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FELIX MENDELSSOHN: Songs Without Words
Op. 30, No. 1 in E flat major Adante espressivo
Available at: Amazon

FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809 – 1847)
Songs Without Words (Complete)

Mendelssohn played by Daniel Gortler

Daniel Gortler, piano

A song is a combination of words and music which is why the mere idea 0f a song without words sounds as sacrilege. It is, frankly, a contradiction in terms. We sing with our mouth expressing words, we play an instrument. And although we tend to say that instruments - or instrumentalists to be specific - do sing, a musical instrument as delicate and intricate as it might be, cannot actually replace the human voice and even more so actual sensation of the meaning of spoken and or sung word: when one performs a song the idea is that words and music become one, they turn into one cohesive entity. A song is not a poem, it a poem plus music and in the same way a song cannot exist with only music, or can it?...

 
Daniel Gortler has performed as soloist with orchestras such as the Israel and London Philharmonics, Berlin and Bavarian Radio Symphonies, Suisse Romande, as well as the Houston, San Francisco, New World, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras. He has played under the batons of maestros Gergiev, Mehta, Eschenbach, Tilson Thomas, Levi, Talmi, Sloane, Welzer-Most, Honeck, Rodan, Ahronovich, Grin and others. In addition to his frequent orchestral and recital performances, Daniel Gortler is an avid chamber music performer. He regularly performs with artists such as Bo Skovhus, Nikolaj Znaider, David Garrett, and Steven Isserlis. Daniel Gortler won First prizes in Chile's Vina del Mar International Competition in 1987, and in the Bremen International Competition in 1991, Second in the Munich International Piano Competition, and, at the age of 19, Second at the Geneva International Competition. He has also won the Gina Bachauer Award in Jerusalem and the Salon de Virtuoso annual award in New York. Gortler studied the piano with Ms. Neomi Hacohen and graduated from the Rubin Music Academy in Tel-Aviv University and the Musikhochschule in Hanover Germany where he studied both places with Prof. Arie Vardi. Gortler is currently a faculty member of the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel-Aviv University.