TIBOR HARSÁNYI (1898–1954)

COMPLETE PIANO WORKS • 1

GIORGIO KOUKL

‘As an interpreter, researching continuously across different musical periods, personalities, composers and levels of music, when I discovered Harsányi's music for the first time, I realised with surprise his capacity to combine matematical rigour, rhythmical inventiveness and pure joy of creativity, which characterise his output. Playing his music has made the immense struggle of obtaining long forgotten scores completely worthwhile, and I hope this unjustly silenced member of the Jewish community will find his due place in musical history.’ – Giorgio Koukl

Listen to an excerpt from
La Semaine: No. 2. Pour mardi: Allegretto grazioso
HARSÁNYI, T.: Piano Works (Complete), Vol. 1
GP806
Tibor Harsányi

About this Recording

Tibor Harsányi (1898–1954) is always associated with ‘L’École de Paris’, a loosely knit collection of expatriate composers living in the city, among them Martinů, Tansman and Tcherepnin. He embraced music from a wide variety of sources, notably from North and South America, and this enriched his own music’s rhythmic vitality and sense of colour.

In his piano music, Harsányi drew on diverse source material, a free-spirted absorption of Hungarian traditions, neo-Baroque, the comic and jazz, as can be heard in the 5 Préludes brefs. Baby-Dancing draws on the foxtrot, Boston, czárdás and samba, while La Semaine, seven pieces, one for each day of the week, contains nocturnes of stillness, off-beat folk songs and a wealth of colour and verve.

5 PRÉLUDES BREFS (1928) (09:44)
1
No. 1. Lento (02:54)
2
No. 2. Allegro (01:37)
3
No. 3. Allegretto grazioso (01:28)
4
No. 4. Allegro (01:21)
5
No. 5. Lento (02:22)
LA SEMAINE (1924) (11:07)
6
No. 1. Pour lundi.
Allegro agitato molto (01:13)
7
No. 2. Pour mardi.
Allegretto grazioso (01:04)
8
No. 3. Pour mercredi.
Andante cantabile (01:55)
9
No. 4. Pour jeudi. Tempo di Fox-trot (01:31)
10
No. 5. Pour vendredi.
Allegretto sostenuto (01:27)
11
No. 6. Pour samedi. Allegro (01:39)
12
No. 7. Pour dimanche. Sostenuto (02:18)
PASTORALES (1934) (06:25)
13
No. 1. Prélude. Allegro giusto,
ben ritmato (01:28)
14
No. 2. Élégie.
Allegretto quasi andantino (01:42)
15
No. 3. Musette.
Allegro ma non troppo (01:48)
16
No. 4. Danse. Allegro giocoso (01:27)
BABY-DANCING (1930) (10:55)
17
No. 1. Fox-trot. Allegretto (01:10)
18
No. 2. Tango. Andante
quasi allegretto (01:12)
19
No. 3. Boston. Andantino (01:32)
20
No. 4. Csárdás I. Allegretto – No. 5.
Csárdás II. Vivo (02:44)
21
No. 6. Blue. Andantino (01:59)
22
No. 7. Samba. Allegro (01:16)
23
No. 8. One-step. Allegretto (01:07)
5 BAGATELLES (1929) (10:04)
24
No. 1. Tempo di marcia (01:46)
25
No. 2. Andante (02:18)
26
No. 3. Allegretto scherzando (02:24)
27
No. 4. Lento (01:42)
28
No. 5. Allegro (01:53)
5 ÉTUDES RYTHMIQUES
(1933) (09:46)
29
No. 1. Allegro vivace (02:17)
30
No. 2. Moderato cantabile,
ma ben ritmato (01:46)
31
No. 3. Allegro giocoso (01:32)
32
No. 4. Quasi andantino (02:25)
33
No. 5. Allegro giusto (01:46)
34
VOCALISE-ÉTUDE ‘BLUES’
(version for piano) (1929) (02:42)
6 PIÈCES COURTES (1927) (09:00)
35
No. 1. Tempo di marcia (02:29)
36
No. 2. Andante (01:44)
37
No. 3. Allegro (01:24)
38
No. 4. Lento (01:01)
39
No. 5. Allegro ma non troppo (01:07)
40
No. 6. Presto (01:15)
WORLD PREMIÈRE RECORDING

TOTAL TIME: 70:13

Giorgio Koukl

GIORGIO KOUKL

Giorgio Koukl is a pianist/harpsichordist and composer. He studied at both the Conservatories of Zürich and Milan, where he took part in the masterclasses of Nikita Magaloff, Jacques Février, and Stanislaus Neuhaus, and with Rudolf Firkušný, friend and advocate of Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. It was through Firkušný that Koukl first encountered Martinů‘s music, and is now considered one of the world’s leading interpreters of Martinů‘s piano music. As a logical continuation of this work, Koukl has recorded the complete solo piano works of Paul Le Flem, Alexander Tcherepnin, Arthur Lourié, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Witold Lutosławski, and more recently, Alexandre Tansman and Tibor Harsányi.

www.koukl.com
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