Jean Louis Nicodé

[Daniel Bennett]

In the past couple years I have become very interested in the music of the Prussian composer, Jean Louis Nicodé.  I noticed he had very interesting pieces for piano four hands that had never been recorded, so my cousin and I took it upon ourselves to learn and record the complete works for piano four hands by Nicodé.  I encourage you to go listen to them as they are very interesting and unique works that should be performed much more!  The recordings are available on most streaming platforms, and I have posted score videos of each of the pieces on YouTube.

Here is a link to the album on YouTube Music: Here

[Mark Thomas]

These sound like truly excellent and persuasive performances, Daniel. Many thanks for sharing them.

[Ilja]

Some of us may have been familiar with the orchestral version of the Bilder aus dem Süden, but the piano reduction (which I'm assuming this is) honestly makes them sound rather more attractive. Wonderful playing as well, thanks for drawing our attention to it.

[John Boyer]

I remember him principally for his orchestration of Chopin's Concert Allegro.  It would be interesting to hear more of his original work.

[Ilja]

Daniel, might you be the "Danny" playing with Andy in this live performance of Bilder aus dem Süden?

[Daniel Bennett]

Daniel, might you be the "Danny" playing with Andy in this live performance of Bilder aus dem Süden?

Yes!  That was my senior capstone recital where I gave a presentation on Nicode and his music, and then ended by performing the Bilder aus dem Suden!  You can see the score videos of the Nicode pieces on that channel and the other pieces we have performed!

[Daniel Bennett]

Some of us may have been familiar with the orchestral version of the Bilder aus dem Süden, but the piano reduction (which I'm assuming this is) honestly makes them sound rather more attractive. Wonderful playing as well, thanks for drawing our attention to it.

Bilder aus dem Süden was composed in 1886.  In 1904 the composer Max Pohle asked Nicode if he could orchestrate the work.  So the four-hands work is actually the original and was apparently very popular before the turn of the century.