Concert paraphrase on Johann Strauss' Waltz-motives from Die Fledermaus and other works ... ecstatic rather than bombastic. The 19th century techniques, those rubati, micro-accelerandi, and arpeggi all contribute to a fluid, champagne-like lyrical performance.


Alfred Grünfeld (born at Prague July 4, 1852 - January 4, 1924 in Vienna) was an Austrian pianist and composer.

He studied at the Prague Conservatory, and in 1873 he settled at Vienna, where he received the title of "Kammervirtuose". He made tours through Europe and the United States. From 1897 he was a professor at the Vienna Conservatory.

Grünfeld was the first pianist of significance to leave behind a sizable legacy of recordings, both on early discs and on piano rolls. Alfred Grünfeld's first recordings were made in 1899, and by the time Grünfeld made his last records in 1914, it were more than a hundred. Grünfeld's recordings reveal that he was an outstanding pianist, and not nearly as stylistically old hat as his compositions might have suggested on their own:

"Given the leeway expected from nineteenth century performers, Grünfeld's interpretations are remarkably modern sounding. One can almost dictation from his Chopin mazurkas and waltzes. His brisk and unsentimental Schubert recalls Schnabel's similarly conceived versions, but with cleaner articulation of the triplets in the minor section of the Eb Impromptu. Those who think Glenn Gould invented dry, detaché phrasing in Bach will be surprised to hear Grünfeld do more or less the same thing in the Gavotte from the Sixth English Suite. He weaves the contrapuntal threads of the Wagner-Liszt 'Liebestod' (shorn of its introduction) with flowing assurance, and manages to make the notorious right hand tremolos at the end ecstatic rather than bombastic. His Strauss transcriptions are stylistically elegant, of course, but are overshadowed musically and pianistically by the concoctions of Rosenthal, Friedman, et al."
From the July/August 1994 "Keyboard Classics"

Alfred Grünfeld: Isolde's Liebestod (Love-Death) by Wagner-Liszt - Piano Roll, around 1910:
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