Credits:

Simon, Geoffrey

Description:

Friedrich Gurda (1930-2000) was a genius musician who had many faces: classical pianist, jazz player, and composer. He once considered turning into a full-fledged jazz player, but eventually tried to "fuse classical music and jazz," and his free style was sublimated in his Mozart performances, which he loved in particular. This album contains Gurda's performances from two different eras. The program begins and ends with Mozart's two rondos from 1969, when Goulda began to turn to jazz, and is interspersed with a performance from 1982, when Goulda developed his own style. The two pieces, including Goulda's improvisation from 1982, Mozart's sonata, and the "Aria," which was a favorite of both he and the audience, blend into a flow so natural that one does not feel the difference in age at all, and here classical and jazz are truly fused. Naxos Japan