Joseph Haydn - Symphonies transcribed by Carl David Stegmann (Ivan Ilić)

Information

Composer: Joseph Haydn; Carl David Stegmann (1751–1826)

• Symphony No. 92 'Oxford' in G major, Hob. I:92
• Symphony No. 75 in D major, Hob. I:75
• Symphony No. 44 'Trauer' in E minor, Hob. I:44

Ivan Ilić, piano

Date: 2019

Label: Chandos

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2020142

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Review

ARTISTIC QUALITY: 10 / SOUND QUALITY: 10

Long before radio, recordings, and downloading culture, the piano was the home entertainment center. If you wanted to hear the latest symphony of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, or Brahms, either you took the trouble to travel to a concert in a major city, or you simply played the symphony on the piano at home. Dozens of publishing companies offered piano arrangements of orchestral, chamber, and vocal works geared toward home use, and hired numerous staff musicians to write them, such as one Carl David Stegmann (1751-1826).

Fast-forward two centuries, when pianist Ivan Ilić browsed through an old, dusty sheet music collection and discovered Stegmann’s long forgotten piano arrangements of Haydn symphonies. As Ilić’s delightful and stylish performances readily reveal, Haydn’s orchestral timbres lose nothing in translation via Stegmann’s sensitivity to register, sonority, and balance. What is more, a solo pianist of Ilić’s intelligence and cultivation can produce minute gradations of rubato that would be difficult to conduct, yet make pianistic and expressive sense. Note, for instance, how gracefully Ilić points up the “Oxford” symphony Menuet’s harmonic felicities, and notice his elegantly fleet navigation of the florid decorative inner parts in Symphony No. 75’s variation movement.

Ilić happily avoids the temptation to speed through No. 44’s Presto finale, which would undermine the quiet tension of the music’s subtle chromatic gestures. Indeed, Ilić’s masterful advocacy makes a plausible case for these works representing a veritable triumvirate of newly discovered four-movement Haydn piano sonatas. The excellent booklet notes go into great and useful detail about the piano transcription business in the early 19th century, and also include Ilić’s account of how he discovered these scores. This well-recorded release further demonstrates his penchant for unusual, fresh, and impeccably executed program building.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday

More reviews:
https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/Aug/Haydn_sys_CHAN20142.htm

https://theclassicreview.com/album-reviews/review-haydn-symphonies-transcriptions-ivan-ilic-piano/

https://www.allmusic.com/album/ivan-ili-plays-haydn-symphonies-transcribed-by-carl-david-stegmann-mw0003296683

https://www.amazon.com/Ivan-Ilic-Plays-Haydn-Transcribed/dp/B07SRF1MQ8

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Joseph Haydn (31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809) was a prominent and prolific Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio and his contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet". Haydn's work was central to the development of what came to be called sonata form. At the time of his death, aged 77, he was one of the most celebrated composers in Europe. Haydn was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a teacher of Beethoven, and the older brother of composer Michael Haydn.

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

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Ivan Ilić (born August 14, 1978 in in Palo Alto, California) is a Serbian-American pianist. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Conservatoire de Paris, and finally at the École Normale de Musique de Paris. His teachers in France included François-René Duchâble, Christian Ivaldi and Jacques Rouvier. Ilić lives in Paris and has performed at Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall, Glenn Gould Studio, and Ireland's National Concert Hall. His recordings can be found on the French record label Paraty, as well as on Chandos Records.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Ilić_(pianist)

http://www.ivancdg.com/

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