Oleg Marshev - Emil von Sauer: Sonata No 2 & Serenatas (2001)

Emil von Sauer's piano works mark the twilight of an era in which the composer pianist was still in fashion. Sauer, Godowsky, Hofmann, Rachmaninoff, Rosenthal, Busoni and Paderewski were just a few of the reigning titans who frequently played their own compositions on the concert stage. The music of most of these composers has unfortunately fallen out of vogue today. However, turn of the century audiences enthusiastically applauded, demanded even, these works, if not during the actual programmed recital then afterwards as encores. Sauer was born in Hamburg. He studied with Nicholas Rubinstein in Moscow and for two years with Liszt in Weimar. Although concertizing took up the majority of his time, he was also a dedicated composer, and his early compositions met with considerable success. In Sauer's last years his popularity began to decline. His playing still remained at a high level but public attention had turned towards the new generation of pianists. He published no original piano compositions after 1932, but he continued to prepare editions of other composer's works. We have Sauer editions of the complete or near complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann, and also twelve volumes of Liszt comprising most of his major piano works. In his later years Sauer became an ardent champion of Liszt's compositions and performed them frequently. He vehemently defended them against the harsh criticism they received at that time and even gave a series of lectures on them. He continued his teaching, concertizing and editing activities right up until his death and also left a significant recorded legacy of more than forty works on 78 rpm disks.