We now have three complete box sets of Dvořák’s
piano music, and for some listeners that may sound like too
many. Dvořák’s piano works are the overlooked
part of his output, largely because they almost entirely comprise
pleasing miniatures, with none of the obvious masterpieces which
characterize his chamber music, orchestral works or operas.
But there are little bits of treasure in the cycle, and if you
haven’t explored this corner of the great composer’s
output, you now have three excellent avenues of introduction.
Inna Poroshina’s budget-price set of the complete piano
works was first released on Ess.a.y. Records in the 1990s and
then again by Brilliant Classics a few years ago, to generally
positive reviews. Now here it is again, with a generic photo
of a piano on the cover and, tucked inside, the best booklet
notes I’ve ever encountered in a Brilliant release. The
extensive essay covers every work, mentions a few piano works
which are curiously not included in this “complete”
set - mostly youthful polkas and fragments - and only includes
a few of Brilliant’s trademark typos (“oratorias”?).
The competition here is a similarly slimline box from Supraphon,
featuring Radoslav Kvapil, and a Naxos slip-case containing
their five discs with pianist Stefan Veselka.
I will proceed work-by-work through Dvořák’s
piano catalogue, and attempt to survey both the music and the
performances at the same time. By far the largest piece Dvořák
composed for piano is the suite of Poetic Tone Pictures,
a group of thirteen miniature tone poems composed in 1889. The
Poetic Tone Pictures are probably not just the largest
but the weakest of his various cycles of piano miniatures; over
its hour-long course are many a five-minute vignette with only
two minutes’ worth of melodic material. Still, there are
good bits to be found: the opening movement, “Twilight
Way,” summarizes the suite’s potential and shortcomings,
with a gorgeous main melody framed by rather pretentiously grand
opening and closing chords. I’ll be honest: I don’t
listen to this music much at all.
Other large-form pieces are hit-and-miss. The Theme and Variations
from 1876 end in a rather Brahmsian mood of reassurance, but
only after some surprisingly un-Dvořák-like bluster
and banging. The Six Piano Pieces are rather run-of-the-mill,
too.
Far better are the four Eclogues, eight Waltzes, and six Mazurkas.
These are almost all unpretentious, charming, and rhythmically
delightful; the eclogues also contain quotes from other Dvořák
works, including a Slavonic dance (Op 72 No 1). The Silhouettes
borrow multiple melodies from pieces like the Symphony No 2,
but with even less dressing: the twelve rail-thin sketches together
last sixteen minutes. The Mazurkas are exactly the happy products
you would expect from the combination of the mazurka and Dvořák:
solidly built, genial, falling satisfyingly on the keyboard.
CD 5 offers probably the most interesting program: besides the
Humoresques (see below), we have the Suite in A, “American,”
the most successful “big” work for piano the composer
wrote, if big is the word for a suite that doesn’t quite
last twenty minutes. There’s a lot of variety here, even
some virtuosity in the second movement, and those wonderful
tunes which abound in the composer’s later years. Better
still, Inna Poroshina’s performance leaves nothing to
be desired. The Lullaby and Capriccio, Dvořák’s
final piano work, is also top-notch.
The most famous of Dvořák’s piano pieces -
indeed, maybe the most famous thing he ever wrote, ironically
enough - is the Humoresque No 7 in G flat, a tune everyone’s
heard a thousand times. But the other humoresques are, frankly,
even better. No 3 has a strong “American” feel to
its folksy main tune, and the secondary material has hints of
livelier dances still. Best of all is No 4, but in the hands
of Stefan Veselka, who breaks down the barriers between measures
and gives us a free-flowing jazz rhapsody. Yes, jazz:
those impeccable opening bars with their well-targeted chromatic
notes, the broken chords, and the rapid-fire trio with the syncopated
chords. The humoresques are “American” works, and
nowhere - except perhaps in No 3 - does it show more than here,
where Dvořák anticipates, in different ways, Joplin,
Tatum, and dare I say Brubeck.
