Christian Sinding: Music for Piano (1996)

There was a time when a copy of Norwegian composer Christian Sinding's piano piece Rustles of Spring could be found in practically any piano bench one was likely to lift the lid on. It might well still be in the benches of particularly well-entrenched pianos, but were it left behind in an upright located in Sinding's native Norway, the bench would have been nailed shut. Sinding -- an arch-romantic who had a deep admiration for all things German -- had been lured into joining the Norwegian Nazi party some eight months before ... Read More

There was a time when a copy of Norwegian composer Christian Sinding's piano piece Rustles of Spring could be found in practically any piano bench one was likely to lift the lid on. It might well still be in the benches of particularly well-entrenched pianos, but were it left behind in an upright located in Sinding's native Norway, the bench would have been nailed shut. Sinding -- an arch-romantic who had a deep admiration for all things German -- had been lured into joining the Norwegian Nazi party some eight months before his death at 85, and to Norwegians who bore the brunt of the occupation that he did not live to see it proved fatal to his posthumous reputation. Pianist Jerome Lowenthal has long held dear a fairly expansive attitude toward literature -- particularly of the romantic variety -- and his 1986 Arabesque recording of an all-Sinding program was still fairly well ahead of the curve. The attitude toward Sinding only began to thaw in Norway in the mid-'70s, particularly through the efforts... Read Less