Ernst Toch: Piano Works

Ernst Toch's early piano works are marked by his use of harmony and the way he plays with tonality, more than anything else. The pieces on this disc by Christian Seibert all feature a theme or melody, but Toch frequently changes key or uses more than one key at once to cast a theme in a new light. The resulting music is angular and chromatic, but in a playful way, not jarringly, particularly in Seibert's hands. The Capriccetti and Kleinstadtbilder have streamlined textures and feel intimately balletic, as if one or two ... Read More

Ernst Toch's early piano works are marked by his use of harmony and the way he plays with tonality, more than anything else. The pieces on this disc by Christian Seibert all feature a theme or melody, but Toch frequently changes key or uses more than one key at once to cast a theme in a new light. The resulting music is angular and chromatic, but in a playful way, not jarringly, particularly in Seibert's hands. The Capriccetti and Kleinstadtbilder have streamlined textures and feel intimately balletic, as if one or two dancers were acting out a tableau for each caprice or picture. Often Toch mixes moods as well as tonalities in these miniatures. The other works on the disc are only slightly more substantial in length and in texture, and are more abstract, more serious, in their disposition. The use of thematic material is most obvious in the Sonata, where it serves as an anchor, just as a particular technique anchors each of the etudes. The Burlesques, again, are more substantial than the opening... Read Less