Sigismond Thalberg - Opera Fantasies (Mark Viner)

Information

Composer: Sigismond Thalberg

1. Fantasie sur le thèmes de l'opéra "Moïse" de G. Rossini, Op. 33
2. Grande fantaisie sur La sérénade et le menuet de "Don Juan", Op. 42
3. Andante final de "Lucia de Lammermoor", Op. 43
4. Grande caprice sur des motifs de "La Sonnambula" de Bellini, Op. 46
5. Grande fantasie sur "Don Pasquale", Op. 67

Mark Viner, piano

Date: 2015

Label: Piano Classics

https://www.piano-classics.com/articles/t/thalberg-opera-fantasies/

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Review

Sigismond Thalberg (1812 71) is routinely dismissed as an important composer for the piano. His music glitters and is certainly not all gold but, chosen carefully, there are many gems to be found.

Mark Viner has done just that, selecting five of Thalberg’s greatest opera fantasies, opening with the most celebrated. The Fantasia on themes from Rossini’s Moïse ends with a setting of the prayer from Act 4 passed between the two hands and decorated with swirling arpeggios to give the aural illusion of three hands playing. Thalberg’s audiences stood on their chairs to see how it was done. It still raises a smile of wonder today, especially when played as masterfully as here. Viner injects a real sense of drama into the opening pages, using the full range of his beautifully voiced Steinway to full advantage. His rubato is subtly, perfectly judged; the piano sings (this is what Thalberg was all about – take a look at his L’art du chant appliqué au piano, Op 70); and from Viner’s fingers the iridescent showers of notes cascade with scintillating exuberance. Raymond Lewenthal in 1975 (Angel) is faster (13'35"), Francesco Nicolosi in 1992 (Marco Polo, 1/96) more sluggish (16'51"), but Viner (15'17") is more powerfully affecting than either and better recorded.

Moses sets the standard for the rest of the programme. The Don Giovanni Fantasy, the second of two Thalberg wrote, uses the Serenade from Act 2 and the Minuet from Act 1, the latter played with impish wit. The finale’s three-hand effect is achieved this time by huge scales that sweep from top to bottom of the keyboard. The Sonnambula Caprice ends with the passages of interlocking chromatic octaves (another Thalberg invention) that so thrilled Mendelssohn. Finally comes the Don Pasquale Fantasy, familiar from Earl Wild’s famous 1964 Vanguard LP ‘The Virtuoso Piano’ (11/68, 8/92). Viner’s account is no less scintillating, one to set beside Wild and Marc-André Hamelin’s astonishing live performance from the 1994 Husum Festival (Danacord, 4/97). This is a quite exceptional disc from a blazing young British talent.

-- Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone

More reviews:
https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/instrumental/thalberg-opera-fantasies/

https://www.amazon.com/Thalberg-Opera-Fantasies-Mark-Viner/dp/B01K8KW3HY

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Sigismond Thalberg (8 January 1812 – 27 April 1871) was a composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.  In the 1830s and the 1840s, his style was a major force in European piano-playing and was imitated by many others. Between the late 1830s and 1850s Thalberg toured the world over with artists such as Bernard Ullmann, Strakosch and Henri Vieuxtemps, traveling to the United States, Brazil, Belgium, Holland, Russia and Spain. Aside from his dozens of piano compositions, many with orchestral accompaniment, Thalberg wrote several Lieder and two chamber works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismond_Thalberg

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/sigismund-thalberg-mn0001801365/biography

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Mark Viner, born in 1989, is recognised as one of the most exciting British concert pianists of his generation and is becoming increasingly well-known for his bold championing of unfamiliar pianistic terrain. Viner studied at the Purcell School of Music with Tessa Nicholson, then at the Royal College of Music with Niel Immelman, graduating with a distinction in 2013. Viner won 1st prize at the Alkan-Zimmerman International Piano Competition in Athens, Greece in 2012. He is very active in the recording studio and his recordings on the Piano Classics label have garnered critical acclaim.

https://www.markviner.com/

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