Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Godowsky - Prelude and Fugue for left hand alone

Just curious - do you believe that there is only ONE valid way for a musician to interpret a work (markings or no markings)? In other words, should all "true" musicians hear things the same way??

Konstantin Scherbakov has a pretty good recording of it. I don't know of any other recordings beside Hamelin.

Last comment about expressive markings and performance:

There are many times that performers take expressive markings and overdo them to the point where the music sounds farcical. Take for example Beethoven's Op.111, first movement. There is the instruction "poco ritenente". If you listen to virtually all performers, they take this way too far, almost halting the forward flow of the piece. Why? Probably because they don't know why that instruction was there so they obey without listening. For musicians, they would naturally hear the ritardando (and slight subito piano, even though this is not indicated) because it's the best interpretation of the notes, which is like an echo. However, they would never take it so far as to almost halt the piece. It's just an echo.

Expressive markings are there to help the performer hear, not necessarily perform. This is probably a remnant of the 19th-20th century where boatloads of students took to the instrument and sounded like ****, hence the need for composers to give explicit instruction so that they aren't tortured by amateurs butchering their compositions.

So, there are performers - and then there are "musicians."

Interesting theory.

I would like to see historical documentation that backs up this theory.

We should all be so thankful that Hamelin exists - he was clearly born to play Godowsky, and if it weren't for him we wouldn't get to enjoy so many works like these.

There's something very distinctive about Godowsky's counter-point - it's a unique invention that's entirely his own, and yet certainly one he hoped to be expanded upon. The only trouble is pianists with technique like Godowsky are so incredibly rare. I hope at some point Hamelin seriously devotes himself to the pen and leaves us with some wonderful treasures like this, both written and recorded for posterity by the maestro himself.

An interesting hypothesis which I have not heard of before. What is the source?



He did write a bunch of etudes in the minor keys and recorded them. I find most of them to be nice, but there are a few that I don't really care for.

Faulty: Apart from the score, there's also the (oral) tradition, which is very very valid (unfortunately if you ask me) in classical music.

Do you know what it's like to be playing a work by Brahms, commenting about something and the horn player telling you that "this is how Johannes wanted it. I was there when he was conducting"?

Very much agree, and I have made this observation before when the subject of the Godowsky arrangements has arisen.

With pleasure I can listen to all of the Chopin etudes in one sitting, but cannot get through more than four or five of the arrangements at one time. His overly rich -some might say fin de siècle- harmonies simply tire my ear after a while. In fairness, though, I don't think Godowsky ever intended them to played in more than small groups.

Alas, and perhaps heresy to some, Godowsky's music tends to be more interesting to look at on the printed page than actually listening to.

One could say that of all music.

I find it rather remarkable that I've listened to the whole set multiple times in one sitting. I can honestly say the etudes have grown on me, and I'd actually prefer to hear them over the originals.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think they are greater pieces of music. As a matter of fact, I think they are of greatest use to pianist sorta like...*sigh* Super-Czerny. Terrible right?

Nonetheless, I really like some of them. I still don't think the effort justifies the end result though.

I personally think Godowsky's greatest music lies in the Sonata, Passacaglia and Strauss transcripts with glimmers of great ingenuity here and there.

Didn't Hamelin say this is (one of? )the hardest piece(s) he's ever played?

For me, his best is in the Strauss arrangements, although there are some nice short pieces in Walzermasken and Trikontameron and elsewhere. The sonata and passacaglia sound like empty gesturing to me - they are unconvincing as music.

Hamelin may be part of the problem there - his old Canadian recording of the passacaglia was my introduction to that work, and no matter how many times I listen to it, it simply goes in one ear and out the other without leaving a trace. It one of those peculiar Hamelin efforts where "we get all the notes, but where's the music?", as one critic memorably said.

But, eventually, I got the score, and after reading through it a few times, the piece still strikes me as a great deal of posturing in an attempt to sound like "important" music, but it is musically so thin as to be almost nonexistent. Ditto the sonata.

Both the Prelude and Fugue are very effective musically...I certainly feel no need to search Youtube for a "one-up" on Hamelin! Sparkling indeed! The "two-hand" impression goes beyond illusion...it really sounds like two hands. No disparagement of Godowsky here...there's several pounds of it on my piano...just wish I could play it!

As for 3 contrapuntal voices for one hand, my goldfish-sized musical brain knows of one: the Prelude and Fugue for the Left Hand by Manuel Ponce, which is (IMHO) very good, and fiendishly difficult (which explains why I have not attempted it). He wrote at least two other Preludes and Fugues, both better than his Prelude and Fugue arrangement of the Fugue (somewhat simplified and Busonificated) from Handel's suite in e minor.

To each his own. For me, the Strauss transcriptions are just too contrived.

At least I feel effort in the sonata. The melodic material seems to far outdo anything he came up with in the shorter pieces. I also don't feel like he's no just showing off what interesting variations he can come up with. The density seems more apart of the music, to me, than an added entity.

I can understand your take on the Passacaglia. I, for one, got acquainted with it with Hamelin's Hyperion rerecording where it was paired with the sonata. I was convinced by his take there. Recently, I came across some of his earlier recordings while browsing Spotify. The difference is really quite large. It seemed like he was having trouble really controlling some passages, and they come off flat.

I've heard at least half a dozen other pianist play the Passacaglia, and I have to say that it more often falls flat. It's hard to make that beast coherent and interesting. But when a pianist succeeds, it really is incredible.

I have the Hamelin Hyperion Godowsky too - which still fails to do anything for me.

For me, Godowsky is generally much more interesting to read through than to hear in performance. Purely as writing for the piano, much of it is remarkably inventive and is entertaining, and even technically useful. But as music...well, if you like it a lot, then I guess you do.

I guess it's just an acquired taste. Oh well.

Is that your feeling about the genre in general or just those of Godowsky?

Of the (possibly) thousands of Strauss transcriptions/paraphrases, I have managed to hear or examine in score a modest sampling, and I must say that Godowsky's are by far the most ingenious, with honourable mentions to Tausig and Schulz-Evler.

To each his own indeed!

BTW, have you ever heard Godowsky's smothering of Schubert's Moment Musical in F minor? (Had he no shame?)

Oh I definitely agree that Godowsky's transcriptions, rightly called symphonic metamorphoses, are the greatest I've heard of the genre. He really does elevate the form to something else. I just think they sit below the sonata in Godowsky's overall output. This is probably just because of the less serious nature of the works.

I actually had never heard the original. I've just listened to the original and I'm listening to transcription as I type. I honestly can't stop laughing. The whole thing seems so tongue in cheek. It interesting to note that Godowsky didn't hold Schubert's writing in the highest of regards. He proposed that the sonatas be chopped up to create a sort of amalgam of all the best writing.

To paraphrase Godowsky himself, Schubert's inconsistent quality stemmed from the fact that he composed "too fast."