This issue from the
Kleos Classics label contains some of
the more unfamiliar music for piano
and orchestra in the repertoire performed
by Grammy-nominated American pianist
Joshua Pierce.
Pierce was born in
New York City and studied there at the
Juilliard and Manhattan schools of music.
Pierce has been prolific in the recording
studio and has recorded a wide range
of piano repertoire for several labels.
I first came across his playing quite
recently on a set of Beethoven’s five
Piano Concertos on MSR Classics
MS 1200.
Britten’s main inspiration
was a love of the written word and its
associations with the people and traditional
landscape of his native Suffolk. In
1939 Britten and his long term partner,
the tenor Peter Pears, stopped off in
Canada on their way to the USA. There
Britten received a commission from the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for
a ‘Fanfare’ for piano and orchestra.
The result was the short single movement
score Young Apollo for piano and
string orchestra.
Britten performed Young
Apollo as piano soloist for the
promised radio broadcast in Toronto
but withdrew the work immediately. It
was not heard again until three years
after his death in 1979. The score was
inspired by the conclusion of Keats’s
unfinished poem ‘Hyperion’ and
was thought to be a musical portrait
of his young friend the German refugee
Wulff Scherchen. Young Apollo
is in fact a strikingly original piece
of minimalism avant le lettre.
In the score Britten’s
early dexterity for string writing is
fully revealed in the exploitation of
shimmering and radiant textures. Pierce
and the Slovak State Orchestra, right
from the opening bars, demonstrate a
dark and chilly intensity, evocative
of a storm in progress. From 03:50 the
journey towards tranquillity becomes
a reality. The playing strives to establish
composure from 05:35 leaving the listener
with a sense of calm after the storm.
From 06:35 to the score’s conclusion
at 07:27 comes the realisation of the
aftermath of the storm.
There are very few
versions of Young Apollo in the
catalogues and I admire this stimulating
account from Joshua Pierce and the Slovak
State Chamber Orchestra under Kirk Trevor.
My reference account of Young Apollo
is that played with thrilling vigour
and commitment by Peter Donohoe and
the CBSO under Simon Rattle, recorded
in Cheltenham in 1982, on EMI 5 73983
2.
The works of Darius
Milhaud remain one of the unsurpassed
quantities of twentieth century music.
He wrote around 450 scores of such an
uneven quality that his reputation for
the banal and the shallow has masked
much of his output that is both inspired
and fascinating.
In 1926 when he needed
another work for piano and orchestra
he took twelve numbers from his ballet
Salade and arranged them using
the alluring title Le Carnaval d'Aix,
fantasy for piano and orchestra.
No one remembers the ballet Salade
but the score to Le Carnaval
d'Aix became one of Milhaud’s most
popular scores. Pierce provides an impressive
interpretation that is carefree and
high spirited. The playing is outstanding
right from the carnival-like festivities
of the Le Corso, to the shy and
sultry Isabelle, the childlike
uncertainly of the Polka, the
effervescence of the Cinzio to
the Final section that shifts
from an unsettling and sombre mood to
one of carnival excitement at 00:36.
I especially enjoyed Pierce’s interpretation
of the penultimate Souvenir de Rio
(Tango) section that skilfully
moves from cool and refreshing at 00:00-00:45,
to mature sophistication at 01:25-02:00,
to carefree juvenility between 00:46-01:25.
I do not have an account
of the Le Carnaval d'Aix in my
collection that I can recommend. However,
this appealing performance is of high-quality
for its delicacy and rhythmic flair.
The version of Le Carnaval d'Aix
that is most likely to be encountered
is the acclaimed 1992 recording from
pianist Jack Gibbons and the New London
Orchestra under Ronald Corp on Hyperion
Helios CDH 55168.
Gerald Finzi was considered
the most thoughtful of the composers
who formed the core of the English musical
renaissance in the early part of the
20th century. His fastidious
craftsmanship is reflected in his small
output.
The Eclogue was
originally intended as a movement of
a piano concerto – ultimately left incomplete.
It is a meditation with Bachian touches
underneath a pastoral atmosphere, that
I have seen described as music for a
warm summer’s evening. I do not find
the score especially satisfying, as
I experience the movement as a fragment
from an unfinished piano concerto, rather
than a stand-alone piece. Notwithstanding
my feelings this gratifying interpretation
is impassioned and deeply felt.
My favoured account
of the Eclogue for piano and string
orchestra for its powerful and thoughtful
playing is from soloist Peter Donohoe
with the Northern Sinfonia under Howard
Griffiths, from Gosforth in 2001, on
Naxos 8.555766.
The final work here
issue features Richard Strauss whose
colossal talents span two centuries.
Strauss was typically seen as a giant
at the end of the ninetieth century
and by many as a tottering anachronism
in the first half of the twentieth century,
when his essentially Romantic idiom
seemed increasingly out of place. Thankfully
these views are changing as Strauss’s
fertile works from his later life are
becoming better known and more appreciated.
After eighty to a hundred years or so
we should now be able to reassess this
music for its innate quality, of exuberance
and emotional richness, rather than
for the dynamic of the era in which
it was written.
Strauss in 1912 wrote
the incidental music to Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s
adaptation of Molière’s play
‘Le Bourgeois gentilhomme’. The
play was a failure but Strauss’s incidental
music was considered a success and reigns
for me as the major work on the release.
Most of the music here assembled into
an orchestral suite between 1918 and
1920 was used as a concert piece and
ballet score. By customary Strauss standards
the nine-movement score is relatively
small - winds in two and a small brass
section - and it features a piano part.
Contrary to the view expressed in the
accompanying booklet notes, the piano
part is, I believe, too small to be
described as a score for piano and orchestra
and seems out of place in this collection.
An alternative Strauss score that would
have proved more appropriate for inclusion
on this issue is his infrequently recorded
Parergon to the Sinfonia Domestica
for left hand piano and orchestra,
Op. 73, composed for Paul Wittgenstein
in 1925.
With the Orchestral
Suite from ‘Le Bourgeois gentilhomme’
Strauss demonstrated that he could write
directly, purely and transparently.
Viennese music critic Richard Specht
thought this the most gorgeous music
ever composed for a dramatic play and
was impressed with its richness of sparkling
hilarity and fresh melodies. This version
combines fine teamwork with a sense
of the joy of discovery to reveal the
music’s charm, delicacy and delightful
wit.
A favourite account
of the ‘Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme’
from my collection, for its powerful
grasp of Strauss’s special charm, is
from the German Chamber Philharmonic
under Paavo Järvi, recorded in
2003 in Bremen, on PentaTone SACD PTC
5186 060. Another recording that continues
to provide enjoyment is from the Staatskapelle
Dresden under Rudolf Kempe on his complete
set of Strauss’s Tone Poems and Concertos
on EMI Classics 7243 5 73614 2 2.
This present release
has generally clear and well balanced
sound. The exception is the Strauss
which blares in the forte passages;
especially the trumpet and horn on track
17. The Kleos release has the advantage
of high standard annotation.
A fascinating and well
performed collection that I feel sure
I will return to.
Michael Cookson
Joshua Pierce (piano)
for
details
