Franz Lehár wrote piano music? About as likely, one might think, as Chopin authoring a Requiem Mass! In fact the future operetta master composed two sonatas during his student years, and they’re not bad at all. The F major sonata already reveals the 17-year-old composer’s knack for sweet, fluid melody and piquant harmonies that Grieg would have recognized as his own. The music emerges less as a sonata than a four-act mini-opera without words, reduced for piano. The D minor is a longer, more ambitious, and darker work that captured Brahms’ fancy, while the A-flat Fantasie gives a stronger hint of the Lehár to come. Wolf Harden’s bell-like tone and limber pianism do full justice to these charming curios. Excellent notes and crystalline sound make this disc all the more loveable. A must for collectors of keyboard rarities.
