Instrumental
Kate Bolton-porciatti enjoys Daniel-ben Pienaar’s piano takes on early works
The Long 17th Century
Keyboard Works by Byrd, Locke, Buxtehude, Sweelinck etc Daniel-ben Pienaar (piano)
Avie AV 2415 150:08 mins (2 discs)
This cabinet of musical curiosities curated by pianist Daniel-ben Pienaar showcases 36 works by as many composers, offering the listener a musical odyssey across 17th-century Europe. Alongside famous keyboard composers (Byrd, Buxtehude, Louis Couperin, Frescobaldi) are shadowy names like Arauxo, Bruna, Macedo and Schildt, and pieces recorded for the first time on the piano. Pienaar displays his collection thematically, connecting dances and variations, imitative and evocative works that suggest battles and birdsong, that paint portraits, tell stories and write elegies. It’s a deeply personal selection that makes for a captivating sequence.
The three-dozen works were originally conceived for a variety of instruments (harpsichord, organ virginals, clavichord, even viols, perhaps); it’s largely thanks to Pienaar’s fleet, supple technique and lucid part playing that these piano translations work so well. Particularly lovely are the more ruminative works – Macedo’s introspective Ricercar, the elegiac Tombeau by D’anglebert, and the melancholy Pavans by Philips, Tomkins, Chambonnières – where the velvet resonance of the piano adds a poignant wistfulness. The instrument’s colouristic potential also allows Pienaar to highlight the chiaroscuro of Arauxo’s Tiento, or the pointillistic effects of Sweelinck’s Mein junges Leben. If the lively galliards sound a touch heavy on the piano, elsewhere no such problems arise: Pienaar makes light work of the virtuosic pieces, with their flashing scales and filigree ornaments. The recording is warm yet dry enough to ensure that complex contrapuntal textures never turn to mush.
PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
It’s thanks to Pienaar’s technique that these translations work well
cello. He’s worked with Stevie Wonder, Bobby Mcferrin and
Yo-yo Ma, and runs a project called Bachinthebathroom in which he plays Bach suites in the bathrooms of famous concert halls. To translate, it’s #Bachintheloo. Respect.
So, to the Suites. They don’t come from said bathroom, but he has used microphones to amplify the sound so they’re pretty rock ‘n’ roll, breezy and punchy, peppered with characterful ornaments which feel natural and bring a personal touch. The playing is at times on the crude side: don’t come here for the most profound C minor Sarabande, monumental D minor Prelude or aerial E major Suite
(it’s fairly choppy). His D major, though, has a joyous glister that I found irresistible, some awkward phrasing notwithstanding and an odd lack of repeats.
So where does ‘Step into the Void’ come into it? This is the third disc, an extraordinary mash-up of what feels like Block’s addled memory of Bach, and a live phonographic collage. The effect is that of a bizarre aural kaleidoscope, where fragments of Bach’s suites are tessellated into bluegrass, eerie electronics, a jazz-funk drum machine, or gospel singing, as the ‘phonographer’, Dj-like, syncs speech and recordings into Block’s improvisations. The warp factor is high, some combinations inspired – the D minor Prelude morphing into free-flowing arabesques with Moog synths – some less so. Still, here’s an original talent: I’d go to hear him live. Helen Wallace
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
JS Bach • Bartók
JS Bach: French Suite No. 5,
BWV 816; Partita No. 2, BWV 826; Bartók: Out of Doors; Suite, Op. 14 Julien Libeer (piano)
Harmonia Mundi HMM 902651
62:37 mins
The Belgian pianist Julien Libeer, a sometime protégé of Maria João Pires among other mentors, here brings together suites by Bach and Bartók, perhaps highlighting the long influence of the first and the deep-rooted heritage of the second. Libeer alternates the composers’ suites, club sandwichfashion, and the pairing, while certainly interesting, can be a bit of a jolt: you’ve settled happily into the ambience of one when the suite ends and the other world springs into life. One might be left wondering if a whole disc devoted to each might have been more satisfying.
It’s nevertheless a striking tribute to Libeer’s ability to conjure up different atmospheres that this contrast makes such an impression.
