The Name You Trust for Classical Music

Read reviews, listen to the music, and purchase the CD THALBERG: Piano Concerto in F Minor / Souvenirs de Beethoven

Customer Service Toll Free 866.489.4152

Music AND Flowers. The Perfect Gifts.

Spend $50 or more on NaxosDirect and we'll give you a $10 coupon for 1800Flowers.com family of stores. Offer ends Feb. 12th. Need suggestions? Click here

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Narrow your search
with our Music Browser

Classical Music

        Ballet
        Chamber Music
        Choral
        Concertos
        Film Music
        Folk Legends
        Instrumental
        Musicals
        Opera / Operetta
        Orchestral
        Vocal

Jazz

Jazz Contemporary
Jazz Icons

New Age

Wind Band

World

        Ballad
        Bhuddist
        Chinese Music
        Classical (World)
        Early Music (World)
        Folk
        Gamelan
        Gypsy
        Hindustani
        Jazz (World)
        Klezmer
        Sufi
        Vocal (World)
        World

Special Offers:

Free MP3 Downloads

Catalogs

Internship Opportunities

Celebrating Black History

Grammy Winners on Sale

Masters of American Music

Valentine�s Day Special

Clearance

Penguin Guide

200 Essential Recordings

Recently Released

Upcoming Releases

SACD

DVD

        Ballet DVD
        Classical Concert
        Classical Documentary
        Dance Documentary
        Opera DVD
        Pop/Rock Concert

Audio Books

        Anthologies / Collections
        Arts
        Biographies
        Children's Classics
        Classic Fiction
        Great Epics and Tales
        History
        Junior Classic Fiction
        Junior History
        Literature
        Music Biographies
        Music Education
        Non-Fiction
        Philosophy
        Plays - Others
        Plays - Shakespeare
        Poetry
        Religion
        Samplers
        Sports
        Wine Guide

NaxosDirect Podcasts

Video Librarian Reviews

Labels

Naxos Label

        Naxos American Classics
        Naxos Best Of...
        Naxos Box Sets
        Naxos Cinema Classics
        Naxos Classics
        Naxos DVD
        Naxos DVD-Audio
        Naxos International
        Naxos Jazz
        Naxos Limited Edition
        Naxos Milken Archives
        Naxos Night Music
        Naxos Opera
        Naxos Orchestral
        Naxos Special Release
        Naxos Wind Band Classics
        Naxos World

Composers

Conductors

Ensembles

Orchestras

Choirs

Artists

Instruments

Producers

THALBERG: Piano Concerto in F Minor / Souvenirs de Beethoven

Home

Classical Music

Orchestral

THALBERG: Piano Concerto in F Minor / Souvenirs de Beethoven

View large image

Total playing time: 01:01:31

$8.99 (CD)

In Stock - Usually ships within 24 hours.

Link to this CD Link to this page

Sigismond Thalberg (1812-1871) Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 5 Souvenirs de Beethoven: Grande fantaisie pour le piano sur la 7' Symphonie de Beethoven, Op....

Read more about this recording

Sigismond Thalberg (1812-1871)

Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 5

Souvenirs de Beethoven: Grande fantaisie pour le piano sur la 7' Symphonie de Beethoven, Op. 39

Nocturne, Op. 28 Canzonette italienne, Op. 36, No.5

Un Soupir, Melodie variee pour piano

Some mystery surrounds the birth and parentage of the virtuoso pianist Sigismond Thalberg, popularly supposed to have been the illegitimate son of Count Moritz Dietrichstein and the Baroness von Wetzlar, born at P�quis near Geneva in 1812. His birth certificate, however, provides him with less distinguished but relatively legitimate parentage as the alleged son of a citizen of Frankfurt, Joseph Thalberg and a certain and possibly pseudonymous Fortune Stein. There seems, therefore, no particular reason to suppose the name Thalberg an invention. Legend, however, provides the story of the Baroness proclaiming him a valley (Thai) that would one day rise to the heights of a mountain (Berg). Thalberg's schooling took him to Vienna, where his fellow-pupil the Duke of Reichstadt, Napoleon's son, almost persuaded him to take up a military career. Musical interests finally triumphed and he was able to study with Simon Sechter and with Mozart's pupil Hummel. In Vienna he performed at private parties, making a particular impression when, as a fourteen-year-old, he played at the house of Prince Metternich. By 1828 he had started the series of compositions that were to prove an important and necessary concoruitant of his career as a virtuoso. In 1830 he undertook his first concert tour abroad, to England, where he had lessons from Moscheles.

In 1834 he was appointed Kammervirtuos to the Emperor in Vienna and the following year appeared in Paris, where he had lessons from Kalkbrenner and Pixis.

Paris in the 1830s was a city of pianists.

The Conservatoire was full of them, while salons and the show-rooms of the chief piano-manufacturers Erard and Pleyel resounded with the virtuosity of Kalkbrenner, Pixis, Herz and, of course, Liszt. The rivalry between Thalberg and Liszt was largely fermented by the press. Berlioz became the champion of the latter, while Fetis trumpeted the achievements of Thalberg. Liszt, at the time of Thalberg' s arrival in Patis, was in Switzerland, where he had retired with his mistress, the Comtesse Marie d' Agoult. It was she who wrote, under Liszt's name, a disparaging attack on Thalberg, to which Fetis replied in equally offensive terms. The so-called revolutionary princess, Princess Belgiojoso, achieved a remarkable social coup when she persuaded the two virtuosi to play at her Patis salon in a concert in aid of Italian refugees. As in other such contests, victory was tactfully shared between the two. Thalberg played his Moses Fantasy and Liszt answered with his new paraphrase from Pacini's opera Niobe. The Princess declared Thalberg the first pianist in the world, while Liszt, she said, was unique. She went on to commission a series of variations on a patriotic theme from Bellini's I puritani from the six leading pianists in Patis, a project to which Liszt, Thalberg, Chopin, Pixis, Herz and Czerny contributed. This composite work, Hexameron, remained in Liszt's concert repertoire.

