Abram Chasins: Complete Music for Piano Solo
Abram Chasins (1903–87) began his career as a pianist and composer but as broadcaster and writer soon became one of the best-known cultural commentators in the USA. His output of music for solo piano – recorded here complete for the first time – dates from his first years in the public eye, and although he made little attempt to promote it himself, one sees instantly why it was so well received at the time: sweeping keyboard textures and grand Romantic gestures expressed in a style somewhere between Rachmaninov and Prokofiev, sometimes with echoes of Chopin and Gershwin. The works here range from witty character pieces, some intended for children, and affectionate tributes to other pianists to more serious abstract essays – and Chasins, too, was a member of the club of composers who wrote 24 preludes in all the major and minor keys.
Margarita Glebov, piano
Listen To This Recording:
- No. 1 in C major
- No. 2 in A minor
- No. 3 in E minor
- No. 4 in G major, ‘Lullaby’
- No. 5 in D major
- No. 6 in B minor
- No. 7 in F sharp minor
- No. 8 in A major
- No. 9 in E major
- No. 10 in C sharp minor
- No. 11 in G sharp minor
- No. 12 in B major
- No. 13 in G flat major
- No. 14 in E flat minor
- No. 15 in B flat minor
- No. 16 in D flat major, ’Pastorale’
- No. 17 in A flat major
- No. 18 in F minor
- No. 19 in C minor
- No. 20 in E flat major
- No. 21 in B flat major, ‘Chorale’
- No. 22 in G minor
- No. 23 in D minor
- No. 24 in F major
- I Waltz of the Rainbow
- II Banjo Boy
- III Holiday Bells
- IV By the Brook
- V Dancing Bagpipes
- VI Tricky Trumpet
- VII The Airplane
- I Precocity
- II Dualism
- III Passionate Austerity (Procession)
- IV Gradus ad Palais Royale
- No. 1 A Shanghai Tragedy
- No. 2 Flirtation in a Chinese Garden
- No. 3 Rush Hour in Hong Kong
- I Rachmaninoff
- II Godowsky
- III Bachaus
- Fairy Tale, Op. 16 No. 1 (1931)
- Narrative: Remembrance of Things Past, Op. 36 (1942)
- Etude Appassionato (1925)*
- Gluck-Chasins Melody (1938)
- Schwanda Fantasy (publ. 1940)
CD1: Complete Preludes*
Six Preludes, Op. 10 (1928)
Six Preludes, Op. 11 (1928)
Six Preludes, Op. 12 (1928)
Six Preludes, Op. 13 (1928)
CD2: Other Works
Piano Playtime (1951)
The Master Class, Op. 4 (1925)*
Three Chinese Pieces (publ. 1925)
Keyboard Karikatures, Op. 6 (1925)*
*FIRST RECORDINGS
MusicWeb International :
‘ […]Technical flair, refinement, expressive projection, and romanticism inform most of the Preludes. […]
There are excellent notes from Donald Manildi, the recording quality is similarly top-notch and Glebov is full of technical fitness and subtle expressive ardour.’
—Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International