Strauss Paraphrases & Transcriptions

When you start digging into the golden age you discover so many of these! They are like a whole mini-genre unto themselves.

There are of course the Godowsky ones, Schutt ones, Cziffra, the Schulz-Evler etc.

Which are your favourite pieces and favourite recordings of them?
Share some lesser known ones too, among modern recs I love Scherbakov’s disc, Piers Lane recorded a nice set too. But the golden age recs are really where it’s at, such charm and a real sense of fun.

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Friedman Fruhlingsstimmen - Lane
Rosenthal both - pozz Lane :lib:
Schulz-Evlah - Smeterlin w cuts, Bolet wo cuts

Below these are God & Tausig. I keep changing back and forth with God’s - it’s usually Kunstlerleben, but today I feel mainstream and will say Fledermaus. Bolet for Nachtfalter & Fledermaus, Doc pozz for Künstlerleben, and Rach or maybe Bolet too for einmal. I’m not particularly partial to the Schütt, Grünfeld, Ziff etc or God’s LH & wine women, but am ok with Dohnanyi’s, of which he left a nice rec

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Oh, Ziff’s tritsch tratsch is nice of course - himself, with Grosvenor and Scherbakov as runner up

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Don’t forget her:

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And diz

Hmmmm :sunglasses:

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Tru, I doubt it can be done better!

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My favourite Strauss waltz is Godowsky’s Künstlerleben, and favourite versions would be Rian de Waal and Marc-André da Doctah. :doc:

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I prefer da Fledermaus, lighter textures, insane theme combos n just overall wikid.

I used to love that one, from Fiorentino’s recordings. But now I’m over it.

I like the smooth Moiseiwitsch (slightly cut rec)

In general, Moiseiwitsch is not my pianist. I only really like him in Brahms Handel variations and the Weber-Tausig Invitation to the Dance. Maybe Rachmaninoff concerti also.

Without wanting to hijack this thread, which of the following trannies do you think is better to learn in terms of technical development:
Liszt - DJ
Liszt-Busoni - Figaro
Godowsky - Künstlerleben

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Moiseiwitsch neglected fast chords and octaves tech almost entirely.
Wtf

But in everything else he makes up for it

Liszt DJ. It has everything and is a rock solid compo

Tanned Ho is probably even more worthwhile

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There’s too much music in that one. I was thinking of something more “fun”.

Speaking of ‘fun’ :dong::dong::dong:

This piece is tailor made for da Dongah

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Just listened to Künstlerleben. Hell that’s my favourite God today as well. I don’t know why it’s so rarely played.

FWIW I agree with both of you that God’s are better music than the Friedman etc. It’s just that I think they’re too dense and contrapuntal for the genre; the Schulz-Evler etc epitomizes that particular style of the Strauss paraphrase.

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The least known of the Godowsky ones.

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Aside from bits & pieces of DJ I’ve actually never played through either. I would ask which is the more difficult if I hadn’t known how happy that would make mikey. :dong:

I listened to this a few months ago when TM reminded me of its existence. In all honesty I thought it sucked.