Ian Holtham is a distinguished Melbourne-based pianist who has a long discography of Classical and Romantic music to his credit, especially including the music of Chopin.
In this, his first release on Tall Poppies, he has chosen a program of relatively rare works from the piano repertoire. In Ian’s own words:
“The repertoire chosen for the CD is a compilation unique in piano discography and in the history of piano performance. The version of the Schubert unfinished Sonata DV 625 contains completions of the outer movements in which I have had a creative hand and which have never been recorded or performed before. My own interest in commemorative repertoire is enriched through the inclusion of Brahms’ own transcription of the second movement of the string sextet Op. 18, which was a birthday present to Clara Schumann who had expressed fond admiration for the movement in its original string format. The score of this work was only discovered well into the twentieth century. Chopin’s Rondo a la Mazurka would be the least known of all this composer’s major piano output and similarly Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, Op 6 is the most significant of all his major piano cycles, but it is also by far the least performed."
