CD 75

Works for Piano 2

Josef Alois Ladurner’s cycle on  a  theme  by  Händel  and his Pastoral Variations first documented   on   this   CD should  be  counted  among his major works. Both pieces show  their  author  as  an experimenter, well versed in theoretical matters, who not only does not shy away from combining stereotype formal topoi such as fantasy, fugue and sonata into a novel concept of a cycle, but also draws new facets  from  the  variation technique. The tremendously complex  Variation  no.  15 in   the   cycle   of   Pastoral Variations demonstrates this impressively. It embraces just about all parameters of the art of variation. His piece on the theme of a fugue by G. F. Händel in F Sharp Minor was printed around 1830 in Munich. Ladurnerhadalreadyworkedon very similar thematic material years earlier in his “Prelude for the Clavichord on a Theme by G. F. Händel / Imitating Suite IV, No. 3 Courante.” This piece is kept in the music collection of the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum along with other autograph music composed by him, including the Pastoral Variations.  With  a  theme almost identical to the fugal theme he used later, this is to a certain extent a preliminary study  for  the  much  bigger piece. However, it is hard to understand  why  Ladurner chose  the  rather  plain,  not very  descriptive  motif  as the  thematic  subject  for  an extensive composition such as this. In any case, he shows himself  in  this  work  more as a committed theorist and experimenter than a showman intent on external effects and brilliance. This also applies to  the  grandiose  Pastoral Variations on his own theme. A  great  number  of  details worthy of admiration can be found in this – probably his best – composition.

Track 1, 1:10
Fantasie, Fuge and Sonate
Fantasie.Largo

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