Walter Arlen: Toccatina (for piano)

for piano (1990)

Duration: 1 minute

When Walter Arlen (1920-2023) composed his Toccatina as a birthday present for his sister Edith Wachtel (1925-2012) in 1990, he had the luxury of knowing it would be an occasional work that would not face the scrutiny of fellow musicians, composers and journalists. Arlen’s gifts as a composer would not be conditioned by the then arbiters of contemporary music. As a once highly profiled music journalist for the Los Angeles Times, the Viennese-born Arlen composed only for himself, his husband Howard Myers, his sister and his close friends and relatives. Works were rarely performed outside of closed circles, with most only resonating in Arlen’s inner ear.

The Toccatina was completed on July 22, 1990 as a present for his sister, Edith Wachtel’s 65th birthday. It recalls her days as a nine-year-old dance prodigy at Vienna’s State Opera when, in 1934, she was chosen to perform with Richard Tauber in the premiere of Franz Lehár’s Giuditta. The Toccatina also recalls his own earlier days as a composition student in Chicago, enchanted by Parisian Neo-Classicism. It’s a short, dazzling bit of keyboard writing that follows in a direct line with his Prelude, Sarabande and Gigue, composed in 1944.

About the Exilarte Edition
G. Schirmer/Wise Music’s Exilarte Edition exclusively publishes works by composers who were persecuted, forced into exile or murdered by the Nazi regime. Nearly all original manuscripts of these works are archived in the Exilarte Center at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in Austria.