Musical journalism has created a legend of Thalberg's defeat and departure from Patis and of continuing rivalry between him and Liszt. An element of competition remained, although there seems to have been no open animosity, and Liszt wrote a letter of condolence to Thalberg's widow after her husband's death in 1871. Thalberg enjoyed a career of the greatest distinction, touring as far as the Americas, where Liszt never went, with recitals in Brazil and Havana and an extended stay with the violinist Vieuxtemps in the United States, where, in the space of two years, he gave 56 recitals in New York, with a repertoire chiefly but not exclusively devoted to his own compositions. Liszt, meanwhile, included some of Thalberg's operatic paraphrases and fantasies, which, through Marie d' Agoult, he had once publicly seemed to disparage, in his own repertoire.

In 1843 in Paris, Thalberg had married Cecchina, a daughter of the famous Italian bass Luigi Lablache, widow of the painter Bouchot. Attempts at operatic composition proved unsuccessful, with Florinda, staged in London in 1851 and Cristina di Svezia (Christina of Sweden) in Vienna four years later. His career as a virtuoso continued until 1863, when he retired to Posilippo, near Naples, to occupy himself for his remaining years primarily with his vineyards. He died there in 1871.

Thalberg's Piano Concerto in F minor, Opus 5 is a relatively early work. The first movement opens with the expected orchestral exposition, presenting two contrasting subjects, before the entry of the soloist with an elaboration of the material. There is much scope for virtuosity in what follows, in particular in a demanding and varied cadenza. There is a brief orchestral introduction to the Adagio, with continued suggestions that the music comes from a period when Chopin too was starting to make a name for himself, although Thalberg is said to have found the latter's relatively subdued nuances too underplayed. There is here, however, a similar use of embellished operatic melody. The soloist offers immediate contrast in the mood of the principal theme of the final Rondo, with its varying episodes.

Souvenirs de Beethoven: Grande fantaisie pour le piano sur la 7' Symphonie de Beethoven, Opus 39 was written in the 1830s and finally published in 1840.

It starts with a passage that, in its figuration, seems to justify Liszt's apparent reference to Thalberg as the Chevalier de Tremolo. There are distant suggestions of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, duly transformed, before the emergence of the principal theme of the Allegretto of the second movement, here marked Andante, material which is then subject to pianistic embellishment of increasing brilliance and intensity. The A major section, transformed from its original, follows, before a due return to A minor and further delicate display. Reminiscences of the last movement of the symphony lead to other territory, now the final movement of the Fifth Symphony, but it is to A minor and the second movement of the Seventh Symphony that the Fantasy finally returns.

Thalberg's Nocturne in E major, Opus 28

dates from a similar period. This, no doubt, was the kind of music to which the London critic James William Davison took such strong exception, in an extravagantly alliterative review of 1842, referring to Thalberg's Andantes as 'pitifully puling and positively paralytic... wishy-washy, wallowing and warm-waterish'. In fact the Nocturne is of particular interest as an example of the form by a contemporary of Chopin, a composer that Davison with similar ineptitude described as 'a morbidly sentimental flea'.

The Canzonette italienne, Opus 36, No.5 is also a work of the later 1830s. It starts with a flourish, before the lyrical melody emerges, with its gently lilting accompaniment and subsequent elaboration.

Un Soupir, Melodie variee offers a melody of some charm, a musical sigh, as its title proclaims. This material is lyrically developed, without recourse to unnecessary display, an appealing postscript to music of more oven brilliance.

Keith Anderson

Francesco Nicolosi

Francesco Nicolosi was born in Catania in 1954 and studied first at the Liceo Musicale Vincenzo Bellini in his native city, taking lessons from Giovanna Ferro and later from Vincenzo Vitale in Naples, where he now lives. A prize-winner in 1980 at the Santander International Competition and, in the same month, in Geneva, where his performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor, K. 466 won the praise of Clara Haskil, he has since secured a reputation as one of the most interesting young pianists of his generation. He has performed in the concert hall with leading orchestras, while in chamber music he has partnered the distinguished Korean cellist Myung Wha Chung. His first compact disc recording, in 1984, was devoted to transcriptions of Bellini by Liszt and Thalberg. In 1988 he gave the first performance in Italy of Tbalberg's Piano Concerto in F minor. For Marco Polo he has recorded the complete Italian operatic paraphrases of Thalberg.

Razumovsky Symphony Orchestra

The Razumovsky Symphony Orchestra was established in 1995 and consists of the finest players of the Slovak Philharmonic, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava), Slovak Chamber Orchestra and Opera Theatre Orchestra. The ensemble records exclusively for the Naxos and Marco Polo labels.

Andrew Mogrelia

Andrew Mogrelia, in his flourishing career, has conducted many of the leading orchestras in Britain, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Orchestras in Scotland and in Wales, appearing in major concert-halls. Abroad he has conducted orchestras in the Netherlands, Eire, Australia, Hong Kong and the Czech and Slovak Republics and has toured South America with the City of London Sinfonia. In addition to activity in the concert-hall he has worked with many dance companies, including the English and Dutch National Ballets, the Netherlands Dance Theatre and the Birmingham Royal Ballet. He is conductor-in-residence at the Birmingham Conservatoire and has appeared with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. His many recordings include ballet-music by Tchaikovsky, Delibes, Prokofiev and Adam for Naxos, as well as orchestral music by Handel, Suk, Fibich and Novak for Naxos and Marco Polo.

Disc 1

Piano Concerto, F minor, Op. 5

(more info)