Share This
Album at a Glance
Record Label - Music & Arts: "A different kind of music."Tags
Related Posts
Exil: Piano music by composers with roots in 2 continents / Eric Le Van, piano
Posted by Paul Ballyk on Jan 14, 2014 in Modern | 6 comments
This album from the Music & Arts label titled "Exil" (Exile) is subtitled "Piano Music by Composers with Roots in Two Continents". Each of the five composers represented fled Europe for the United States during the 1930s, among an exodus of some 30,000 artists and intelligentsia who, for fear of persecution if not their lives, were abruptly forced to make new homes half a world away from their motherland. Pianist Eric Le Van, who is also the author of the concept behind this album, asserts that the loss, displacement and heartache which were common between them were somehow a shaping force in their music. After listening to these beautiful, often mystical and other-worldly piano pieces, I have to agree.
As part of the creative process, inspiration springs from "our rare moments of non-rational perception" states Mr. Le Van in the excellent album notes. All of these pieces are somehow marked by feelings of innocence, yearning and a childlike enchantment. They are dreamlike. Some of these dreams are sunny and blissful while others are dark and chilling. But it's a sense of longing that is the common thread running through all the music here; and the music is wonderful! Much of it too is appearing for the first time on CD. The Schoenberg Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke, Op.19 is well represented in the catalog and Korngold's Four Waltes for Piano is available in other versions, but only a couple. The other pieces by Ernst Toch, Erich Zeisl and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco are largely appearing on disc for the first time.
The Four Waltzes for Piano by Erich Korngold evokes a heady yearning for "an irretrievably lost Vienna," (Le Van). Erich Zeisl's Klavierstücke 'November', is imbued with melancholy nostalgia, momentarily lapsing into a guileless bliss for brief periods. The sample provided in the sidebar is one of three pieces by Ernst Toch (1887-1964), his Scherzo, op. 11. You can also sample Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's I Naviganti (1919) by playing the video below. If you want to hear more, you can listen to many brief samples on the HBDirect website. Congratulations to Mr. Le Van for this very thoughtful project and for his eloquently musical performances.
In this survey of these long neglected works, Eric Le Van introduces listeners to unusual music that has rarely seen the light of day and which deserves far greater attention. All but the Schoenberg piece are world premiere recordings.
Undaunted by their difficult fates and journeys, five Jewish refugee composers in Los Angeles - Castelnuovo-Tedesco from Italy, and Korngold , Schoenberg, Toch and Zeisl from Austria - produced a wealth of piano repertoire. In this survey of these long neglected works, Eric Le Van introduces listeners to unusual music that has rarely if ever seen the light of day and deserves far greater attention. All but the Schoenberg piece are world premiere recordings.
Source: HBDirect.com
 Erich Korngold, composer |
Erich Korngold, composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 – 1957) was an American composer of Austro-Hungarian birth.[1][2] While his late Romantic compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died, his music has more recently undergone a reevaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest. |
|
Erich Zeisl, composer |
Erich Zeisl, composer Eric Zeisl was born in Vienna on May 18, 1905. From childhood, he demonstrated an unshakable resolve to compose. Against strong family resistance, he entered the Vienna State Academy at age fourteen. Two years later, his first publication appeared, a set of songs. |
|
Ernst Toch, composer |
Ernst Toch, composer Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Vienna, Ernst Toch was initially self-taught as a composer, learning from the works of earlier composers. In 1909 he was awarded the Mozart Prize and abandoned his Vienna medical studies to study music in Frankfurt. |
 Arnold Schoenberg, composer |
Arnold Schoenberg, composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874 – 1951) was an Austrian composer and painter, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. Schoenberg’s approach, both in terms of harmony and development, has been one of the most influential of 20th-century musical thought. |
 Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, composer |
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, composer A composer and pianist, Castelnuovo-Tedesco was born in Florence into an Italian Jewish family. In 1939 he moved to the United States, where, in common with other European composers in exile, he turned his hand to film music, providing scores for some 250 films. He died in Los Angeles in 1968. |
 Eric Le Van |
Eric Le Van, piano “Eric Le Van’s pianism is mesmerizing. It has everything: sensitivity, expressive tone, shading, superb finish, and faultless taste and style.” With those words, the American Record Guide‘s David Mulbury echoed the sentiments of many of his colleagues who have likewise found in Eric Le Van a musician of exemplary depth and power. |
About Paul Ballyk
all about Paul
Twitter •
| Thinking about purchasing this album?
Follow this link for more album details or to make the purchase. Buy it now |
“Not just recommended. Guaranteed.”
We stand behind every album featured on Expedition Audio. Our objective is to take the monetary risk out of music exploration. If you order this album from HBDirect.com and do not like it you can return it for a refund.
Beautiful, as always!
Wonderful, and very unique!
You play with such feeling and emotion. You paint a picture and tell a story with your fingers.
SUPERB NEW RECORDING! I highly recommend this disc to all who are interested in wonderfully rich, stimulating, and gorgeously recorded piano music. This is music of sensitivity, beauty, imagination, and variety.
In addition to his abundant technique, Eric Le Van brings a large palette of colors and shadings to his piano tone as well as an accurate sense of the music’s structure and purpose. Of particular interest are the pianist’s own notes about his discoveries and insights into these composers and their music, especially his discussion of what it means to a creative artist to be “in exile” from all that shaped his perception of the world, his understanding of art, and the sense of his place in the larger scheme of music and its development through history.
Eric gives the listener an all too important insight into the workings of a composer’s mind through the masterful understanding and execution of these works with his impeccable technique, limitless varieties of tonal shadings, balanced voices, and an unerring sense of tempo and rubato. He makes the Schönberg set on this disc sound as rich as Brahms though it is atonal music––he finds the beauty and shape in it that the composer himself lamented was often missing in the interpretation of his music.
I am a composer and pianist myself, and I have heard Eric Le Van play some of my music, and to it he brought the same insight and artistry that he lavished on these particularly noteworthy and seldom or never heard works by these masterful composers of the early twentieth century, and no composer, living or not, could ask for more.
I was swept away by the hauntingly beautiful music on the new CD “Exil” played with Eric LeVan’s extraordinary artistry. These undiscovered gems deserve to be heard by a wide audience. Bravo for a remarkable adventure.
Pianist Eric Le Van is one of my favorite musicians who gives Superb personality, emotional feeling, happiness to share his beautiful and sensitive musicianship.
Highly recommended to listen his playing if someone really cares about sincere music.