Johanna Senfter

This is the first recording of piano music by Johanna Senfter, a composer whose large output had until then reached the public only through a few chamber works. The pianist Monica Gutman chose pieces from across Senfter's career, from the romantic character pieces of her early years to late works that push tonality to its limits, so that the disc also traces how her technique developed over the decades.

Senfter was born in Oppenheim in 1879 and died there in 1961. She studied with Max Reger in Leipzig, who called her his best pupil, and she later founded the Oppenheim Bach Society, where she regularly performed Bach's cantatas. The recording was made at Studio Tonmeister in Mainz in March and April 1994, with Alfred Huff as engineer and editor; Christiane Maier wrote the booklet notes.

The programme opens with three short pieces, Vogelweise, a Mazurka and a Berceuse, and continues with three sets that carry opus numbers: the Drei Klavierstücke op. 77, the Drei Klavierstücke op. 83 and the Zwei Klavierstücke op. 129. Senfter's piano writing has an orchestral weight. Chords are widely spaced, the melodic line is often doubled in octaves, and different rhythmic patterns are combined and set against each other, which gives even the shorter pieces a dense, layered surface. The late pieces stay within tonality but stretch it as far as it will go.

Gutman's reading follows each melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and dynamic detail closely, and in doing so offers a clear first way into music that had rarely been heard. For listeners who know the Reger circle mainly through Reger himself, the disc offers a rare chance to hear the piano music of the pupil he rated most highly.

CD, Wergo WER 6264 2, released in 1994, first recording (41'42").