Wölfl,: Piano Concertos

Kronenberg, Yorck, Moesus, Johannes, SWR Rundfunkorchester Kaiserslautern

CPO 777374

Throughout his life Joseph Wölfl, a native of Salzburg, a pupil of Leopold Mozart and through him a friend of his son, and later a serious keyboard rival of the Rhinelander Beethoven in Vienna, made himself the talk of the town with his wondrous musical feats and his bon vivant's ways. He is said to have lost so much money while playing billiards in Prague in March 1799 that he had to promise his opponent the revenues from his Prague concert. All the same, he amazed music experts there with his keyboard rendering of a composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on four staves without having to change a single note. During the same year the Allgemein musikalische Zeitung published a report concerning Vienna's most important pianists: »Among these, Beethoven and Wölfl create the greatest stir. Here the opinions about which one has the advantage over the other are divided; but it seems as if the larger faction might incline to take sides with the latter. « Nobody would have ventured to deny Wölfl's genius, and our recording premieres of three of his piano concertos offer remarkable corroboration of this judgment. Our soloist, the pianist, composer, and writer Yorck Kronenberg, is also a genial all-rounder.

CD

CPO

27.06.2008

761203737420