Ad Contrapunctum - 19th Century Polyphonic Piano Music
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Prelude and fugue in C major BWV.545 (1708-1717, transcr. Liszt) [5:42]
Franz LISZT (1811-1886)
Psaume - de l'église à Génève from Album d'un voyagur Vol.1 S.156 No.7 (1837-38) [3:37]
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Figurierter Choral in F major from Album for the young Op.68 No.41 (1848) [1:37]
Franz LISZT
Miserere d'après Palestrina from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses S.173 No.8 (1851) [3:42]
César FRANCK (1822-1890)
Prélude, Chorale et Fugue FWV.21 (1884) [17:40]
Charles GOUNOD (1818-1893)
Six Préludes et Fugues CG.587 (?) [20:35]
Ferruccio BUSONI (1866-1924)
Fantasia nach Johann Sebastian Bach (1909) [13:02]
Alessandro Mercando (piano)
rec. at Villa Bossi, Bodio Lomnago, Italy, no date given
DA VINCI CLASSICS C00465 [65:54]
In Alessandro Mercando's fascinating recital of 19th Century polyphonic piano music much of the music is actually of an earlier time and represents 19th Century composers' responses to and recreations of that music. This is certainly the case with Liszt, Schumann and Busoni and while the works by Franck and Gounod are original they were inspired by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
It is Bach who is first represented, played here in one of the six Prelude and fugue transcriptions by Franz Liszt. The first of these is justly familiar and often played but the others have faded into obscurity somewhat and it is nice that Mercando has chosen the second in C major based on Bach's BWV.545. It doesn't have the more overt virtuosity of the first nor does it attempt the organ textures that Busoni strove for in his transcriptions – Liszt was happy to accept that the long held low C in bars 4 to 7, so earth shaking in the original could only be partially echoed here - but it is nonetheless a faithful and effective recreation. Liszt looked further back with his Psaume – de l'église de Génève from album d'un voyager, the precursor to his Années de Pélerinage. He sets the Calvinist psalm comme un cerf brame après des beaux courantes (as the deer pants for the beautiful streams) first treating it with homogenous chords, harmonising it and gradually opening out the texture to include accompanying voices and arpeggiated passages. An altogether grander transcription is Liszt's Miserere d'après Palestrina which apart from being d'après nothing-of-the-sort (i.e. not Palestrina) is a magnificent, if a trifle overblown, Liszt concert work, full of the declamatory writing of which he was so fond, some piquant harmonies and a whole host of tremolandi and arpeggios. Between these two stands the modest figurative choral that Schumann included as one of his Album for the young and which is based on the same psalm that Liszt set in his album d'un voyager; this is no.41 in the collection though Schumann had made a simpler version of the psalm earlier in the set, no.4, concentrating on the development of legato playing.
César Franck's Prélude, chorale and fugue is a grand response to the baroque prelude and fugue and had indeed started out as just that; that the chorale was not part of the original concept appears strange considering the strength of emotion it offers at the core of this glorious work which seems to me as much a fantasy on the idea of the genre as it is a strictly academic Prelude and fugue. Franck does reach back to Bach but only to suggest Bach's Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen in the work's opening melody. Gounod of course inextricably linked to Bach courtesy of his arrangement of the C major Prelude from the Well Tempered Clavier, adapting it for piano solo and then as an Ave Maria for voice and piano. Mercando once again sidesteps the familiar and plays his six Prélude and fugues which I was completely unaware of...and what a joy they are. If someone had played me the delightful opening Prélude and suggested it was by someone like Moszkowski I would have been very nearly convinced; its sinuous flowing triplets ride effortlessly above a simple staccato accompaniment and it fits perfectly with its jaunty companion. The set as a whole is subtitled Pour l’étude préparatoire au Clavecin bien tempéré de J. S. Bach so it serves something of the same didactic purpose as Schumann's setting of the psalm in his Album for the young. Despite the title three of the six préludes are in fact chorals and the set as a whole is lovely to get to know even if they don't set a new benchmark in polyphonic writing; it would be interesting to hear one or more of these alongside the Bach in a recital.
Mercando closes with an altogether weightier Bach tribute, Ferruccio Busoni's Fantasia nach Bach, which technically falls outside the 19th Century having been written in June 1909 as a tribute to his father who had passed away the previous month. Though it is based on three works by Bach, the chorale Christ, der du bist der helle Tag, the chorale partita BWV.766 and In dulce Jubilo it is not really a transcription but rather a new work rethinking and reworking Bach's music in a new language in which Busoni reflects and meditates on the themes he is developing. The whole piece combines chorale and variation form as well as antiphon writing and organ textures and, as a remarkable tour de force of polyphonic writing is an apt work to finish with.
Italian pianist Alessandro Mercando now teaches at the Music Conservatoire in Aosta after studies in Paris with Aldo Ciccolini and Dominique Merlot. He plays this music with no shortage of technique though he neatly attends to the polyphonic textures with great care, not over-pedalling his Yamaha CFX. The sound is warm and lifelike allowing Mercando's clarity to shine through.
Rob Challinor
