Gene Gutche Piano Music

Theme and Variations
Fugue for piano in C Minor
Utilitarian Fugue
Piano Sonatas, Op. 32/1 & 32/2

Matthew McCright, piano

Centaur CEN 3150

Gene Gutche (1907 - 2000) was an independent minded German-born musician who studied & lived latterly in Minnesota, in total obscurity for some years as well as detachment from his colleagues.

Gutchë's music was called "refreshing" (New York Times, 1964), "unusually attractive" (St. Paul Pioneer Press), and "highly individual" (Music Courier); vivid music, often imbued with lyricism, romance, and a healthy dose of humor.

This piano selection, well played and recorded by Minnesotan pianist and musiologist Dr Matthew McCright, is a good find, and a worthy first piano recording to bring in the New Year.

The 20-mins Theme & Variations is likeable from its opening - "Scriabin with French Impressionism and a modernist flavour".

Three fugues are to be heard on the disc, two of them from 1948; the year before Shostakovich published his 24, and to my ears as good as those. The sonatas are concise, three parts single movements, fast-slow-fast.

Recommended.

Peter Grahame woolf