Among all the virtuoso pianists who have embellished the music they play, Leopold Godowsky was one of the most extreme. His imaginative paraphrases go far beyond the bounds of mere transcription: Saint-Saëns’s famous Swan is sugar-coated with decoration, and three Schubert songs take Liszt’s elaborations even further. Most fascinating here is Bach’s G minor sonata for solo violin, in which the first movement is an entirely original meditation. It is difficult to quite see the point of Chopin studies arranged for the left hand, but Laurent Wagschal plays them with clarity and definition – which is admirable, but possibly at odds with the warm, late Romantic tradition from which the arrangements spring.
