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Julius Reubke: Sonatas

Reubke,J. / Becker,Markus Release Date: 11/13/2015
Label: Hyperion Catalog #: 68119 Spars Code: DDD
Composer:  Julius Reubke Performer:  Markus Becker Number of Discs: 1
Recorded in: Stereo Length: 0 Hours 59 Mins.

Julius Reubke was a remarkable talent whose life was cut tragically sort: he died in 1858 aged just 24. The work by which he is best known, the Sonata on the 94th Psalm, one of the organ’s masterworks, and the no less impressive Piano Sonata in B flat minor, make you wonder what he would have achieved had he been spared. The Piano Sonata was completed a year before his death and dedicated to ‘his revered master, Franz Liszt’, with whom he had begun studies in 1853, the very year in which Liszt’s own monumental B minor Sonata was completed. Reubke, clearly, was an attentive and appreciative student, for his Sonata is overtly modelled on Liszt’s, a single-movement structure lasting nearly half an hour in three distinct sections linked by Read more recurring motifs. There are even quotes from Liszt’s Sonata, a quasi-recitative in Liszt’s favourite ‘spiritual’ key of F sharp major, and page after page of cruelly taxing writing. But for all these superficial similarities, this is a powerful work of great individuality and distinction, and is here given a suitably masterful and breathtaking performance by Markus Becker.

Claudius Tanski recorded the Piano Sonata back in 1988 (MDG, 11/89) on an outstanding disc which coupled it with Martin Sander at the Klais organ in Altenberger Dom playing the Organ Sonata. Becker has unearthed a piano version by the prolific transcriber August Stradal (1860-1930). Whereas one can easily imagine the Piano Sonata arranged for organ, one wonders initially how the piano can possibly emulate the Sonata on the 94th Psalm, a work which relies so heavily for its raison d’être on the organ’s innate characteristics. But if you can rid yourself temporarily of the aural memory of the original, Stradal’s ingenuity, except in the long held phrases at the end of the Adagio, makes it a completely convincing piano work. The finale, which is so thrilling on a symphonic organ, is no less awe-inspiring in Becker’s hands. Those who like their Romantic bravura piano with added stamina will find this release, recorded by Ben Connellan and Jeremy Hayes at Potton Hall, a rewarding experience.

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