Sándor Veress represents a high water mark in Hungary’s rich
musical heritage. He belongs between the generations of Bartók
and Kodály, his teachers, and of Ligeti and Kurtag, his pupils.
He experienced both world wars and Hungary’s police state afterwards,
emigrating to Switzerland at age 45. Veress also taught Heinz
Holliger, who was responsible for this fine recording, a loving
tribute to his teacher.
The Hommage ŕ Paul Klee, the first of the three
works on this disc, is nowhere near as grim as one might expect
from someone escaping tyranny. It is a seven-movement work combining
transcendent soundscapes with a frisky jazziness, presumably
reflecting in music seven of Klee’s paintings. It has been adapted
for ballet no doubt due to the both celestial and playful moods
which Veress manages to invoke through his limpid musical lines.
That said, its fifth movement, marked Allegretto (Stone
Collection), is an exciting and rhythmic tour de force,
with pizzicato strings adding infectious momentum to the rambunctious
pianos. Similarly, the near-mystical reverie in the next-to-last
movement – an Andante (Green in Green) – is followed
by a tumultuous Vivo (Little Blue Devil) that charges
in a headlong rush to close the Hommage.
Although neither in sonata form nor theme-and-variations structure,
this Hommage ŕ Paul Klee is a (two-)
piano concerto in all but name. It convincingly blends tuneful
folk forms within a near-austere aesthetic. Weightless although
far from light, its ethereal transparency beautifully suits
the simple yet evocative paintings that the Hommage seeks to
mirror. Its shape as a suite of movements bears comparison
in a number of intriguing ways to Frank Martin’s 1974 Polyptyque
for violin and two small string orchestras (Koch
Schwann: Musica Mundi 3-6732-2). Claudio Veress, who runs
a website for his father’s
music, reports that the composer was a great admirer of Martin’s
music. This work suggests that the sentiment may have been reciprocated.
The Concerto for Piano, Strings and Percussion is clearly from
the same compositional hand, despite the dramatic force that
is contributed by the addition of both pitched and unpitched
percussion. Although in the three standard movements – fast,
slow, faster – the middle one is for solo piano almost throughout,
except where strings very occasionally add contour. After the
first movement’s mid-point, the strings and percussion churn
and whirl emphatically in a clear tip of the hat to Bartok’s
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. The solo
piano then settles into a lyrical yet near-glacially-paced theme
whose development continues in the Andante con moto, gradually
developing into running scales that raise a sense of anticipation
akin to that in the famous middle of Ravel’s Concerto in
G. In the final movement, a snare drum and timpani spur
the piano and strings to generate some intricate tensions that
are embellished later by a celesta and other percussion. All
of this delightful musical turmoil lets up only at the approach
of the close. In one of the most enchanting endings to a work
of this kind, a gracefully-shaped piano figuration after a brief
silence brings the movement to a delicate close, accompanied
by the sotto voce ensemble.
The lagniappe to these two robust works is Veress’s Six
Csárdás, which are counterpoint-rich piano miniatures,
played by Schiff with characteristic sensitivity and artful
precision. Bartók fans are likely to delight in several familiar
sonorities and shapes, although there is no mistaking Veress’s
compositional hand throughout these Hungarian dances.
All of these works are approachable, despite a persistent but
never jarring dissonance. Veress’s music is finely-crafted yet
lively, with a strong personality and no hint of a musical cliché.
All three works richly reward repeated hearings. Although the
Concerto is less ethereal than the Hommage, both are rhythmic,
tuneful works, reflecting their folkish substrate. Various discernible
Bartókian traits and gestures surface in these works – such
as in the closing Csárdá; or in the way a stormy orchestral
episode is followed by a pregnant silence, whereupon a musical
pirouette ends the Concerto’s drama with unexpected poetry.
Still, the authorship is always unmistakably that of Veress:
despite the legacy, the familiar gestures are so deeply ingrained
into his voice as to in no way compromise his muse. The liner
notes also speak of his interest in Schoenberg and of Veress’s
use of 12-tone techniques, but that is no reason to head for
the hills: they are not adhered to rigorously in these works,
nor are they even discernible.
The performers’ commitment to this music is complete, and Teldec’s
technical team also succeeds in providing a recording in flawless
sound. The booklet is informative and includes reproductions
of all seven Klee paintings. Incidentally, there is another
recorded interpretation of the Hommage – by Elena Sorokina
and Alexander Bakhchiev, with a Chamber Ensemble under Gennady
Rozhdestvensky (Vista Vera VVCD-00050). It takes a rather more
staccato, often brisker approach, providing a useful counterweight
to this more reverent interpretation by Schiff/Várjon under
Holliger.
Also recommended are various CDs of chamber music, perhaps especially
a 2011 release of Veress’s two String Quartets and a String
Trio (Ensemble Des Equilibres; Hungaroton
HCD 32691). Certainly unmissable is Holliger’s earlier album
with the 1961 Passacaglia Concertante for oboe and
strings, the 1966 Musica Concertante for twelve strings,
and Veress’s a cappella Songs of the Seasons (ECM 1555
447 390-2). These, too, are well-developed works of striking
intensity, although, coming from the more mature artist, they
seem a trice more aloof – or, you decide, perhaps they are simply
more elusive.
At least four interpreters over the past generation have performed
his Violin Concerto (1939, rev. ‘48). The composer’s son is
partial to Thomas Zehetmair’s approach, and imagines Heinz Holliger
as ideally suited to conduct it for ECM – a label that, like
Hungaroton and Musikszene Schweiz, has championed the composer.
But who knows if Naxos’s Klaus Heymann, that classical music
maverick of our time, will surprise us with this work’s premiere
recording, possibly raising Veress from his current near-obscurity
into the limelight he very clearly deserves.
Meantime, when it comes to Veress, this disc of concertante
and solo works for piano conducted by Holliger is an ideal starting
point for beginners – and absolutely essential for those already
familiar with his music.
Bert Bailey
Track-list of the Hommage ŕ Paul Klee: Fantasies
for two pianos and strings, followed by the corresponding
paintings:-
1 Allegro - Mark in Yellow
2 Allegro molto - Fire Wind
3 Andante con moto - Old Sound
4 Allegretto piacevole - Below and Above
5 Allegretto - Stone Collection
6 Andante - Green in Green
7 Vivo - Little Blue Devil
András Schiff (piano); Dénes Várjon (Hommage) (piano); Gábor Takács-Nagy
(violin