Strauss, Richard - Piano Sonata - Braley, Frank (piano)

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The 3 Opus numbers on this recording are all the works of a very young Richard Strauss (17-18 years of age), and represent his only works for the piano, because he never returned to the instrument. It is surprising to learn how resolutely Strauss, for whom the composition of his large-scale operatic frescoes and symphonies could take place only at the piano, repudiated "all ostentation or empty virtuosity, all exhibitionism" (G. Gould) in the Klavierstücke and the Stimmungsbilder: Severely criticized by some of his contemporaries, these works deserve to be seen in a new light, because they reveal an intimate facet of Strauss, deeply rooted in the romantic idiom to which he was soon to bid farewell for ever.