专辑简介

Marc-André Hamelin's Hyperion disc in a state of jazz is not an example of a classical pianist letting his hair down, nor attempting to fuse jazz with classical music, or to create something a tad more commercial than, say, an album of Tausig transcriptions. This collection features works by four classical pianist/composers -- Friedrich Gulda, Nikolai Kapustin, Alexis Weissenberg, and George Antheil -- that fashioned piano music "in a state of jazz," though in fully notated form. The one exception to the rule is Alexis Weissenberg's Six arrangements of songs sung by Charles Trenet, which first appeared on a 45rpm record in the 1950s credited to "Mr. Nobody." This was Weissenberg, who was attempting to protect his career as a classical piano virtuoso through hiding under this made-up name; he did not write down these arrangements, and Hamelin has transcribed them from the record himself. Weissenberg's impulses were correct; had he released his jazz music under his own name it very well could have wrecked his career; Viennese composer Friedrich Gulda made major strides toward breaking down such barriers, and his work is represented through three exercises from his pedagogical collection Play Piano Play (1971) and a Prelude and Fugue (1965).