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Thanks for your friendly comments!

Here is the link to the critical comments on the reconstruction that I wrote. Please note that it's auto-translated from Swedish and just very hastily edited so please excuse any textual errors.

Laura Netzel Piano Concerto - Critical Comments

Hi guys and girls,
this is Peter Friis Johansson writing.

First, thanks to you all for showing interest in my recording of the Laura Netzel Piano Concerto! Since there a couple of different opinions and theories in this thread, I wanted to straight out some of the question marks.

Coupling: The musical selection on the CD is highly personal for me as it represents my own struggle to bring new and unheard music to the audience. I completely understand if you feel that Netzel could be paired with something more closely aesthetically connected to it (it might actually be in a future re-release, but that's still uncertain) but in this case I had the choice of bringing one "unsung" piece to the world or three, and for me that choice was quite simple. I think especially Sandström's piece has a big risk of being neglected (it would truly be a shame) and hopefully the inclusion of the piece in this recording can help avert that fate. I do also think that there is an artistic connection between the three pieces that works, but that's my subjective opinion and you are of course all very free to disagree.

Differences to Lindgren (actually Nieminen) version: I did nothing but write an ending for the piece. There are however huge unanswered questions in the manuscripts and the two versions divert at various occasions due to this. The Swedish Musical Heritage version which I perform is a critical edition so every choice can be traced. We also wanted to include everything Netzel wrote so even before the reconstruction starts our version is longer than Nieminen's. As for what I did in the ending, I'm going to send a link to the critical comments of my ending in a separate post. In short, it's much longer than the Nieminen version and takes greater artistic liberties which may be critized or appreciated.

Laura Netzel "was well past her best when she composed this": It would be interesting to hear what you think are her best works and when you think she was in her prime? Personally, I think that the piano concerto is very adventurous and that some parts are incredibly successful, but that one also can hear that this is her only attempt of a large scale work and some things really needs a lot of attention from the performers to not make it fall flat. I would say that the cello sonata probably is a stronger work as a whole, but she was really breaking new ground with the concerto and I think it deserves a place at least on the Scandinavian music scene.


Best wishes to you all,
Peter