Indeed, it’s almost impossible to fault his playing – unless, of course, you are deeply allergic to Bach on the modern piano (which I’m not). He brings the G major French Suite and the Partita No. 2 the full complement of the piano’s advantages – a wonderfully cantabile touch, carefully wrought dynamic contrasts, judicious use of the pedal for expression – and the performance never becomes unidiomatic, applying improvised embellishments on repeats and maintaining exemplary clarity. The Bartók suites, with their uniquely unsettling mixture of earthy dance rhythms and eerie nocturnal rustles and shivers, have the same sense of minute attention to detail and intensity of focus; tone quality is full and rich, with voices vividly layered and colours plentiful.
The recorded sound is superb and makes the most of the performance’s mix of defined character and technical perfectionism. Jessica Duchen PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★★
Beethoven
Works for Piano Four Hands – Sonata in D, Op. 6; Eight Variations on a Theme by Count von Waldstein, WOO 67; Three Marches, Op. 45; Six Variations on ‘Ich denke dein’, WOO 74; Grosse Fuge, Op. 134
Peter Hill, Benjamin Frith (piano) Delphian DCD34221 48:50 mins
In Beethoven’s anniversary year everyone is strenuously trying to find a new angle, but these pianists have effortlessly hit on one. Beethoven was only rarely persuaded to try his hand at the four-hand artform, and the results were fairly routine, apart from one remarkable work which has become all but forgotten.
Composed, probably for teaching purposes, when Beethoven was still in his teens, the Sonata in
D is a short but accomplished exercise. The Waldstein variations – in this convivial and muscular performance – reflect the 21-year-old composer’s delight in turning stylistic tricks and in striking dramatic attitudes. The instrumental evocations of the Marches are nimble and highspirited, and the Six Variations, written in the same year as the Eroica Symphony, have a tranquil grace.
But the four-hand Grosse Fuge is something else. Originally designed as the finale to the
Op. 130 String Quartet, it was regarded as both rebarbative and unplayable: its publisher Matthias Artaria mendaciously persuaded Beethoven that there was public demand for a four-hand version. The pianist to whom the composer agreed to entrust this task smoothed out its seeming unplayabilities and was accordingly sacked; Beethoven took over the transcription and worked with fastidious care. It’s essentially the same work, though the savage beauty of the quartet version here becomes naked aggression: the balm-like legato of the middle section remains wonderfully comforting, but at other times the listener feels as though pelted with white-hot coals. Messrs Hill and Frith have done us a service: now let’s see what other pianists make of this fascinating work. Michael Church PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Feinberg
Piano Sonatas Nos 1-6 Marc-andré Hamelin (piano) Hyperion CDA 68233 74:33 mins
Soviet pianist and pedagogue Samuil Feinberg (1890-1962) carved out a formidable reputation as a much-revered exponent of Bach’s keyboard music in his native country. But his credentials as a composer are no less impressive, particularly this set of the first six of his 12 Piano Sonatas. Composed in the wake of the turbulent political situation prior to and immediately following the 1917 Russian Revolution, these works are powerfully intense musical experiences expanding upon the distinctive and highly perfumed harmonic style established by Scriabin in his own late sonatas.
It’s fascinating to chart the evolution of Feinberg’s musical identity, moving from the aura of late-romanticism in the earlier Sonatas to something far more complex and multi-layered. The epic three-movement Third
Sonata, with its tremendously exciting rollercoaster Finale, marks something of a breakthrough. It’s followed by the deeply unsettling swirling textures of the Fourth and the kaleidoscopic changes of mood
that characterise the Fifth. Best of all is the remarkable Sixth Sonata which Feinberg premiered at the 1925 Venice Contemporary Music Festival, its extreme chromatic language and closely workedthrough motivic development demonstrating striking parallels with Schoenberg’s musical language.
Needless to say, the formidable technical demands of Feinberg’s piano writing hold no terrors for Marc-andré Hamelin who delivers absolutely riveting and immaculately-voiced performances of each work, supported by superbly clear but warmly recorded sound. This release deserves the widest dissemination and hopefully will encourage Hamelin to explore further repertoire by this fascinating composer, as well as music by some of the other pioneering figures of the early Soviet era. Erik Levi PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
Feldman
For Bunita Marcus Aki Takahashi (piano) Mode mode 314 74:18 mins
By his later years, Morton Feldman (192687) had become a cult figure for experimentalists in the US and beyond. His music, presenting as it does a heady mix of modernist rigour and postmodern scepticism, continues to epitomise yet somehow resist the paradoxes of postwar western culture and remains steeped in cryptic allure.
