Herzogenberg piano music complete

[Mark Thomas]

For all you Herzogenberg-ophiles out there: his complete piano music on 3CDs.

[Peter1953]

What an exciting announcement! Yes, I'm one of those enthusiasts. Most certainly a must-buy.

[Jonathan]

Excellent - and I have a voucher to use for JPC...

[Alan Howe]

I am currently listening to Herzogenberg's very personal (and in the first movement, very chromatic) Fantasia quasi Sonata WoO 13 from 1897. While I admit that the work makes few concessions to the listener, it nevertheless seems to me to have considerable depths despite its brevity (16:11). This is a set that rewards repeated listening.

[Mark Thomas]

Well that's encouraging, Alan. It's no secret that I am decidedly lukewarm when it comes to Herzogenberg, but I sometimes find that a good way into a composer whose music one finds hard going is via the piano works. I suppose because so much else is stripped away and one is hearing the essence of the man's art. Perhaps I'll invest in the set after all... 

[Balapoel]

Well, I plunked down $28 for the set, and am working my way through it. Again, it's frustrating to see 'complete' when it is far from it, just the published pieces. Missing on this set include:

Piano Sonata No. 1, WoO 47 (1865)
Piano Sonata No. 2, WoO 9 (1881)
Fantasie, WoO 43 (pre 1870)
Fantasiestucke, WoO 44 (pre 1870)
12 Fugues, WoO 8 (1880)
Piano Piece in F, WoO 17 (1880s)
5 humoristische Stucke, WoO 10 (1885)
In die weite Welt, March in C, WoO 11 (1880s)
Souvenir de Malterlehen, WoO 12 (1880s)

Oh well...

[Mark Thomas]

Well, I have listened to everything on this set a couple of times now and, perhaps to no one's surprise, I can report no Damascene conversion to the von Herzogenberg cause. Most of the pieces come across to me as run of the mill romantic fare: some of them pretty, some of them dry, and none of them bad, but showing little imagination or independence of thought. The earlier ones strike me as having more melodic flair and fluidity than the later pieces, which seem to be the product of a more rigid and inward-looking imagination. The set includes his wife Elizabeth's Acht Klavierstücke, and these brief works are for me the highlight of these three discs. Delightfully virtuosic and full of energy, they are a breath of fresh air. 

[eschiss1]

judging from what Mark said above, it would maybe be more accurate to say I gather not that "just the published pieces" are present, but that some of the unpublished pieces are missing (unless the fantaisie quasi sonate was published, if not within Herzogenberg's lifetime, within some brief period after his death, say. I expect it's probably been published now, along with a number of those other works (then again, maybe not; a number of Raff's substantial unpublished works- for piano and for larger forces- haven't, too) but doubt that's what's meant ...)

(I don't really have a horse in this race, tending to seem to find my entry into a composer's art more sometimes through small string chamber forces and maybe song than through piano music. To the extent, such as it is, that this isn't just a personal and arbitrary thing, can explain my reasoning elsewhere...)