Felix Borowski PC

[thalbergmad]

I spent a few hours last night pitting my feeble pianistic talents against the first movement and what a stunning work this is.

There is everything a romantic concerto lover could want. Crashing chords, split octaves, sumptuous heart tearing melodies with flowing left hand patterns and i have not even played the last two movements yet. There is a touch of Bortkiewicz about this concerto and I cannot give it higher praise than that.

Am i missing something, or is there a commercial recording of this gem??. All i can find is an overplayed piece for violin and some organ pieces.

If it has not been recorded, one must beg the question why not??

Thal

[Gareth Vaughan]

I suspect there may be some difficulty over finding the orchestral material. The 2-piano score was published but do the full score and parts remain in MS. Fleisher does not list it (though the collection does have MS scores and parts of his 3 symphonies and some other orchestral works). However, I believe a lot of his music was given to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, so it may be in their archive. It isn't in the Felix Borowski archive at the Newberry Library, Chicago, which is confined to letters and other biographical materials.

[thalbergmad]

     http://www.carlfischer.com/Fischer/lib_borowskif.html                                                                                               

[Gareth Vaughan]

Thanks. I got there by a different route and have checked with their rental dept. - the performing materials are available for hire. So now we need to persuade Mike Spring.

[thalbergmad]

Jolly good, I will post him the 2 piano score so he can give it a bash.

I think it is a cracker myself, even better than the Hopekirk and that was pretty damned impressive.

Thal