Pianist Lambert Orkis is best known as an accomplished chamber musician -- one of the very best, a chamber music partner on par with Menahem Pressler. He has made solo recordings, too, particularly on period pianos, but not with the frequency that we find him accompanying Anne-Sophie Mutter or the Kennedy Center Chamber Players. Bridge Records' Gottschalk: Music for Piano was recorded in 1982 for the Smithsonian Institution's record label. Since the Smithsonian has merged with Folkways, releases such as this one are a bit harder to place with the label as it is now configured, and Bridge is to be applauded for making this recording available once more. Orkis plays eight Gottschalk works on an 1865 Chickering Concert Grand of a kind similar to those favored by Gottschalk himself. It is amazing how much power these old Chickerings can produce -- in the liner notes, Orkis remarks that during especially loud passages in Gottschalk's concert paraphrase "Union" that the Chickering was measured at pumping out a deafening 113 decibels. It is not so much the instrument, though, as the player who makes this collection so worthwhile. Orkis' command of Gottschalk's sometimes rather funky rhythmic ideas and relating to the thematic material employed makes these pieces seem longer than they are, and to place them in a milieu in line with their musical ambition: check out Souvenir de la Havane here; rather than a "caprice" its more like a symphonic tone poem. In addition, the repertoire employed here is not made up of the usual Gottschalk hits, but of worthwhile pieces that fall outside of his main repertoire. While the recording, made in Coolidge Auditorium in the Library of Congress, is strongly reverberant, it suits the loudness and intensity of this instrument. Gottschalk: Music for Piano has been out of print for far too long, and devotees of the composer, and this pianist, will have reason to rejoice with its return, in far better sound than in an earlier CD incarnation dating to the '80s.
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