Travelogues in Music

​Dutch pianist Tobias Borsboom excels with imaginative programmes, in which he performs rare repertoire. He is constantly searching for hidden treasures in the piano repertoire.
It was during one of his searches that he came across the Java Suite by the composer and pianist Leopold Godowsky. In 1924 Godowsky was on a concert tour in Indonesia and fell under the spell of Java’s temples, jungles, cities and volcanoes. He wrote an hour-long musical travelogue inspired by Liszt, who a century earlier had turned impressions from Switzerland and Italy into his three piano cycles Années de Pèlerinage. Like Liszt, Godowsky was a super-virtuoso. He wrote piano music that gives the pianist the opportunity to conjure a kaleidoscopic palette of colours from the piano.
Godowsky translated the visual impressions of his journey into music and called his pieces Phonoramas. The gamelan plays a prominent role in these piano works, as in Debussy's magical piano cycle Estampes.