About this Recording

The international success of Weinberger’s opera Schwanda the Bagpiper in 1927 has obscured a sequence of piano works written when the composer was still in his teens. The Second and Third Piano Sonatas form a commanding pair, both written in 1915 – the former autobiographical, playful and dark – the latter neo⁠-⁠Classical with Francophile elements. Elsewhere one can admire his use of 16th⁠-⁠century dance forms, his melodic gifts in the Valses Nobles, and his technical command of preludes and fugues in Gravures. The three arrangements from Schwanda show his imperishable use of Bohemian dance forms.