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Australian pianist Tonya Lemoh has been the recipient of numerous international prizes and awards including first prize in the International Competition of Young Performers, Denmark 2003, and a Diplom d’Honneur at the 2002 International Grieg Piano Competition, Norway. She has been described as “a pianist of virtuosity and sensitivity” (Danish Music Journal) and Classical Music on the Web wrote of her commercial debut, “Lemoh is totally in command, and the music flows with great natural force. Very impressive.” She makes her debut on Chandos with the solo piano works of Austrian composer Joseph Marx. Joseph Marx can be described as a ‘romantic impressionist’, and the compositions performed here clearly demonstrate this late romantic style, reminiscent of Richard Strauss, Korngold and Reger. A formidable figure in Austrian classical music, Marx influenced the development of Austrian music through his compositions, teaching and musical criticism. He enjoyed great success throughout his life, but has since been unjustly neglected in part due to the radical compositional style of his peers, Webern and Berg. Of the works performed here, four of the pieces (Herbst-Legende, Carneval, Canzone and Die Flur der Engel) have never before been published or commercially recorded. Of the other six pieces, to date only one recording has been made, and is no longer commercially available, thus making the disc quite a rarity.
Joseph Marx: 6 Piano Pieces
No. 1. Rhapsodie
No. 2. Praludium: Ruhig
No. 2. Fuge: Moderato
No. 3. Albumblatt: Allegretto
No. 4. Arabeske: Allegro - Sehr ruhig
No. 5. Ballade
No. 6. Humoreske
Joseph Marx: Herbstlegende (Autumn Legend)
Herbstlegende (Autumn Legend)
Joseph Marx: Nachtstuck (Carneval)
Nachtstuck (Carneval)
Joseph Marx: Canzone in D major
Canzone in D major
Joseph Marx: Die Flur der Engel (The Lea of the Angels)
Die Flur der Engel (The Lea of the Angels)
September 2008
“This intriguing recital shows Joseph Marx, (1882-1964) as a defiantly throwback composer often struggling to find his individual voice in a particularly turbulent musical period. The performances of this very demanding programme by Tonya Lemoh are as powerful and eloquent as you could wish and she has been admirably recorded.”
December 2008
****
“Tonya Lemoh plays all the music with poetic sensitivity, and those who appreciate the rhapsodic piano works of Ireland and Bax will find much to savour here.”
2010
“This intriguing recital shows Marx as a defiantly throwback composer often struggling to find his individual voice in a particularly turbulent musical period. Brahms's B minor and E flat Rhapsodies are surely the seeds allowed to germinate in the opening Rhapsody, the first of the Six Pieces (though it is more complex and demanding than either), and the fugue from the Prelude and Fugue is Reger-like, massive, daunting and strenuous. On the other hand, there is something oddly English about the love of fourths in the Albumblatt – almost as if John Ireland had strayed into Vienna – and the Ballade, too, suggests a refugee from English pastoralism. There is something of York Bowen here (the Second Ballade?) though with a sprawling and improvisatory argument and an attempt to accommodate many (too many?) ideas. The Humoreske presents a gnomic though grandly expansive dance. Just when your ear is longing for less cloyingly rich textures, for greater simplicity and transparency, it is rewarded with four world-premiere recordings where Marx becomes less ambitious and more persuasive and confiding. Sample the 1916 Rhapsody and 'The Angel's Meadow', music lost in its own archaic world and sidestepping any easy or predictable resolutions. The performances of this very demanding programme by Tonya Lemoh are as powerful and eloquent as you could wish and she has been admirably recorded.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
No. 1. Rhapsodie
