CD releases solely made up entirely of the music of Polish piano virtuoso Moritz Moszkowski are not exactly thick on the ground; although pianist
Seta Tanyel has taken up his cause to a significant extent, there are seemingly few takers overall. With so much Moszkowski still waiting to be recorded, it is a little surprising to see
Christof Keymer and Berlin Classics come up with Moritz Moszkowski: Complete Piano Transcriptions, which indeed posits on two discs what must be all of Moszkowski's known work in the realm of the piano transcription. From the outset it should be stated that Moszkowski's transcriptions are not much like
Liszt's; whereas
Liszt often took extreme kinds of liberties with the source material, creating in effect a whole new composition within the locus of a transcription, Moszkowski's transcriptions are on the whole relatively faithful recastings of non-original works into the piano parlance of the late nineteenth century, and often changes to the music are subtle. A place where it is not so is in Moszkowski's transcription of
Chopin's so-called "Minute Waltz," where he harmonizes
Chopin's single line of right-hand melody in sixths. Moszkowski's transcription of the Venusberg music from
Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser is big, bold, and orchestral in style and quite stirring, whereas his Tristan und Isolde "Liebestod" is, at least in direct comparison to
Liszt's version, introverted and restrained. His Musicalische Parodien is a parody transcription based on an innocuous theme attributed to "Anton Note-Squasher of the piano," but probably original; it's a silly jaunt through the styles of various composers, Moszkowski perhaps not realizing that in the late twentieth century such practice would become germane to the trick-bag of most composers and serious business rather than a joke.
The finest transcriptions here really are
Brahms' 10 Hungarian Dances for solo piano; these are skillful, wholly selfless translations of this enormously popular set of dances into a completely idiomatic and natural form for two hands, something
Brahms himself was not wholly able to pull off. Least good are Moszkowski's transcriptions of
Mozart,
Beethoven, and
Mendelssohn. These are, for the most part, facilitations; their slow tempi and easy tread expose their rather commercial purpose. It doesn't help that most are combined in the second half of the first disc; it makes for a long patch of somnolent listening, though those who would like some predominantly quiet and easy on the ears piano music might get something out of it. While Moszkowski's complete output in terms of transcriptions may not seem like the most pressing repertoire angle to explore, there are highlights that are worth investigating, especially if the listener is already onto the virtues of Moszkowski's original works and has a desire to hear more.