Rufinatscha PC

[JimL]

I heartily second that musicologist's opinion...with some caveats.  What is most fascinating about the Rufinatscha PC is the foreshadowing of Brahms (and several 20th Century composers) in this work (particularly).  There is a lot of "the same thing happening at different speeds at (more or less) the same time."  The first thing the piano plays in the first movement is a slowed down version of the orchestra's opening flourish.  That tricky opening of the finale has the cellos and basses in the orchestra playing a slowed down version of what the piano started out with.  BTW, the finale is in triple time, but the theme is so phrased as to sound as if it is in a duple meter - which way outdoes anything Schumann did in the finale of his PC by far. The finale is the most derivative (of Mendelssohn more than anyone else) movement in the work, and even then, there is something distinctive about those passages most reminiscent of Herr Felix (mainly that staccato theme right after the tuttis), especially when it comes to orchestration.  Particularly original is the way the bridge between the slow movement and finale is structurally incorporated into the finale proper.  No, Alan, your musicologist friend (and you) are quite right - this guy is, as you said, a "one-off."

[Peter1953]

It's my opinion that in terms of originality, melodies and their developments, and listening pleasure, Rufinatscha's PC outclasses many of the PC's gathered in the Brilliant Box set.

[JimL]

Hear, hear!  Also, I'm interested in Rufinatscha because of his place in music history.  In the accepted "canon" of "Master composers" there is a dearth of composers who lived in and worked in Vienna from the death of Schubert to the advent of Brahms and Bruckner.  During that time, the nexi of European musical life were centered around Paris (Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Chopin), Italy (Rossini et al., Verdi), Dusseldorf (Schumann), Berlin/Leipzig (Mendelssohn), Weimar (Lizst) and Munich/Bayreuth (Wagner).  It wasn't until Brahms and Bruckner arrived on the Viennese scene that composers of major works once again made their headquarters there (J. Strauss pere et fils being the only noteworthy exceptions, but they were mainly specialty - read dance and theater composers).  Rufinatscha is noteworthy as a potentially major, and neglected figure who made Vienna his home in that interregnum between Schubert and Brahms/Bruckner. 

[a.b.]

The CD is now available...

http://www.tiroler-landesmuseum.at/shop.php/de/cds/klingende_kostbarkeiten_62

Michael Schöch, the Pianist, was invited 2010 to participate at Beethoven Piano Competition, Bonn. The famous Piano ist equal to the piano  Robert Schumann bought his wife Clara.