The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum
March 28, 2024, 12:44:07 pm
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
News: Here you may discover hundreds of little-known composers, hear thousands of long-forgotten compositions, contribute your own rare recordings, and discuss the Arts, Literature and Linguistics in an erudite and decorous atmosphere full of freedom and delight.
 
  Home Help Search Gallery Staff List Login Register  

Ernst Rudorff (1840-1916): Piano Music

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Ernst Rudorff (1840-1916): Piano Music  (Read 268 times)
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Rainolf
Level 2
**

Times thanked: 7
Offline Offline

Posts: 38


View Profile
« on: March 13, 2021, 06:04:37 pm »

Ernst Rudorff studied piano with Clara Schumann and Ignaz Moscheles, and worked for four decades (1869–1910) as professor for piano at the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin, were his pupils included Wilhelm Berger, Leo Blech, Paul Juon and Carl Schuricht. While frequently working as a choral and orchestral conductor, he seldom played the piano in public, but was described as a fine pianist by them, who heard him play. Acording to contemporary critics he showed his special merits best as accompanist in song recitals. As a pedagogue, Rudorff trained his students in thoughtful interpretation and opposed virtuosity for virtuosity's sake. So he was on one line with his friend and headmaster Joseph Joachim.

Rudorff was not a prolific composer, producing only 60 opus numbers in his career, 13 of them for pianoforte. His production of piano music has some similarities with Brahms's. Rudorff prefers small scale ternary pieces with densely worked motivic and harmonic devices.

For all who are interested in Rudorff's piano pieces, there is now a volume available which contains for the first time his collected music for solo piano:

op. 10 Eight Fantasy Pieces
op. 14 Fantasy
op. 29 Two Concert Etudes
op. 48 Three Romances
op. 49 Capriccio appassionato
op. 51 Impromptu
op. 52 Six Piano Pieces
op. 55 Variazioni capricciose

The publisher is Musikproduktion Jürgen Höflich in Munich, who published the volume in a special edition for piano music, chamber music and songs "Beyond the Waves":

https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/en/product/rudorff-ernst-7/

The Fantasy in three movements op. 14, Rudorffs largest piano work, was dedicated to Brahms, so its score is presented by the Brahms Institute Lübeck in a gallery of dedication pieces:

http://www.brahms-institut.de/web/bihl_digital/widmungswerke_units/RudorffE_op_014.html

Report Spam   Logged

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

guest822
Guest
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2021, 06:22:28 pm »

I see he also taught Leopold Godowsky; that would be a feather in anyone's cap!
Report Spam   Logged
Rainolf
Level 2
**

Times thanked: 7
Offline Offline

Posts: 38


View Profile
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2021, 06:49:31 pm »

Yes, he was Godowsky's teacher for a short time in 1884 when Godowsky was 14 years old. But the two did not came along with each other and so their ways parted very soon. In his memoirs Godowsky told that Rudorff had a low opinion about Chopin, and this had been the cause for their ultimate disagreement. But this cannot be true. If you read the memoirs of Rudorff you will find that he is full of enthusiasm about Chopin. He would never have called Chopin "a drawing-room composer" as Godowsky told. But, as I think, it could have been possible that Rudorff and Godowsky disagreed about the way to play Chopin. Godowsky was a great virtuoso even at this young age, while Rudorff never was happy with pianists who were focussed on technical brillance (Carl Tausig for example). Rudorff himself knew all to good that his own powers were not to find in virtuoso craftmanship, he was a lyrical artist focussing on the spiritual and substantial rather than on the technical aspects of a piece. It is surely not by coincidence that a good deal of his pupils became famous as conductors and composers, not as pianists.
Report Spam   Logged
guest822
Guest
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2021, 07:03:46 pm »

Thank you, Rainoff, for that most interesting post. What you say certainly makes good sense. That being the case, I wonder what Rudorff would have made of Godowsky's supercharged Studies on Chopin's Études. I love the sheer effrontery of them but maybe Rudorff would have been appalled!
Report Spam   Logged
Rainolf
Level 2
**

Times thanked: 7
Offline Offline

Posts: 38


View Profile
« Reply #4 on: March 14, 2021, 02:48:17 pm »

I am sure, Lionel, that Rudorff would have been appalled by the super-pianism of Godowsky's Chopin Studies if they were known to him. But in his own way Rudorff was careful to train pianistic technique, too, as it is shown in his Concert Etudes op.29. This two pieces he wrote for two fellow pianists who worked together with him at the Berlin conservatory. In his memoirs he described the one as a soft and profound, the other as a rustic and vigorous character. For each of them he wanted to write an ideal technical exercise piece which fits to the individual strengths of both men. Strangely the two pieces were not published in one volume. Nr. 1, a lyrical perpetuum mobile, was printed as part of an Etude collection, which was dedicated to Franz Liszt. When Liszt and Joseph Joachim, after more than 20 years of opposing each other's ideas, came together to renew their old friendship, Joachim had the pleasure that Liszt played Rudorffs op. 29/1 for him.
Report Spam   Logged
guest822
Guest
« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2021, 04:11:54 pm »

Fascinating. Once upon a time I should have investigated Rudorff's music further, probably buying the volume you described in your initial post. However, my days of playing concert études are long since over, thanks to arthritis!  ;D
Report Spam   Logged

Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum


Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy