About a year and a half before he died, Bulgarian composer Pancho Vladigerov (1899-1978) produced 13 piano duo transcriptions from his own solo piano, chamber, and orchestral works. What we might miss in orchestral color or textural contrast is more than compensated for by the composer’s resourceful two-piano deployment. The music dates from 1915 to 1942. Earlier pieces such as La Danseuse Orientale and Valse Fantastique recall the rich harmonic idiom of the young Erich Wolfgang Korngold. By contrast, the nationalistic flavor in the Rhapsodie Vardar and Alla Marcia from the Suite Bulgare Op. 21 shrinks under the composer’s lavish, Rachmaninovian textures. Vladigerov’s own voice best manifests its spiky, inventive self in three selections he arranged from the Seven Bulgarian Symphonic Dances (1931).
The Piano Duo Genova and Dimitrov is a splendidly cohesive and colorful pair. Although in the jazz-influenced Fox-Trot, Romance et Cake-Walk, and Chimmy de Concert, we might wish for more rhythmic lilt and pliability, prospective duetists should find some of these works attractive additions to the medium’s pitifully small repertoire. Fine annotations and engineering.
