Im Freien (2013)

This album bears the title of Bartók's suite Im Freien (Outdoors), which receives an attractive performance from German pianist Lucy Jarnach. But her main aim in making the album seems to have been to promote the music of her grandfather, Philipp Jarnach, who is nowadays largely forgotten despite being one of the leading lights of composition in 1920s Germany. Indeed, it seems from these Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 17, of 1924 that the effort is warranted. Neo-classicism was stronger in France and Italy than in Germany, but its ... Read More

This album bears the title of Bartók's suite Im Freien (Outdoors), which receives an attractive performance from German pianist Lucy Jarnach. But her main aim in making the album seems to have been to promote the music of her grandfather, Philipp Jarnach, who is nowadays largely forgotten despite being one of the leading lights of composition in 1920s Germany. Indeed, it seems from these Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 17, of 1924 that the effort is warranted. Neo-classicism was stronger in France and Italy than in Germany, but its impact was international, and Jarnach here emerges as distinctively German exponent of the style (he was of Catalonian and Flemish background and was born in France, but moved to Germany after World War I and stayed there for the rest of his life). Both Jarnachs had famous teachers; the granddaughter's was Alfred Brendel, and the grandfather's Ferruccio Busoni. Busoni's influence is evident in the quasi-Baroque style and involved linear counterpoint of these three rather thorny... Read Less