Liszt called his examples 'fantasias', Percy Grainger 'rambles', the present three great pianists connected with Vienna—Rosenthal, Friedman and Godowsky—merely 'arrangements', but all meant much the same thing: not straightforward transcriptions of some original but free re-creations of its material by an inventive musical mind. Our present-day virtuosos don't go in for writing such fun and games, but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries top pianists delighted to exhibit their gifts for producing light-hearted, often fantastically involved paraphrases of popular themes which at the same time served as vehicles for their technical prowess. So here we have Strauss waltzes transformed by harmonic twists, elaborate counterpoints, playful combination of themes and pianistic embroideries into confections so ingenious that Strauss becomes a junior partner: fun for musicians indeed. But not without the danger (as in Wein, Weib und Gesang here) of the original sinking under the weight of the complex superstructure.
Janice Weber is a young American pianist (and novelist) who has made a reputation in contemporary music and in the works of that archrefurbisher Godowsky (which she must absolutely not refer to as ''opii'': I hope she writes better English and Latin in her novels); and here with a seeming imperviousness to hair-raising technical difficulties and with amazing bravura she presents half-a-dozen virtuosic musings—in some of the best-recorded piano tone I have heard. Very noteworthy are the delicacy and charm she brings to O schoner Mai, her scintillating filigree and springy rhythm in Fruhlingsstimmen—she also knows how to catch the Viennese waltz lilt—and her graceful rubato in Kunstlerleben (which begins mysteriously but before the end erupts into massive octave-work). It's a pity that the first item on this disc should be the least successful: Weber seems to be working hard here and she over-pedals, so that Rosenthal's elaborate inner voices become mushy; but how cleanly she can cope with an intricate web of invention she demonstrates in Godowsky's astonishing Fledermaus fantasy.'