Swiss composer Christoph Delz was a superb pianist who studied composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen and was active as a significant interpreter within the European new music scene of his day. Nonetheless, he also felt a strong affinity with nineteenth century Romanticism and regularly programmed recitals of Liszt, Schumann, Mussorgsky, and other composers of that era. The sense of tension growing from the collision of these disparate realms of influence is felt in Guild's Christoph Delz: Piano Works, a collection ...
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Swiss composer Christoph Delz was a superb pianist who studied composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen and was active as a significant interpreter within the European new music scene of his day. Nonetheless, he also felt a strong affinity with nineteenth century Romanticism and regularly programmed recitals of Liszt, Schumann, Mussorgsky, and other composers of that era. The sense of tension growing from the collision of these disparate realms of influence is felt in Guild's Christoph Delz: Piano Works, a collection performed by Georgian pianist Tamriko Kordzaia. This brings together the opposite ends of Delz's worklist; the piano piece Sils Op. 1 (1975) and the last two pieces he completed before his death from AIDS in 1993: Drei Aufzuge aus "Istanbul" and his elaboration of Franz Schubert's "Reliquie" Sonata.Sils was inspired by a winter walk on the frozen surface of Sils Lake, located on the Engadin River in Switzerland. Its idiom may strike the listener likewise as rather icy; Delz must have learned...
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