Philip Martin - Gottschalk: Piano Music, Vol. 5

This is the fifth disc in our ongoing Gottschalk series and the success of the project means that what we originally expected to be a few highlights discs seems likely to become the first complete recording of the composer's output for solo piano. We are now well past the half-way point and another 2-3 CDs should encompass the project.All Gottschalk's usual hallmarks are here�Caribbean rhythms, tear-jerking melodies, salon polkas, national melodies�wrapped up in the most elegant 19th-century virtuoso pianism. The repertoire includes several of the composer's best known pieces such as the hugely virtuosic 'Tremolo' (the last piece Gottschalk ever played as he collapsed during a performance of it and died shortly after of a ruptured appendix) or the Cuban inspired 'El Cocoye', all played in his usual idiomatic style by Philip Martin, by critical consent the foremost exponent of Gottschalk playing today.