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Beethoven: Diabelli Variations, Etc / Rudolf Serkin
Music and Arts Programs of America · May 2007CD$18.99 -
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Apostel: Kubiniana, 60 Schemen & 10 Variationen / Malengreau
A student of Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg, Hans Erich Apostel (1901-1972) was a composer who was strongly influenced by visual artists of his time. The piano works presented on this CD specifically take inspiration from the drawings of Oskar Kokoschka and Alfred Kubin. But you don’t need to know that in order to appreciate Apostel’s creativity on its own terms.
The Op. 1 Variations, recorded here for the first time, are generally sparse in texture and packed with the kind of quirky chromatic movement typical of early Ernst Krenek. Apostel’s style emerges fully formed in the 10 piano pieces collectively titled Kubiniana, composed in 1945. For instance, the fourth selection starts off with dour sustained notes in the bass register that suddenly break out into jagged lines darting upward, followed by declamatory repeated phrases and muddy bass rumbles: not a predictable moment in the course of a minute and a half. There’s a caustic march that Berg might have welcomed in Lulu, and a whimsical high-register study that one might describe as the dodecaphonic interloper that snuck into Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives.
Sechzig Schemen Nach Zeichnungen Von Alfred Kubin comprise a continuous half-hour suite of 60 aphoristic character pieces that include marches, tangos, folk-like melodies, enigmatic clouds of clusters, and the like. Despite their brevity, these masterful miniatures flow easily from one to the next in a unified arc.
Thérèse Malengreau’s cultivated pianism serves Apostel’s sound world to a proverbial tee. She commands a luscious tone, a wide dynamic range, and a diverse palette of articulations. Furthermore, Malengreau possesses uncanny rhythmic equilibrium that manifests itself through her sense of timing and spacing. A good example of this can be found in the Marcia Moderato, which is the second of the Kubiania pieces. The attack and release of each phrase is pinpointed with the utmost care and specificity, so much so that you can hear the rests between the notes. In this sense, Steffen Schleiermacher’s interpretation on MDG sounds more generalized by comparison. BIS’s exemplary sonics plus Malengreau’s detailed and scholarly annotations add further value to a release that will readily appeal to those interested in obscure yet worthy and substantial keyboard rarities.
– ClassicsToday (Jed Distler)
THEMES & VARIATIONS
Balkan Project / Cavatina Duo
THE BALKAN PROJECT • Cavatina Duo • CEDILLE 90000117 (66:30)
Arrangements by MIROSLAV TADIC, CLARICE ASSAD, ALAN THOMAS , and others
There is an important trend in music that doesn’t yet seem to have a name. As interest in indigenous non-classical music from various cultures gathers steam, hybrids between these and classical music continue to draw scrutiny from audiences and performers, most famously Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble. These influences can be traced back centuries, of course (i.e., Mozart’s interest in Turkish music is but one example), but the influence has gone far beyond the colorful additions of particular instruments or a specific regional tang added to an otherwise Western piece. Many of these styles are entering the very DNA of our music as a natural extension of globalization. The name Third Stream was coined a half century ago by Gunther Schuller to describe “a new genre of music located about halfway between jazz and classical music.” Any votes for Fourth Stream?
This terrific new disc of flute/guitar duos occupies one of the many possible points on the classical/folk continuum. Since it consists entirely of music of the Balkans, it also occupies a critical space on the East/West divide. In a nutshell, the music consists of arrangements of songs and dances from the region, commissioned by the Cavatina Duo, one of whom hails from the region (Bosnian guitarist Denis Azabagic) and one of whom doesn’t (Spanish flutist Eugenia Moliner). The notes don’t refer to the use of improvisation in any of the works, but there is a sense of spontaneity to many of the pieces that suggests that the original sources may have employed extemporaneous methods in part.
There is probably still a pervasive belief among many music lovers that “folk” denotes unwavering simplicity, a stereotype that should long ago have been dashed among those with even a cursory knowledge of this region. Some of these works exhibit a dizzying complexity of meter that would confound many a trained classical performer. Even traditional love songs can be found in odd meters, such as the endearing Macedonian song Eleno, Kerko Eleno , in 7/8 throughout. The signature augmented fourth interval so common in the Middle East can be heard in this disc as being a part of this region as well, the apt label for the scale being the “Balkan Minor.” The closest the collection comes to the inclusion of a suite is the Four Macedonian Pieces by Miroslav Tadic. The opening “Jovna Kumanovka” has beguiling melody in a lightly syncopated lilt, and the tune is tossed between the flute and different registers of the piano. The guitar line of “Padushko” sizzles, and the dance pushes ahead in an almost dizzying 5/8 meter.
