The Godowsky Collection, Vol. 2.

The Godowsky Collection, Vol. 2, edited by Millan Sachania. Carl Fischer (65 Bleecker St., New York, NY 10012), 2001. 439 pp., $49.95. Difficult.

The Godowsky Collection, Vol. 2, is a collection of Godowsky's transcriptions and arrangements of selections from the music of Schubert and J.S. Bach and cadenzas for three Mozart concertos. Among the pieces by Schubert are twelve of his best-loved songs arranged for piano solo, along with a complex F-sharp minor version of the F-minor Moment Musical, D. 780, No. 3, and a transcription of ballet music from Rosamunde, D. 797. Transcriptions of Bach's first three Sonatas for Unaccompanied Violin, and the second, third and fifth Suites for Unaccompanied Violoncello follow. The volume concludes with two cadenzas for Mozart's Concerto in E-flat Major for Two Pianos, K. 365, a cadenza for his Concerto in A Major, K. 488, and two cadenzas for the Concerto in C Minor, K. 491.

The Introductory Essay and Biographical Sketch by Godowsky scholar and editor Millan Sachania are the most valuable aspects of this enormous tome, indeed worth the $49.95 purchase price, for libraries, musicologists, performing artists and teachers interested in sharpening their perspective on the style and performance practices of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sachania includes Godowsky's forewords to the first editions of these works, giving us his musical philosophy, performance suggestions and insight into the humility and reverence with which he approached the masterworks he transcribed and elaborated.

Godowsky's elaborations (his preferred term) commanded the respect of the greatest artists of his time. According to Sachania, Rachmaninoff referred to Godowsky as "the only musician of this age who has given a lasting, a real contribution to the development of piano music." Sachania further relates that great pianists, Josef Hofmann, Theodor Leschetizky and Vladimir de Pachmann, expressed their profoundest admiration for Godowsky's playing of his Chopin arrangements, whose difficulties seemed inconceivable to them. With such documentation of the value of the mind that produced the music that follows, the volume proceeds with the Schubert song transcriptions.

Each Schubert song is prefaced by the original melody and all of the verses, attesting to Godowsky's respect for the originals and his need to share the import of the texts with the performer.

The most intriguing aspect of Godowsky's transcriptions evidenced in both the Schubert songs and Bach sonatas and suites is the contrapuntal layering of materials, derived from the original compositions, with overlapping and simultaneous statements of melodies, melodic fragments and motives. Linkages between phrases involve chromatic lines, and there are harmonic changes as well as added rhythmic complexities (for example, three against two). The melody often is divided between the hands and sometimes involves projection from an interior location.

In comparison with other transcriptions of Bach's music, the level of difficulty is considerably greater in the Godowsky versions. The collection demands a sophisticated level of technique and/or interpretative maturity. One of the least technically demanding pieces in the collection is the Andante (Aria) from Bach's Sonata No. 3 in A Minor for Unaccompanied Violin, BWV 1002. The ornaments are measured and written out, it is in C major and it requires the hand span of a ninth. Voicing, or the ability to project melodic material in outer and inner voices, as well as interpretative maturity that will sustain interest over long phrase spans, present the biggest challenges.

The profundity of these transcriptions and the availability of this volume provide a new window into the genius of Bach and his ability to inspire other great artists.

In the foreword to the 1921 edition of the cadenzas for the first and third movements of the Concerto in E-flat Major, K. 365 by Mozart, Godowsky stated his philosophy of cadenzas: "Provision for the interpolation of a free cadenza in a concerto may be considered as a privilege granted the performer to supply personal commentary on the thematic material of the original work." Godowsky's cadenzas are amazing amalgamations of superimposed themes with two to four running in parallel, various contrapuntal strategies being played out in remote keys with canons abounding.

The page layout is extremely clear and spacious, with systems carrying as few as one or two measures of music--essential to the successful reading of music of this complexity.

Sachania's analysis in the Introductory Essay would have been enhanced by the addition of measure numbers within the music. Nonetheless, the collection and commentary are an invaluable resource to pianists, pedagogues and researchers who are interested in the style, interpretation and understanding of both the original and the elaborated masterpieces in this volume. Reviewed by Ruth J. Holmes, Lubbock, Texas.