Some weeks ago I was
happy to recommend a disc of the American
pianist Joshua Pierce in four concertante
works, three of them relatively little
known (Kleos Classics KL5137 review).
Here he is now facing one of the most
daunting challenges of the whole piano
concerto repertoire.
There was a time when a Brahms piano concerto
took up a whole record, but now, when making a choice, we have to
take the extra music into account. On this eighty-minute disc - as
long as many a concert nowadays - there are two substantial works for
piano and orchestra as well as the Brahms.
Nobody could complain about the number
of minutes for the money.
César Franck's
Les Djinns is short symphonic
poem for piano and orchestra. A djinn
(or jinni) is a supernatural being from
Muslim mythology who assumes different
forms. Those in the Victor Hugo poem
from which Franck drew his inspiration
are particularly malevolent, and if
Franck's music doesn't quite succeed
in evoking the gloom and foreboding
which Fauré achieved in his masterly
choral setting of the same poem, the
work is very effective nonetheless,
and well worth getting to know.
Eric Salzman, in his
excellent booklet notes, explains the
genesis of Liszt's Concerto Pathétique.
The work began life as a piece for solo
piano and passed through many different
forms before a version for piano and
orchestra was arranged by Eduard Reuss,
one of the Liszt's students, who showed
it to the composer in 1885. Liszt then
worked on this version himself, but
when the work was published after his
death the following year it appeared
as "arranged by" Reuss. Salzman's view
is that this has caused it to be unjustly
neglected as inauthentic Liszt and that
we should view it as another concerto.
The fact that Liszt worked on it intermittently
for nearly forty years is certainly
reason enough to pay attention to the
work, but claims to greatness seem more
questionable. There are some striking
passages, and of course the piano writing
is pure Liszt. The orchestra's role
is a subsidiary one, though the wind
section principals have a fair amount
to do. But the work never really seems
to get going, and seems strangely lacking
in purpose or drive. Joshua Pierce seems
more convinced by it (and certainly
more convincing) than the orchestra,
who rarely seem to be inside the music.
The closing pages, in particular, should
surely be more exciting than this.
I wish I could be more
enthusiastic about the main work in
the programme, but I found it disappointing
for many of the same reasons. The reading
lacks those qualities which transform
a decent performance into a great one,
and sadly, in this work, anything less
that great is unacceptable. Pierce rises
well enough to the technical challenges,
but all too often his playing lacks
imagination and fire. The Eastern European-sounding
horn at the opening will not be to everybody's
taste, and we notice in this first movement
a rather four-square attitude to rhythm
which undermines both the music's strength
and its tenderness, and which is typical
of the performance as a whole. The second
movement is taken quite fast, but the
cellos and basses don't dig into the
strings as they should in the opening
phrases, and there is little rubato
or expressive freedom. The return of
the main theme, where the roles of the
soloist and orchestra are reversed,
usually a stunning moment, is here terribly
tame. The soloist's playing in the figuration-dominated
slow movement is often prosaic, three
against two rhythms disappointingly
literal at times. The all-important
cello solo does not go well either,
the playing not commanding enough to
pass muster, and even, on this occasion,
technically fallible. The finale is
only intermittently playful, and the
orchestra's second subject quaver/dotted
crotchet rhythm seems unduly disturbed
by the triplets in the solo part. The
closing passage is a joyless affair
indeed. The orchestral playing throughout
lacks character and weight, and is not
helped by the recording which places
the piano well forward, covering some
orchestral detail.
This concerto demands
so much of its performers: power, endurance,
tenderness, playfulness and more. The
current performance does not totally
succeed in any of these qualities as
listening to alternative readings demonstrates
only too well. Serkin (Sony) is incomparable,
for example. Perhaps Pierce would have
felt freer to express himself had he
been partnered by Szell and the Cleveland
Orchestra, or by that incomparable accompanist
Sir John Barbirolli, so lovingly supporting
both Brahms and the young Daniel Barenboim
(EMI). Then there is Gilels and Jochum
on DG, as well as Nelson Freire with
Ricardo Chailly on Decca, these last
well-received performances of both concertos
which I have not yet heard. And let
us not forget Joyce Hatto on Concert
Artist (a company for which I write),
championed for so long by so many MusicWeb
reviewers and only now, miserably late
in the day, receiving her due elsewhere.
William Hedley
Joshua Pierce (piano); 
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