Strauss-Godowsky: Wine, Women & Song piano fantasy

Notes by pianist Charles Rosen: A few years before studying with Rosenthal, I was taken to play for Leopold Godowsky, who sat me on his lap and asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. “I want to be a pianist like Josef Hoffman,“ was the answer, which I am told delighted Godowsky. I never heard Godowsky play, but his arrangements though rarely performed today are still famous among pianists. Those of the Strauss waltzes are technically less strenuous than Rosenthal’s arrangements, but more imaginative. My favorite is the “Symphonic Metamorphosis of Wine, Women and Song“. This pianistic fantasy is delightful, more in the style of Richard than Johann, but still “echt“ Viennese.