Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.
1; Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Natasha Paremski, piano;
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Fabien Gabel. RPO. $16.99.
Stravinsky: Solo Piano Works.
Jenny Lin, piano. Steinway & Sons. $17.99.
An Amadeus Affair: Music for Two
Pianists by Mozart, Busoni, Liszt, and Anderson & Roe. Anderson &
Roe Piano Duo (Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe). Steinway & Sons.
$17.99.
It doesn’t get any better than
this: tremendously talented young pianists bringing musicianship, flair and
quite extraordinary technical prowess to bear on repertoire ranging from the
highly familiar to the little-known to works of their own creation. Natasha
Paremski’s pairing of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff would seem on the face of it
to be worthy mostly of a yawn, there being so many outstanding performances of
both works available – but it takes only about 30 seconds of listening to
realize just how special this CD is. The Russian-American Paremski has quite an
extraordinary feel for this quintessentially Russian music, and she has so much
technique that she can focus on extracting the pieces’ emotional connections
without sounding as if she is working hard on surmounting their technical
complexities. Her Tchaikovsky First is fluid, involving, expansive and focused
more on lyricism than display – a more-intimate version of this concerto than
most pianists offer, although Paremski has no problem delivering fireworks in
the finale. Fabien Gabel and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra provide warm,
flowing accompaniment that belies the fact that they have performed this
concerto innumerable times – here it sounds freshly forthright, without a hint
of the formulaic treatment that orchestras sometimes give it. And orchestra and
soloist are even better, even more convincing, in Rachmaninoff’s Paganini
Variations, which here receive a quite wonderfully musicianly treatment instead
of sounding like a mere display piece – although the “display” elements
certainly come through forcefully as well. Paremski and Gabel seem to have
agreed that this work deserves to be handled with all the serious sumptuousness
of the composers’ piano concertos – all of which were written earlier than
these variations were. As a result, although the variations flow seamlessly
from start to finish, each gets highly individualized treatment that pays
especially large dividends in the 18th and 19th
variations, the latter offered with gorgeous expansiveness that is wholly unapologetic
for the composer’s swooning Romantic temperament. The contrast between the
slower variations and the ones that sparkle as the work comes to an end is
especially clear here, with Paremski handling the final variation with
absolutely bravura flair and then tossing off the intended-to-be-tossed-off
final notes so amusingly that listeners will be left smiling, if not laughing
outright. Far too many performances of standard-repertoire works come across as
dutiful rather than deeply involving. This one shows what newer top-notch
artists can do with the familiar: make it new and make it splendid.
Matters are somewhat lower-key
(no pun intended) but no less intriguing in Jenny Lin’s handling of
Stravinsky’s solo piano music, which is by no means as well-known as it
deserves to be. Piano versions of Stravinsky’s orchestral works have been on
something of a roll lately – the striking five-piano version of The Rite of Spring performed by the 5
Browns comes immediately to mind – and one such piano transcription appears
here: Guido Agosti’s rendition of the Danse infernale, Berceuse and Finale from
The Firebird, a fascinating and
fireworks-filled invitation to display one’s virtuosity, which Lin does with
admirable abandon. But Lin is equally capable of restraint, and that is what
serves her well in much of the other music on this Steinway & Sons disc.
Like his orchestral works, Stravinsky’s pieces for solo piano appear in various
styles and require different handling according to whether they are more traditional
in orientation (the four Etudes of
1908), neoclassical (the Piano Sonata
of 1924), lighthearted and angular (Circus
Polka of 1942) or late and unfinished (Two
Sketches of a Sonata, together lasting less than one minute and dating to
1966-67). What Lin does so well here is plumb the character of each work,
delving into what it is designed to communicate and pulling out that
expressiveness with fine attention to pianistic detail and to Stravinsky’s
frequently changing compositional style. Aside from the sonata and Agosti’s Firebird arrangement, the only work here
lasting more than 10 minutes is the four-movement Serenade in A, but even the smaller pieces and out-and-out trifles
get knowing, elegant handling at Lin’s, well, hands. Here are a one-minute Polka, a two-minute Valse (both from Trois Pièces
Facile and arranged for two hands by Soulima Stravinsky), and a
three-minute Tango, plus a nicely
polished Ragtime for 11 Instruments
(arranged by the composer) and Piano-Rag-Music.
Also offered is Stravinsky’s deliberately simple arrangement of the Prologue to
Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, which in
90 seconds sets the basic tone of that gloomy and sprawling opera. All the
works show Stravinsky’s ear for detail and fine workmanship, and all Lin’s performances
display involvement, sensitivity and a thorough understanding of the music.
Equally impressive but much
harder to classify, the Steinway & Sons CD entitled An Amadeus Affair is simply – or not so simply – a celebration of
the sheer delight of music-making, and of Mozart and his influence. Duo
pianists Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe really go to town with some works
by composers of the past and some they have created themselves. The centerpiece
of the disc is Mozart’s own Sonata for
Two Pianos in D, K. 448, which here gets a firmly rooted, well-paced and
knowing performance that does not veer too far into virtuosity for its own
sake. Oh no – that is reserved for
Liszt’s Réminiscences de Don
Juan, one of that composer’s wonderful operatic mashups designed both to
familiarize audiences of his time with works they may not have known well and
to show the piano as an orchestra in miniature and the pianist as its absolute
ruler. The contrast between Mozart’s work and Liszt’s is extreme, yet Liszt’s
piece comes across as a fond tribute and not merely a surface-level bit of
flippancy. It is in fact a substantial work in its own right, and Anderson and
Roe certainly give it its due. They bring equal skill and sensitivity to
Busoni’s Duettino concertante, which
is based on the finale of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19, K. 459. But the
Mozart, Liszt and Busoni works are scarcely the only attractions here: Anderson
and Roe turn this disc into a showpiece for themselves as arrangers and
composers, not just interpreters. Two short arrangements of Mozart works are
very well put together and very nicely performed: Soave sia il vento from Così
fan tutte and the Chorale Prelude
from The Magic Flute. Even more
interesting, though, are two pieces composed by the duo pianists using Mozart’s
music as a jumping-off point, much as Liszt did. One is an extended and very
impressive Grand Scherzo based on the
finale of the first act of Così,
and the other is an absolutely delightful encore called Ragtime alla Turca, based on the famous third movement of the piano
sonata K. 331. The wit and playfulness of Mozart are the primary elements on
display here, both in the interpretations and in the performers’ arrangements
and compositions: this is Mozart for fun, despite all the seriousness that
Liszt and Busoni brought to Mozart’s music and the equal seriousness with which
Mozart himself wrote it – although it is worth remembering that the composer
was known in his own lifetime for somewhat crude humor and a certain level of
immaturity. There is nothing at all crude about what Anderson and Roe deliver
here: everything is polished to a fine sheen and delivered with panache. But it
all twinkles nevertheless.
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