The duo is unerringly captivating in this literature. Moliner has a rich, soulful tone that suits the music perfectly, and Azabagic has plenty of chops to negotiate the demands of this frequently virtuosic work. The natural audience for this disc would be flutists, guitarists, and students of the region, but it’s hard to imagine anyone not finding lots of pleasure here.
FANFARE: Michael Cameron
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In the notes for this excellent program, guitarist/composer Vojislav Ivanovic describes "the Balkans" as a dividing line between East and West, an exciting crossroad of civilizations" that incorporates many countries, from Macedonia and Greece to Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Turkey, and Romania. And in their very felicitous partnership, Bosnian guitarist Denis Azabagic and flutist Eugenia Moliner (whose roots are Spanish) perform modern arrangements of songs and dances from these regions, many of which were commissioned by Cavatina Duo. There's a wide range of moods, melodies, and rhythms, and the original songs are exploited in many different ways by the nine or 10 composers who contributed to the project. There's the "impressionistic"-flavor of Ivanovic's setting of a traditional Bosnian song (tr 2), or the light-jazz feel to Matthew Dunne's arrangement of the Macedonian song "Eleno, Kerko, Eleno" (tr 3); "Kalajdzisko Oro" (tr 4) is a wild, swirling dance in 11/8, in a virtuosic setting by Clarice Assad. In fact, perhaps the most prominent feature of many of the selections is the complex rhythm--or often combinations of rhythms--that at once engage the listener and seriously challenge the players. One of the dances--Boris Gaquere's "Kopanitsa da Kalantchatska" from Bulgaria--even requires a nifty bit of "drumming" from the guitarist!
These fascinating rhythmic elements--often in irregular divisions of 7/8, 9/8, 5/8, or the aforementioned 11/8--are characteristic of much of this music, and it makes listening easy and fun as well as keeping the timbres of guitar and flute lively and interesting over the course of the disc's 66-plus minutes.
And whatever challenges the arrangers have presented prove no problem for Azabagic and Moliner; these are two phenomenal musicians whose collaborative timing and keen rhythmic sense allow each of the 16 songs and dances to truly sing and dance with delightful spirit and an ingratiating lack of inhibition.
For me, some selections seem a bit long for the material--the first two of Miroslav Tadic's Macedonian Pieces--or veer too close to the realm of what used to be called New Age--Alan Thomas' Croatian song "The Shepherd's Dream"; yet for many listeners this will be exactly the right thing, and Moliner and Azabagic leave little room for criticism of their artistic commitment or technical skill. Tadic's rousing dances--the last two of his Macedonian Pieces--especially the frighteningly tricky "Pajdushka" (in 5/8), along with the program's final piece, Clarice Assad's metrically boggling Bulgarian folk dance (including a section of 9/8+7/8+11/8), are bound to awake movements in your body as you listen that you didn't know you had! As is expected with Cedille, the sound, this time from a Chicago studio, is ideally suited to the music and to the timbres and balance requirements of the two instruments. Strongly recommended.
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com
Variations
Beethoven: Diabelli Variations, Etc / Rudolf Serkin
Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991) was one of the great Beethoven exponents of the 20th century. Donal Henahan wrote of a performance given by Serkin of the 'Diabelli' in the NY Times: 'Rudolk Serkin's...approach to music and his instrument is devout, all but priestly, and his audience attends to him with the seriousness of a congregation that expects nothing less than high revelation.'
