Karl-Andreas Kolly - Schmidt: The Piano Album (2024) [Hi-Res]

Franz Schmidt was not only a brilliant cellist, but also a gifted pianist who mastered almost the entire piano repertoire with ease. Nevertheless, he had a kind of love-hate relationship with the piano, since his great passion was for the organ. This did not prevent him, however, from writing numerous works for the left hand alone, all of them commissioned by the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein and including the Beethoven Variations, Piano Concerto in E-flat major and Quintets. Schmidt's output for piano two-hands, however, comprised only one work – the melancholic Romance, which he dedicated to his English teacher Geoffrey Sephton in 1922. Karl-Andreas Kolly remarks: “The fact that I have decided to arrange three of Franz Schmidt’s organ works for piano has primarily to do with my great passion for his music. And also a little with my hope that in a piano version, his organ works might possibly reach a wider audience”.