: Lyric Pieces- selections

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I own two other recordings of the lyric pieces: one by Gilels on Deutsche Grammophon and one by Sviatoslav Richter on Live Classics. Although I am a huge Richter fan, I actually prefer Gieseking's account. He truly was a brilliant pianist. His account of the Lieder ohne Worte is also quite good. All in all, if you can find this set (I think it may be out of print), buy it immediately. It is well worth the purchase price.

I'm no musician, but I love this music. Although, I may not be able to put it into words as eloquently and as knowledgably as others, I am a painter and believe this music to be of the best quality of art. I would suggest it to anyone, especially someone beginning to appreciate classical piano music. It's given me so much satisfaction to hear something so acceptable to my ears. I feel Walter Gieseking illuminates this music in subtle ways I cannot fully understand but sincerely appreciate.

Gieseking's brilliant and soulful interpretation of these pieces depict the reason for their title(s) - they are songs that do not need words - the music itself tells the story. Included on this CD are songs about passion, beauty, love, tragedy, triumph and bittersweet melancholy. Other artists who have performed these pieces on published CD's, such as Ilse von Alpenheim, play them fairly well from a purely technical standpoint, but they haven't captured the emotion needed to evolve the music into story telling 'songs'.

I found this an engrossing album of 17 Songs Without Words from Mendelssohn's lifelong collection of them. Although he is firmly enshrined among the great pianists of the twentieth century, the last phase of Walter Gieseking's career was unhappy -- the public was slow to forgive the fact that he remained in Nazi Germany and performed in occupied lands, and critics sniped that his fabled technique, among the most nuanced ad sophisticated in terms of touch, had declined form its apex in the Thirties and Forties. He died prematurely in 1956, at 60, after an emergency surgery in London that led to complications; his wife had died in a serious bus accident in Germany the year before, and Giesekig had suffered serious head injuries.

The Mendelssohn was recorded in 1956, alongside another larger project, never completed, of recording all the Beethoven sonatas. In fact, Gieseking was recording some Beethoven in the studio when he suffered the illness that led to his surgery and death (I have no other details.) From whatever cause, his playing of these brief incidental pieces, upon which Mendelssohn's piano reputations largely rests, is unusually serious, and tempos can be quite slow, as in the two opening selections from Op. 19 (there were a total of 48 songs published intermittently in eight volumes). I was immediately drawn to them, despite the dated mono sound that is too close for comfort, exactly because Gieseking focues such serious attention on pieces that are usually played for superficial charm or sentimentality. The latest Gramophone reviewer, however, thought that the pianist held them under a microscope and was overly sophisticated. Each listener will have to be the judge.

What is indisputable is that these are distinguished readings, bringing out Gieseking's gift for lyrical phrasing. Urania seems to have faithfully copied the originals on HMV. The 96/24 remastering results i totally clean surfaces but perhaps at the cost of a certain dullness; the labeling mistakenly calls this a stereo recording -- if only. Before I settled on Gieseking's version, I listened to more modern ones from Perahia, Barenboim, and others. He won out by finding a delicate balance between the artful simplicity of each song and its potential for going a bit deeper emotionally.

The Grieg Lyric Pieces represent another ongoing project, like the Beethoven sonatas, that was never completed. In the stereo era pride of place has gone to Emil Gilels for his 1975 DG set. Gilels commented that he had always thought of this music as teaching material for students until he realized that they were "not merely simple, childlike pieces but open up a world of great intimacy of feeling". EMI didn't include Gieseking's version in their Icon series, which makes this References release the main source. I can't really choose between Gilels and Gieseking, leaving aside questions about recorded sound. both are soulful and thoughtful, approaching the music to bring out subtle shadings.

If you only know Gieseking through his famous Ravel and Debussy recordings, this foray into other territory is an eye-opener.

This is it. If you love Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words and Grieg's Lyric Pieces (and what kind of a monster are you if you don't?), this is the gold standard. It ranks right up at the top along with Friedman, Magaloff, Doyen, Hansen, and Gilels.

I discovered Mendelssohn's lovely piano music via this very album back when I was 18. Gieseking's touch is, as always, a marvel. He envelops these works in his trademark velvet sonorities and is a master of pastel and chiaroscuro. His pedaling and phrasing in the second Venetian Song are truly a wonder. The haunting haze of overtones suggest a sense of mystery and ineffable longing often missing in more prosaic Mendelssohn recitals. Gieseking's way of shading and phrasing are spellbinding in the first piece of the opus 19 set. The soft arpeggios and warm bass notes impart a "once upon a time" quality to the music that is simply perfect. An enchanting start to a Mendelssohn recital that is all too short.

Gieseking left some very fine recordings of Grieg's Lyric Pieces back in the 78 RPM era (included on this set as an appendix), but these late 1950's era recordings are warmer and mellower. Not a bad thing in this repertoire. This recital is very slightly flawed by the omission of the opening Arietta. Why it was omitted is a mystery to me. It is listed as having been recorded by Gieseking at these sessions, but EMI has never published it. A shame. But everything else here is so splendid. As I said, these have a more autumnal glow than his 78's of some of this same material, but he can still rattle the windows in a knockout Wedding Day at Troldhaugen. Gieseking's wife counted Grieg as her favorite composer and it may be possible that Gieseking recorded this set as a tribute to his wife. She had passed away a few months prior to these recording sessions in a bus accident in which her husband was badly injured. These sessions are also the very last Gieseking completed. He would die soon after while recording a Beethoven sonata for a projected integral set. This double CD makes for a very worthy valedictory tribute to one of the 20th century's greatest musicians.

The sound is OK, but somewhat murky. Not one of EMI's best sound jobs. Just to compare, listen to the stunning sound RCA and Decca gave its pianists in the mid and late 1950's. It's too bad that we never got the chance to hear "hi-fi" Gieseking.

Inexplicably, EMI has deleted this set, though I believe reincarnations of it are available in Japan. Even more frustrating, EMI did not include it in their recent Gieseking box set. This is really a shame, though I don't expect any better from deletion-happy EMI. I took the extreme route and bought 4 copies of this set altogether. Just in case. Buy this set on Amazon now or hold your breath until EMI decides to re-release it. A gem of a recording that is truly one of the "great recordings of the century".

Grieg's brilliant and soulful interpretation of these pieces depict the reason for their title(s) - they are songs that do not need words - the music itself tells the story. Included on this CD are songs about passion, beauty, love, tragedy, triumph and bittersweet melancholy. Other artists who have performed these pieces on published CD's, such as Ilse von Alpenheim, play them fairly well from a purely technical standpoint, but they haven't captured the emotion needed to evolve the music into story telling 'songs'.

Walter Gieseking was gifted of this particular feature. His pianissimos were simply enviable; the slender approach to Mendelssohn works out as ring to finger. All of us know about his supreme eloquence around Debussy performances, but Gieseking underlines the admirable lyricism provided with an enraptured approach, sounding much more eloquent respect the most of pianists who tend to remark glissandos and arpeggios forgetting many times the absolute chamber work character, where elegance, panache and nuance shake hands.

This is one of the most successful records ever performed, but if you have besides Rena Kyriakou, Guiomar Novaes and Anna Dorffman, you should not have to worry about it, because you would have the cream of the cream versions about this work.