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20 13WALTZES
Alongside pieces that have been in your repertoire for many years, this
recording offers works you’ve only added more recently, such as Sibelius’s
Valse triste
.
A.C.
: I must confess that I prepared it especially for this disc. It’s a very famous
piece, of course, but I also find it truly personal; I like its very individual charm.
You could add it to the list of your encores, on which the
Kupelwieser
Walzer
by Schubert/Strauss has featured for a very long time. Now there’s
a piece with a history all its own . . .
A.C.
: Yes indeed. Many long years ago, I met an Austrian couple. He was named
Schenker and was a descendant of the music theorist Heinrich Schenker; she was
a Kupelwieser, and was descended from the painter Leopold Kupelwieser, a great
friend of Schubert’s. She had inherited a manuscript the composer had given to
Kupelwieser as a gift, containing a few bars of music. The Schenkers were wealthy
people who owned an island in the Adriatic, where they received a lot of artists.
Richard Strauss was once their guest. When he discovered the manuscript melody
by Schubert, he decided to harmonise it. Thus the
KupelwieserWalzer
was born.