Zurich was a hotbed of cultural development in Europe in the early twentieth century, especially during and just before the First World War; many prominent figures in the still evolving field of international modernism flocked to Zurich as a safe haven, owing to Switzerland's neutrality during wartime. Guild's Piano Music from Zurich 1870-1930, featuring English pianist Andrew Zolinsky, provides the small window through which one may glimpse how Zurich's native composers reacted to the world as it flocked to its door.The ...
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Zurich was a hotbed of cultural development in Europe in the early twentieth century, especially during and just before the First World War; many prominent figures in the still evolving field of international modernism flocked to Zurich as a safe haven, owing to Switzerland's neutrality during wartime. Guild's Piano Music from Zurich 1870-1930, featuring English pianist Andrew Zolinsky, provides the small window through which one may glimpse how Zurich's native composers reacted to the world as it flocked to its door.The earliest work represented is the Notturno, Op. 2, by Robert Freund, a gifted concert virtuoso and a close associate of Johannes Brahms, while it is not dated, it was not written later than 1880. It does not sound as much like Brahms as one would think -- while it has something of his formal ebb and flow for single-movement structures, it has a very clear and simple melodic trajectory and makes little use of complex counterpoint. In a way, it resembles Richard Strauss' Stimmungsbilder,...
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