Feldman was drawn to abstract expressionist artists, as well as writers and fellow composers like John Cage – and the young dedicatee of his 1985 For Bunita Marcus, who was one of his pupils. This extraordinary piano work – infinitely coloured beneath its apparently flat surface; calm yet choppy with asymmetric rhythms and metre changes; spacious yet riddled with tension and never rising above a ppp dynamic – relies completely on its performer’s capacity to realise subtle horizontal voicings over a very long time span.
Touch is key. And, having collaborated with Feldman over many years, pianist Aki
Takahashi is uniquely placed to understand how to apply it, as this luminous recording shows. Made in 2007 and released now for the first time, the sound is sonorous and immediate, and her control breathtaking. Intimate yet coolly distant, she creates an ever-changing present in which the listener’s ears become fine-tuned to the tiniest shifts in mood and colour. Steph Power PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
Howard Skempton
24 Preludes and Fugues;
Three Nocturnes;
Reflections; Images
William Howard (piano)
Orchid Classics ORC100116 72:28 mins Speaking generally, the piano works of Howard Skempton (b1947) could be compared with a Bridget Riley painting: much more than the sum of simple dots – or sparse melodies. The 24 Preludes and Fugues (2019) follow in the tradition of JS Bach and Shostakovich. Each fugue takes its theme from the preceding prelude, moving quickly into the next tonal centre. Howard Skempton’s music is performed here by William Howard, who also premiered the collection at the
Hay Festival last year. Howard, a long-time Skempton performer, gives the miniatures a Bach-like cleanliness – though, sadly, the recording does not always match the crispness of his pianism.
In a delightful wordy ref lection, Skempton has revealed that he set himself some particular parameters for this recent work, confining each prelude and fugue to an A4 page and delivering a couplet each week. In this way, he aligns himself to many of his formative avant garde inf luences – such as Morton Feldman and John Cage – whose experiments with form are echoed throughout Skempton’s work.
One example is Images – comprising 20 pieces: eight preludes, eight interludes, two ‘songs’ and a short set of variations and a postlude (1994) – which contains the composer’s note
‘The performer of Images is free to play any selection of pieces in any order’. While John Tilbury chose to alternate Preludes and Interludes (Sony, 1996), Howard begins with Song 2, Prelude 3 and Interlude 8, a thoughtful approach that works well.
The 11 Reflections (1999-2002) – of which Howard is the dedicatee – and Three Nocturnes (1995) are beautifully executed. Claire Jackson PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★
Canadian Organ Music
Bales: Petite Suite; Ruth Watson Henderson: Chromatic Partita; Laurin: Organ Symphony No. 1,
Op. 36; Willan: Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue
Rachel Mahon (organ)
Delphian DCD 34234 61:03 mins
No disc of Canadian organ music would be complete without Healey Willan’s Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue, and it is fitting that this recording from Coventry Cathedral opens with it. The Canadian organist Rachel Mahon is assistant director of music at Coventry, where as part of the famous post-war construction the organ was paid for largely by Canadian contributions raised by Willan himself.
Like several contemporaneous painters in Canada’s great Group of Seven, Willan (1880-1968) was British-born – self-described as ‘English by birth; Canadian by adoption; Irish by extraction; Scotch by absorption’ – but this music ref lects that less than the inf luence of Reger. Mahon gives a sweeping performance that culminates in a tumultuous fugue.
The attractive enough Petite Suite of Gerald Bales (1919-2002) may be little more than ‘organists’ music’, but the other two works are of greater interest and owe something to French organ tradition. There are echoes of Dupré in the Chromatic Partita by Ruth Watson Henderson (b1932), in which eight short variations on a chorale theme show off the colours of the organ in Mahon’s brilliant registrations. Piquant harmonies in the Symphony No. 1 by Rachel Laurin (b1961) are handled with light virtuosity before the work ends with a blazing toccata.
John Allison
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★