GULDA NON-STOP: Music by Gulda, Mozart, Debussy,...

GULDA NON-STOP: Music by Gulda, Mozart, Debussy, Chopin, Schubert, Johann Strauss Jr. Friedrich Gulda, piano. Sony Classical SK 52499. On this live-performance recording Gulda takes pieces with improvisatory roots--a Mozart fantasia, a Debussy prelude, a Chopin nocturne--and plays them piano-bar style: The gratuitous pianississimo, the noodling ornament, the breathless stretch of phrase, the impetuous forte--these are his modi operandi. He throws in brief segues between some of the works--the liner notes make a big deal of his sustaining the final chord of Chopin’s F-sharp Nocturne into the beginning of Schubert’s G-flat Impromptu. Gulda’s own compositions are precious and banal, a tired mixture of Bach and jazz. The assembled acolytes respond as if God has spoken.