Sara Davis Buechner - Gershwin: Original Works And Transcriptions For Solo Piano (2005)

Sara Davis Buechner is a pianist who plays music that she enjoys, and that enjoyment shows. On this reissue of an album of Gershwin solo piano works, she gives all the pieces such energy and genuine feeling. She has the looseness to give the fox trots, transcribed from Gershwin's piano rolls, that jazzy, raggy feel, not the stiffness that many classically trained musicians give them. Even the slower ones, such as Maybe and So Am I, have a sweet, jazzy nature. Buechner also gets to show off her chops in challenging solo versions of both the Rhapsody in Blue and the Second Rhapsody. The Rhapsody in Blue includes some of Gershwin's original cadenzas, which are rarely heard and give the workhorse piece an unexpected and fresh sound. The Second Rhapsody is her own transcription, and it captures the original version excellently. The Preludes aren't quite as jazzy as the other pieces here, but still have the same dynamism. The sound is a little distant, with a bit of an echo, but not too bad. What really is unfortunate is that the track listing, both on the back of the CD and in the liner notes, is wrong. All the right titles are there, but only the Rhapsody in Blue is actually heard where it occurs in the track listing, at track one. The printed timings do match the actual track timings (i.e., track two does last one minute, 27 seconds, but it is Prelude No. 1, not the Second Rhapsody). That aside, however, Buechner, lets the listener enjoy Gershwin's music as much as she does.