Senka Brankovic - Brahms & Eröd: Piano Works (2018)

Austrian pianist Senka Brankovic graduated from the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where Hans Leygraf, Hans Petermandl and Heinz Medjimorec were among her teachers; she also holds teaching positions at the Berlin University of Arts as well as the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. Her upcoming solo album focuses on the cosmos of Johannes Brahms. In addition to the 7 Fantasien, Op. 116 and 4 Klavierstücke, Op. 119, Brankovic presents the Brahms:Variations Op. 57, written by composer Ivan Eröd, who is of Hungarian descent. Composed in 1990 and dedicated to his compatriot the pianist Andras Schiff, the work takes on a theme from the Intermezzo Op. 116 / No. VI and develops it into 13 stylistically diverse variations. Numerous other citations and nods to other composers are also here to be discovered, as movement headings like (... the bird Arnold as prophet...) or Tempo di 'Radetzky Marsch' indicate.