Shepherd School’s Fischer Duo releases new CD

Shepherd School’s Fischer Duo releases new CD

BY ARIE WILSON
Rice News staff

During the course of their 35-year marriage, the Shepherd School of Music’s Norman Fischer and Jeanne Kierman have garnered a litany of musical accomplishments. The world-renowned Fischer Duo recently released a CD of their performances of works by composers Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt.

Fischer, professor of cello, and Kierman, artist teacher of piano and collaborative skills, have performed with each other since their days as students at Oberlin College.

Their latest effort, a CD titled “Chopin & Liszt, Music for Cello and Piano,” features three works by Polish composer Chopin and five works by Hungarian composer Liszt. Many of the works featured on the CD are rarely performed because of their depth and difficulty, resulting in the pieces being virtually unknown by most people.One example of this obscurity is Chopin’s “Grand Duo Concertant,” Kierman said. “The balance is always hard to achieve between handling the wild number of notes showing off the virtuosity and having the result to the audience being ‘It’s just fun!’” she said. “When the work is well-played, it is a triumph. When it isn’t, it’s a mess.”

Other works, such as Liszt’s “La Lugubre Gondola,” “Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth,” “Romance Oubliee” and his two elegies — “Élégie No. 1” and “Élégie No. 2” — are much lesser-known works.

“There have been other recordings of the works, but certainly never with these two composers together,” Kierman said.

Nineteenth-century composers Chopin and Liszt were born only 19 months and 357 miles apart in Eastern Europe. And though the two musical giants would become friends, their personalities could not have been more different, Fischer said. Early in life, Liszt was a very flamboyant person, full in energy and vigor, while Chopin was much more reserved and reclusive.

“Chopin’s music [on the CD] is incredibly extroverted, and Liszt’s is very internal and spiritual,” Fischer said. “We like to say that it’s the introverted side of the extrovert and the extroverted side of the introvert.”

Like Chopin and Liszt, the Fischer Duo is unique, yet well-matched. “We’ve been married so long, and have kids and grandchildren, so now we are very different, yet very compatible,” Fischer said.

Recorded at Stude Concert Hall in 2002, the CD is dedicated to former Shepherd School dean Michael Hammond, who died the same year.

“Chopin & Liszt, Music for Cello and Piano” is available at retail music stores, online at <www.amazon.com> or through the production company, Bridge Records, at <www.bridgerecords.com>.