Remembering Our History
Ralph Leopold was a frequent summer visitor to Craigville, where he often played informal concerts for neighbors.
Here is an account of his 1930 visit by The Craigville Visitor’s editor, Anna Canada Swain:
Again we have among us the eminent concert pianist, Ralph Leopold, whom is making his annual visit at the Miller cottage at the head of the Midway. During the past season he has combined his usual concert work with teaching advanced students at his studio in New York City, and at the same time has prepared for publication a number of his unique Wagner transcriptions which, until the last year have appeared only as his recordings for the Duo-Art reproducing piano. Now that they are appearing in sheet music form (Carl Fisher, Inc.), it will at last be possible for pianists the world over, both professional musicians and amateurs, to have in their possession this wonderful music in a form which up to now has been practically non-existent, and to become familiar with and enjoy in their homes the unsurpassed motives and harmonies that heretofore have been heard only in the opera houses or concert hall. A personal touch comes to us in learning that several of these transcriptions have been written here in Craigville, and so should be doubly interesting to his friends and neighbors.
The two numbers which have already appeared in print are excerpts which one has rarely had the opportunity of hearing outside of complete performances of the music dramas. They are the “Love Duet and Brangaene’s Warning” from the second act of “Tristan and Isolde,” and “Sunrise and Siegfried’s Parting from Brunnhilde” from the first act of “Die Gotterdammrung.”
Mr. Leopold will be with us several weeks longer, and after making a few visits to Maine and the Catskills, will return to Craigville in September.
You can enjoy Ralph Leopold performing at:
https://www.benjaminzander.org/audios/recording-wagner-tannhauser-overture-bpo/