Polydor Recordings

The Swiss pianist, editor and writer, Walter Rehberg (1900-1957) was a mainstay of the German Polydor label in the 1920s & 1930s, but his work has never before been transferred to modern recording formats, and as a result he has faded from view. He was entrusted with the first ever recordings of such masterworks as the Schubert and Schumann Fantasies, and these and his Liszt performances reveal a true Romantic virtuoso who was nevertheless equally at home in the Classicism of the Haydn sonata he recorded in early 1925 - another gramophone premiere. Gramophone wrote in 1928: "Rehberg has done well, his technique is equal to the formidable demands made on it, but his virtuosity never blinds him to the imaginative qualities of the music... I have nothing but admiration for a rendering that is both competent and poetical." Rehberg was also a champion of the Janko piano, an instrument that allowed the easier playing of larger intervals and complex chords. The instrument never caught on, but the pianist's own compositions for it (featured on the latter portion of this release) reveal the fascinating sonorities that could be created with it. The transfers and remastering featured on this album were expertly done by Ward Marston.