Music of A Bygone Era

Frank Glazer's rich and varied musical life as touring virtuoso, teacher, music director, television host, annotator, and much else is enough for five careers. The 91-year-old pianist's long resume includes everything from studies with Schnabel and Schoenberg to playing in vaudeville houses and, believe it or not, the Icelandic premiere of Brahms' second piano concerto. At 85, he recorded a recital of once-fashionable/now-frowned-upon encores, the type of repertoire Arthur Loesser used to call "cream of corn". Few pianists today have a genuine feeling for such pieces, save, of course, Earl Wild (Glazer's slightly younger contemporary) and perhaps Stephen Hough or Marc-André Hamelin. However, Glazer's beautiful, robust tone and innate charm are exactly what this music needs. The disc opens with a curvaceous and ravishingly sung out account of Mendelssohn's Spring Song, followed by Alfred Grünfeld's pretty if overlong Romanze and Grieg's Papillon, which is fuller in body and less cameo