With the exception
of his raunchier morceaux for violin
I tend to prefer Grant Still when he’s
working on a larger canvass. A recent
disc of his piano music reviewed by
me on this site was depressingly threadbare
and it did his reputation little good.
But the violin was his first formal
study, even ahead of the piano. One
could reasonably expect greater tension
from him when writing for his own instrument
and when writing for an executant such
as Louis Kaufman, who could cast such
a tonal spell.
A couple of the pieces
here were arranged by Kaufman but he
actually recorded many more back on
LP. Collectors will remember that his
arrangement of the Blues from
the ballet Lenox Avenue has made
a CD appearance on Cambria in a Bernard
Herrmann orchestration but Carmela,
Here’s One African-American Spiritual
(recorded twice), Summerland,
the Suite (twice) and Pastorela have
yet to appear, so far as I’m aware –
a situation that I hope will change
... and soon.
That leaves the field
open to the current Centaur pairing.
Given that only two of these pieces
were actually originally written for
the violin – the Suite and Pastorela
– a duo needs to work hard to keep timbral
interest alive. There’s an attractive
melancholy in the knowingly (if oddly)
titled Here’s One African-American
Spiritual of 1941. The Suite
itself features some loping blues tints
and Gershwinesque jazz in the outer
movements but it’s the central movement
that most captures the imagination.
This is a song without words, full of
warm piano chording, and a good start
for those unfamiliar with Grant Still’s
capacity for spinning a melodic line.
The Two Cameos are undated and
little more than squibs and in this
performance Pastorela, a full
eleven minutes in length and designated
as a tone poem, fails to get going.
Which brings me to
the performances, which are strongly
weighted to the keyboard in terms of
control – Jason Alfred plays well. Clifford
Panton is a decent enough player but
his tone is thin – it requires the opulence
of a Kaufman to bring life to these
pieces – and there are too many incidents
of caution and fragile bowing (unfortunately
in the Suite as well) for comfortable
listening. His intonation is also not
good.
A cautious welcome
then. The repertoire is not especially
exciting, all said and done. To attempt
to reclaim it we really need a violinist
who can dig deep and show some sheer
unselfconscious molten panache.
Jonathan Woolf
Clifford Panton (violin) 
for
details