Nowowiejski: Piano & Cello Concertos / Kortus, Koziak, Borowicz, Poznań PO
The work of Feliks Nowowiejski constitutes one of the most interesting testimonies to the stylistic evolution of Polish composers born in the late-19th century. Five years older than Karol Szymanowski, and a year younger than Mieczysław Karłowicz, Nowowiejski chronologically belonged to the Młoda Polska (Young Poland) period. However, he never became a member of the movement; what is more, his artistic path was so individualistic that it is diff icult to talk about the composer’s aff iliation to any group or style. Nowowiejski’s entire long and artistically unusually active life was marked by a series of stylistic shift s, of permanent quests and changes which did not result from a spurious desire to chase the evolution of trends current in the world, but from authentic openness to varied impulses and sources of inspiration. This way, Nowowiejski joins the group of artists who were no strangers to radical stylistic change (e.g. Igor Stravinsky, who was five years his junior, revealed a similar stylistic flexibility). A composer of thorough education, Feliks Nowowiejski followed a path to obtain it that was typical of late-19th-century talents born away from the main centres. He hailed from Barczewo, and the first years of his musical education were associated with his native Warmia i Mazury region: first, at the school of music in Święta Lipka, and later in Olsztyn, where he was a musician of the East Prussia Grenadier Regiment Orchestra. The school in Święta Lipka prepared students for the profession of organist and teacher. It also taught playing various instruments, with particular emphasis put on vocal music. Nowowiejski’s education resembles this of another Slavic composer of the breakthrough era, Leoš Janáček. Like Janáček, Nowowiejski, whose education revealed a particularly conservative trait, in a later stage of his artistic career awoke in himself a modernist talent. What’s more, it was (very unique!) Slavic modernism, which never lost sight of the composer’s origin, and his love for music of greatly varied sources (folk and traditional melodies, church and patriotic songs). Naturally, these were the later years in Berlin, the prestigious Meyerbeer Prize (which he won twice), the extensive studies with Max Bruch that were most important from the point of view of Nowowiejski’s career and renown. As a relatively young composer, he took a place among the most popular composers of his day by storm, while no work by any other Polish composer of the early-20th century could match the worldwide success of Nowowiejski’s oratorio Quo vadis. World War One thoroughly changed the situation. Involvement in the revival of independent Poland and his political engagement (active role in the preparations for the plebiscite in Warmia i Mazury, which Poland eventually lost) made the composer famous at home, but held back his international career (following his association with the plebiscite, the previously successful Quo vadis was no longer performed in Germany).
Brahms: Handel Variations & Ballades / Akopian-Tamarina
The incomparable, soul-searching playing of the veteran Russian pianist Nelly Akopian-Tamarina is captured in a rare studio recording for PENTATONE with a luminous performance of Brahms’s towering Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, Op. 24 and the introspective Four Ballades, Op. 10.
In a distinguished tradition of playing stretching back to the great Russian school of Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Medtner through her teacher, the acclaimed virtuoso Alexander Goldenweiser, Nelly Akopian-Tamarina is an exemplar of an exquisitely crafted and poetical style of playing which is subtle, probing, deeply lyrical and utterly spellbinding.
Winner of the 1963 Robert Schumann International Competition for Pianists and Singers and recipient of the coveted Robert Schumann Prize in 1974, her career was nevertheless blocked by official censorship in the Soviet Union during the 1970s such that she made her London debut only in 1983 with a program of Schumann and Brahms. For this new release, Akopian-Tamarina approaches the program with her customary sensitivity and poetic insights to give performances of rare subtlety and perfection. “Classically framed romantic miniature fantasies, intricate, entwining studies in embroidery, decoration and voicing”, she writes of the Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, “the twenty-five variations navigate the theme to a coronation of fugal triumph, immeasurable and immortal”.
REVIEW:
This is something special. Nelly Akopian-Tamarina is a pianist of the Russian old school, part of a tradition stretching back to Rubinstein and Rachmaninoff, and was winning competitions in the 1960s. But since the early years her public performances have been rare, her recordings even more so—this all-Brahms disc has waited over 20 years to be released. It is captivating. The sense of intimacy in the Third and Fourth Ballades is perhaps explained when you read that they were recorded after session hours when she thought she was alone, unaware that the producer had slipped into the studio and turned on the microphone. There’s a feeling of time being suspended throughout, of Brahms’s long spans being masterfully, seamlessly molded with a finely graded, delicate touch. Alongside the four Ballades we hear the mighty Handel Variations, to which she brings a sense of quiet resolve and onward motion that is irresistible.
-- The Guardian (UK)