But if you’re not listening to Stefan Veselka, you may
not hear things that way. Poroshina plays by the rules and her
interpretation is less free; Kvapil, fast-driving and fiercely
Slavonic, sounds least jazzy of all, because he makes the works
sound very Czech instead. Choose Kvapil for sheer excitement,
Poroshina for the most straightforward account, and Veselka
for an idiosyncratic leap across time and genre.
Various isolated miniatures fall into various places on the
spectrum. The polka in E, dated 1860 and Dvořák’s
third composition (!), is totally lovable, a great joy to behold
and over in just two glittering minutes. The two Minuets, Op
28, are very plain, as are a handful of dull Album Leaves, but
all the dumky (plural of the dumka dance) and
furiants throughout the set are unsurprisingly poignant and
energetic in turn.
What comparative conclusions can be made? I suppose that choosing
between the three complete sets on offer is a bit like choosing
a local sandwich shop: on the surface, they are not dissimilar,
and no matter which you choose you will probably end up largely
satisfied, but once you have made your choice you will surely
find reasons to prefer it over the competition. Poroshina’s
accounts are straightforward, elegant, and cleanly articulated;
Kvapil’s are the most rhythmically “Czech”
and therefore generally the fastest, and the Alto CD in which
he plays Dvořák’s piano has added interest
for historical reasons and for the piano’s lovely rich
but clearly aging tone; Veselka is the most idiosyncratic, with
his jazzy humoresques and generous rubato - his Lullaby,
for instance, is much dreamier. The one work in which Poroshina
definitely takes last place is the waltzes - too dainty and
finicky compared to the others.
If you invest in one of these sets, though, you’ll be
happy with it; I have two-and-a-half and like them roughly the
same. The Poroshina is well-annotated (far above Brilliant’s
average - exception: the total CD timings are off; CD 2 is 56
minutes, not 61) and in a slimmer box than Naxos has; that might
be a deciding factor. I heard Veselka first; that might explain
my own point of view.
More generally, I do think it’s worth pointing out that
you ought to have one of these sets. Dvořák’s
piano music has its gems, and much of the late music - the Humoresques,
Lullaby, and American Suite - share the same tunefulness,
confidence, and rich lovability which make his chamber music
from that time so popular, though don’t expect profundity!
The miniatures are “merely” charming and freshly-cut,
a more southerly Grieg, and although the Poetic Tone Pictures
are a bit overambitious, the Suite, Humoresques, and dumky are
mighty fine works, and there are a few other hidden gems. If
you haven’t yet heard this music, give it a try.
Brian Reinhart
CD 1 [50:22]
Theme and Variations, Op 36 (1876) [14:55]
Polka in E, B3 (1860) [2:17]
Silhouettes, Op 8 (1879) [16:49]
Two Minuets, Op 28 (1876) [9:19]
Dumka, Op 35 (1876) [7:03]
CD 2 [56:33]
Two Furiants, Op 42 (1878) [12:14]
Eight Waltzes, Op 54 (1880) [25:12]
Four Eclogues, B103 (1880) [13:59]
Scottish Dances, Op 41 [5:10]
CD 3 [48:12]
Four Album Leaves, B109 [7:20]
Six Piano Pieces, Op 52 [17:58]
Six Mazurkas, Op 56 [15:45]
Moderato in A, B116 [2:19]
Question, B128a [0:27]
Impromptu in D minor, B129 [4:25]
CD 4 [57:27]
Poetic Tone Pictures [57:27]
CD 5 [58:42]
Humoresques Op 101 (1894) [23:31]
Dumka and Furiant, Op 12 (1884) [7:31]
Two Little Pearls, B156 (1887) [2:59]
Album Leaf in E flat, B158 (1888) [0:50]
Suite in A, “American,” Op 98 (1894) [16:28]
Humoresque in F sharp, B138 (1884) [2:29]
Lullaby and Capriccio, B188 (1894) [4:55]
Inna Poroshina (piano)
