![]() The three movements here are “Perpetuum Mobile”, “Notturno”, and “Allegramente”. The connection is one of form, not harmony or melody. The title “Partita” suggests a connection with the baroque suite which opens this collection. Germaine TAILLEFERE (1892-1983) is next up with her three movement partita of 1957. And, as with the previous piece, Cahill seems very at home in her reading of this wonderful set of variations. The work has all the splendor of high romanticism with the virtuosity associated with the great composer/pianists (Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Rubinstein, et al). Robert Schumann was infamously institutionalized in 1854 and died in 1856. Sadly it was to be the last birthday he would celebrate with his family. These seven variations were a gift for her husband on his 43rd birthday in 1853. The piece chosen here is her Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann Op. Clara was in fact a highly accomplished virtuoso and composer whose works are only now getting the recognition they deserve. With the next track we hear the music of Clara SCHUMANN (1819-1896), better known as the wife of Robert Schumann (1810-1856). One hopes to hear more of this woman’s music and Cahill is very much up to the task of providing a definitive performance. This recording includes five (of nine) movements of the suite. With echoes of Bach and Couperin this virtually unknown composer is seriously engaging and substantive. This late French baroque suite is a thoroughly engaging way to draw the listener in. 1 in d minor (the complete suites for harpsichord were recorded by harpsichordist Carol Cerasi in 1998) but Cahill seems to channel the spirits of the pioneering efforts of Wanda Landowska and Rosalyn Tureck whose abilities to play harpsichord music effectively on the modern piano helped set the standard for this practice in the twentieth century and beyond. This is apparently not the first recording of Elisabeth JACQUET DE LA GUERRE‘s (1665-1729) Suite no. ![]() ![]() This was particularly striking in her reading of the keyboard suite that opens this release. I have never heard her play Bach but I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to hear her do the Goldberg Variations. Known primarily for her work with music written after 1950, she demonstrates in these recordings an impressive command of baroque, classical, romantic, and modern idioms. What struck this listener is Cahill’s facility with both technique and interpretation of a mighty diverse set of pieces. This survey is shaping up to be an influential as well as hugely entertaining anthology. Green for Volume I, Yellow for Volume II (I’m guessing “red” for Vol III?). The cover art (which I had described as “drab” in the first review) now seems to aptly reflect the struggle for equality and now nicely represents this project in an iconic way with the same monochrome cover photo on each of the three volumes and a primary color panel with the disc title. Many of these works were presented in Cahill’s fine YouTube series which can give listeners further clues to the pianist’s varied interests. Of course we are talking about basically the paradigm of western classical music but non-western influences are of course included via the composers’ individual talents. They seem to reflect the nature of the project and the nature of Sarah Cahill‘s style of conceptualizing what must be an overwhelming undertaking, Beginning with the simple concept of female composers (the term “neglected” would be redundant here) Cahill has produced a sweeping survey ranging from the baroque era (the earliest piece so far in this anthology is from 1687) to the present and her survey seems to know few geographical boundaries in this representative survey of keyboard music. These vague titles are fanciful and more connotative than specific. The fanciful subtitle of this release, “The Dance” is a follow up to the first volume titled, “ In Nature” (a third volume titled, “At Play” is due out in March, 2023).
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