I reviewed the first
volume in Danacord’s invaluable Koppel series, which was devoted
to the concerto literature, both Koppel’s own, and those of others played
by him. There was much to enjoy, not least his luxuriant Double Concerto
for Violin and Viola and a clarinet concerto played with drama and drive
by dedicatee Louis Cahuzac. The second volume is again a bipartite affair.
The first CD is of Koppel’s own compositions and which span pretty much
the whole of his creative life and the second is dedicated to the works
of Schubert, Brahms and Liszt, in broadcasts made for Danish radio and
recorded by them or privately – sometimes by Koppel himself. I have
to say I found the documentary evidence regarding actual dates of performance
and recordings difficult to disentangle and I’ve noted them in the head
note accordingly as c1957-80.
Koppel’s well-known enthusiasm for Nielsen, Stravinsky
and Bartók was explored in Volume One. His later encounter with
Prokofiev is reflected in the Piano Sonata No 1 of 1950 – the earlier
sonata of 1928 was only performed in 1980 and whilst this was his Op
1 Koppel preferred to term it the Sonata in E Minor, reserving the more
official No 1 for the later work. The performance enshrined here is
in fact that first performance of the 1928 work made when the composer
was a stripling of 72. In the opening movement Nielsen plainly hovers
over Koppel’s pen and there is some quite abrupt and stormy drama with
contrastive and oppositional blocks. The adagio is informed by some
questing and twisting motifs, some tied to a repetitious bass line whilst
the rondo finale is a sprightly march with its fugal pretensions cleverly
thwarted. The Variations received a first performance in 1980 as well
– in the old style, to quote the composer, there are ten variations,
none longer than a minute, and the whole work condensed into six minutes.
The standout is Variation 8, a virtuosic and playful little fugue. The
Ten Piano Pieces were dedicated to the composer’s eleven-year-old sister
– educational works of increasing difficulty. Spiced with humour, sadness
and a dash of Bartók the rhythmic complexities are well designed
to test the young player’s skill. I particularly admired the Op 21 Suite.
It was his first published major work, in 1935, and the composer sent
a copy to Bartók. This radio recording of 1969 certainly underscores
the Hungarian composer’s influence in the first movement whilst the
second is full of fractious moments interspersed between some cantabile
writing, smooth and fluid right hand writing and gruff left hand chords.
The finale was influenced by the East – Koppel himself once said it
was pure Gamelan music – and it’s intriguingly motoric where
the right hand plays the pentatonic scales on the black keys. Fifty-four
seconds of pure fun.
The four movement Sonata No 1 is a toughly and densely
argued work, sinewy, active and incessantly ascending, as if in search
of resolution. Fanfares are subsumed into the texture, subsequent expansively
expressive writing curtly swept away by agitated writing, both dark
and implacable. The second movement adagio is unsettled. The moveable
left hand is one of increased agitation contrasting with the right hand’s
pervasive reiterations; calm moments are soon broken and the movement
ends uneasily. Koppel’s Intermezzo is sparer, less acerbic, less spiky
and more relaxed, certainly in the context of the other movements whilst
the finale is decisive, contrastive to be sure but in a way that implies
a working out of the troubling elements of the first two movements.
It’s a convincing musical argument, stated with purposeful intelligence
by Koppel and played by him with incisive assurance. And very well worth
a listen. The Miniatures meanwhile were written during a stay in Australia
in 1976. The largo is inward; the moderato is quirky and rhythmically
alive and insistent whilst the Allegro is capricious with usefully varied
dynamics.
The second disc gives us three composers much admired
by Koppel. The Schubert D850 dates from a broadcast of 1969 – full of
trenchant first movement attacks. Here there is some slight tape deterioration
in small patches - and the sound imparts a slightly hard tone to the
piano. Never mind – the Con Moto second movement displays Koppel’s Schubertian
simplicity and his mastery of a kind of engulfing grandeur not unconnected
to pain. He is playful and stern by contrast in the Scherzo whilst his
finale is full of finesse and delicacy and some subtle rubato. The Brahms
items date from 1957 and were recorded on a table in front of loudspeakers
in Koppel’s home. There is occasionally some wavery and constricted
tone but it’s welcome news that Koppel had the curiosity to record himself;
the performances, as with so much else, no longer survive in the Danish
Radio archives; shades of the BBC. He is quite provocative in the Paganini
Variations with a lot of precisely graded staccato playing and he is
intensely musical in the Liszt, especially Au Lac de Vallenstadt, a
notably successful traversal.
Danacord invite anyone who has Koppel radio tapes from
1950-70 to contact them. They are keen to publish much more of Koppel’s
output and cite important recitals of works such as the Prokofiev sonatas,
Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasia and standard Schubert and Beethoven sonatas
amongst others. I am happy to endorse and publicise their invitation
not least because of the imagination of Koppel’s playing and the hard-won
riches of his compositions. The next volume in the series is of the
Chamber Music and I await it with high expectation.
Jonathan Woolf
Experience the imagination of Koppel’s playing and
the hard-won riches of his compositions.… see Full Review
Hermann D Koppel, piano