Sonata I

For a long time, Wolf Glaser, pianist, music pedagogue and composer, had not been known in Germany. Born in Cologne in 1913, he studied with Philipp Jarnach and Paul Hindemith among others, but no sooner had he been given a permanent post as second coach in 1933 than he had to flee the country due to his Jewish descent. First, he went to France, then to Denmark and Sweden where he still lives today and where he became a popular composer, conductor, music pedagogue, music therapist and poet. His 1st piano sonata written in 1933 and published here for the first time was Glaser's self-described opus 1. It is permeated by an atmosphere of new departures and a sweeping form. Kolja Lessing, the piano player, who performed this work for the first time in Germany on February 2, 2001, writes: "When I first got to know this piece in the spring of 2000, I was at once fascinated both by its exceptional intensity and its stirring force - poised as it is between ecstatic eruption and magical melancholy....an astonishingly uncompromising first work of great originality, an invitation to explore the other works of Werner Wolf Glaser." Also published by Robert Lienau: "In Liedern nach Ungarn, England und und ...ì ("To Hungary, England and and..."), Folk songs for piano for four hands by Werner Wolf Glaser (ZRL 40490).