SIGFRID KARG-ELERT (1877-1933): Piano Works, Vol. 4 - 2 Klavierstücke, Op. 22, Exotische Rhapsodie, Op. 118, Heidebilder, Op. 127, Mosaik, Op. 146, Zwielicht-Impressionen, Nächtlicher Reigen.

Description: Karg-Elert's most interesting piano music comes at the end of his career. Apparently, in 1917, he consciously decided to embark on a new compositional style which synthesized the Impressionist and Expressionist elements around him at that time with the late Romanticism from which he naturally came. In fact, everything on this disc except Mosaik and the op. 22 pair of pieces has the word "impression(s)" in a subtitle: the "Exotic Rhapsody" is also "Jungle Impressions" (as much about the luxuriance of structural change and shifting in the music itself as with any external tone-painting), "Heath Pictures" is a set of "ten small impressions" which haul the Schumannian Characterstücke into more modern climes. Yet the oddest work here may be the Mosaik (published posthumously) whose 29 "little instructive pieces" seem to parody the whole tradition of pedagogical pieces, from Kuhlau's Sonatinas to Schumann's Album für die Jugend. Ernst Breidenbach (piano).