Short-lived German composer Hugo Distler, best known for his organ and choral music, did produce a considerable amount of music for keyboard not explicitly for the organ. Most of it has never been published, and there is a concerted effort underway to get out a critical edition of it. To meet the deadline of Distler's centenary and make some amount of the piano music available, Musicaphon issued Hugo Distler: Piano Works, likely the first recording ever made of Distler's music on the piano. Musicaphon's choice of pianist is ...
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Short-lived German composer Hugo Distler, best known for his organ and choral music, did produce a considerable amount of music for keyboard not explicitly for the organ. Most of it has never been published, and there is a concerted effort underway to get out a critical edition of it. To meet the deadline of Distler's centenary and make some amount of the piano music available, Musicaphon issued Hugo Distler: Piano Works, likely the first recording ever made of Distler's music on the piano. Musicaphon's choice of pianist is Annette Töpel, who teaches at the Kassel Academy of Music and hails, like Distler himself, from Lübeck. Alas, Töpel -- whose previous outings on disc have centered on early German romantic literature -- isn't the most sympathetic interpreter for Distler's keyboard music. Some of these were intended as simple teaching pieces, and Töpel plays the music with a strict, rather teacherly attention to markings and a pedagogical, non-legato approach to Distler's oblong sense of phrasing;...
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