A less well known which is nonetheless very beautiful. I first heard this piece when I was on an exchange programme in McGill university back in 1998. Fell in love with its bittersweet nostalgic mood. Searched high and low for the sheet music, only to find that it had been out of print for nearly 70 years. Finally managed to get hold of it in 2003. So here it is! Please comment and tell me whether you liked to music or not

http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,11684.0.html

This is an extremely beautiful piece! I love the tone you bring to this piece: it's such an ephemeral, yet emotion and sentimental tone.

I've never heard of this piece or this composer. Do you have any other recordings from this composer?

I haven't recorded anything else by this composer myself, but there are other recordings of Bortkiewicz's etudes on Pianostreet, played by a professional concert pianist (Koji Attwood).

http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,13402.0.html

Obviously those etudes are way beyond my level of technique, but they're beautiful music nonetheless. Check them out!

Beautiful!

I had not heard of Bortkieiwicz before.

You play with a lot of finesse. ;-)

Roberta

Great job and thanks for the file! I'm collecting pieces by Bortkieiwicz to put on my mp3 player. How could a composer that good be virtually unknown?
Mike

I listend to Atwood's recordings of the bortkieiwicz etudes, and they were wonderful. They sounded very similar to Chopin's etudes though. I thought it was a mixture of Chopin, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff.

And I think you should add some Scriabin to that too . Seriouly, if you can find the scores (difficult as it may be!), GRAB 'em. I spent nearly 5 years looking for mine, and only managed to get them with the help of a friend from Melbourne University. Apparently, they had been out of print since the Second World War

Thank you Roberta - there were some very slight errors in the later part of the piece, but hopefully they were not noticeable!

On another sidenote (perhaps off-topic), hopefully after listening to this, and my other recordings, you have a better idea of the sound that I was looking for when I chose my Sauter piano...

What is the piano you are using, Wzkit? Sauter?

Sophia

Nope. This is the same 13 year old, 7 foot Ibach F-215 "Richard Strauss" used in the Liszt Consolation recording that was in the "Identify the Grotrain" thread. Again, a healthy dose of una-corda was applied to remove the excessive brightness of the rather worn out hammers - somewhat like putting a lamp-shade over a very bright bulb.

That said, my 6 foot Sauter Delta has rather similar properties - bright, singing treble in particular, but a bass which is comparable, if not actually more resonant! The Sauter's treble through is somewhat more transparent and less "thick" than the Ibach's. If I were to liken the Ibach's sound as thick coffee with milk, I would think of the Delta's sound as sparkling wine. I have also asked my dealer to adjust the una-corda setting on the Delta to more closely replicate what you hear in the Ibach. Hopefully this will allow me to get both coffee and sparkling wine as and when i want to

Doing a search for Bortkiewicz on Amazon reveals pitifully few recordings of his music, apart from those by Stephen Coombs and Cyprien Katsaris. Koji Attwood would do us all a great service by releasing a CD of his etudes soon! He told me that as soon as he can find a willing orchestra, he would record Bortkiewicz's concerto.

Wonderfull music but I could not find the piano score (sheet). Where can I find it?

I got my own music from a friend at Melbourne university. I haven't managed to find this score on the web, but I wonder if these websites might be useful. Apparently it has been out of print for the past 70 years!

http://www.xs4all.nl/~ingp0040/
http://www.classical-composers.org/cgi-bin/ccd.cgi?comp=bortkiewicz#sheet
http://home.wanadoo.nl/ovar/bortkiewicz.htm
http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2005/Mar05/bortkiewicz_complete.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2000/mar00/thadani.htm

Good luck!

Given the current interest in Bortkiewicz's recordings brought about by Rachfan's and Fredof's recordings, I thought I would resurrect this (older) recording, for those who might be interested.

Bortkiewicz is truly an unjustly neglected composer who deserves wider attention. Please post more recordings of his music if you do find them

Wzkt that Bortkiewicz piece is primo, and I loved your playing of it. I do hope you will record it on you Sauter Delta and post it here. I suspect it will sound even better on the Sauter.

Is your copy of the sheet music public domain? If it is, it could legally be scanned and posted on the net. Just a thought.

The music is indeed hauntingly beautiful. So much so that I spent five years hunting it down...a particularly difficult task considering that it had been out of print for 70 years. I will try to see if

I promise to re-record the Bortkiewicz on my Sauter after the next tuning and servicing. In fact, I have made some recordings, but always with some embaressing errors. Somehow I could not recreate the spontaniety and feeling on this recording. Let's see how it goes the next time.

By the way, Fredof has posted a beautiful recording of this piece on his Pleyel as well. Its a slightly different take of the music, but no less beautiful I feel. Love the sound of his piano!