Hindemith Piano Works
A pianist to watch and a worthy match for Hindemith’s kaleidoscopic vision
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Paul Hindemith
Genre:
Instrumental
Label: L'Empreinte Digitale
Magazine Review Date: 12/2002
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 72
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: ED13135
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Suite, '1922' |
Paul Hindemith, Composer
Paul Hindemith, Composer Toros Can, Piano |
| In einer Nacht/Träume und Erlebnisse |
Paul Hindemith, Composer
Paul Hindemith, Composer Toros Can, Piano |
| Lied |
Paul Hindemith, Composer
Paul Hindemith, Composer Toros Can, Piano |
| Sonata for Piano No. 2 |
Paul Hindemith, Composer
Paul Hindemith, Composer Toros Can, Piano |
| Tanzstücke |
Paul Hindemith, Composer
Paul Hindemith, Composer Toros Can, Piano |
Author: Michael Oliver
Don’t read the booklet note first. It asks of the exuberant 1922 Suite ‘Why all this hatred?’ and describes it as ‘a sort of apology for motorisation (that) makes one think of pure noise and nothing else’. The Tanzstücke, it tells us, portray ‘the end of lower-middle class culture’; they have a cynicism like ‘some devastating vitriolic acid’. These views were evidently not communicated to Toros Can, and I am glad of it. He is a very fine pianist indeed; no less obviously, he loves these pieces and is entranced by their wit, their energy and their lyricism. The note does not even mention the longest and most expressive movement of the 1922 Suite, the central, poignantly beautiful Nocturne, of which Can gives the most subtle and sensitive performance I have ever heard.
In the 13-movement suite In einer Nacht…, the earliest music here, Hindemith demonstrates the already kaleidoscopic range of his talent, from an overtly romantic nostalgia and nature imagery, via a snook-cocking foxtrot and ironic references to the operatic repertoire that he was then making his living by, to an immensely accomplished, thunderously full-toned (goodness, how Can enjoys himself!) but surely not wholly serious double fugue. This pianist is fully alive to all its moods, perhaps especially an attractively French-tinged lyricism.
He shows how much more of humour and sly provocation there is in the Tanzstücke than ‘cynicism’, and in the most concise of Hindemith’s inexplicably neglected sonatas he finds a quality of Gallic elegance that is most appealing: it is a lovely work and I am grateful for this loving account of it.
Toros Can (he is Turkish, by the way; thus the ‘C’ in his surname is pronounced as a ‘J’) is clearly a pianist to watch; the recording is not ideally clean but very acceptable.
In the 13-movement suite In einer Nacht…, the earliest music here, Hindemith demonstrates the already kaleidoscopic range of his talent, from an overtly romantic nostalgia and nature imagery, via a snook-cocking foxtrot and ironic references to the operatic repertoire that he was then making his living by, to an immensely accomplished, thunderously full-toned (goodness, how Can enjoys himself!) but surely not wholly serious double fugue. This pianist is fully alive to all its moods, perhaps especially an attractively French-tinged lyricism.
He shows how much more of humour and sly provocation there is in the Tanzstücke than ‘cynicism’, and in the most concise of Hindemith’s inexplicably neglected sonatas he finds a quality of Gallic elegance that is most appealing: it is a lovely work and I am grateful for this loving account of it.
Toros Can (he is Turkish, by the way; thus the ‘C’ in his surname is pronounced as a ‘J’) is clearly a pianist to watch; the recording is not ideally clean but very acceptable.
Hindemith Piano Works
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