Hummel: Piano Sonatas (complete); Fantasina in C. Costantino Mastroprimiano,
fortepiano. Brilliant Classics. $19.99 (3 CDs).
Enescu: Complete Works for Solo Piano. Josu De Solaun, piano.
Grand Piano. $24.99 (3 CDs).
Long neglected, frequently derided as a
neither-here-nor-there composer, Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) has all too
often been thought of as someone who never lived up to his great early promise:
he studied with Mozart and Beethoven and actually lived with Mozart for a time.
Hummel was, in his own time, considered a brilliant pianist, but as tastes
changed during his lifetime to favor greater front-and-center virtuosity and
more-dramatic display during performances, even his star as a performer faded.
It is very difficult to rescue Hummel and other transitional musical figures
from the neglect and disrepute into which they tend to fall. True, there were
ways in which Hummel’s transitional nature was important: his Trumpet Concerto
for the new keyed trumpet remains one of the most brilliant works for the
instrument and amply displays the ways in which the new design has far more
capabilities than the old. But by and large, Hummel was trained in the
Classical period and, despite his association with Beethoven, never moved as
far or fully into the Romantic era as Beethoven himself did. To be sure, Beethoven was a transitional figure, but
on a scale so large that composers with lesser inspiration pale beside him. All
of this makes the new Brilliant Classics release of Hummel’s six piano sonatas
all the more interesting and valuable, because Costantino Mastroprimiano plays
them on the transitional instrument for which these transitional works were
written: the fortepiano. This instrument was not fully satisfactory to many
composers – again, Beethoven is a notable example, and was known for destroying
fortepianos by making demands that they simply could not fulfill. However, a
composer who was comfortable writing for the fortepiano, as Hummel was, could
produce some remarkably well-formed music on it, with all the elegance and
balance of the Classical era and a smattering of the emotionalism that was soon
to flower in a full-fledged way as Romanticism took hold under Liszt, Thalberg,
Kalkbrenner and their competitors. Thus, for example, the minor-key episodes in
the concluding Rondo of Hummel’s Sonata No. 1 in C, Op. 2, No. 3, come as
unexpected and pleasant surprises and lend the movement a thoughtfulness beyond
what might be expected of a finale in this form and this home key. No, the
episodes are not profound, but they are inward-looking and thoughtful, even a
trace melancholic, lending some depth to what is essentially an upbeat,
Haydnesque work.
There are joys and surprises aplenty to be
found in these sonatas. For example, No. 4, Op. 38, another sonata in C,
features a genuinely grand (although short) first-movement introduction that
neatly sets up the scale of a work that lasts more than half an hour and
includes a slow movement con molto
Espressione (a marking that appears in slightly varied form in two additional
sonatas). The only other one of these sonatas built on so large a scale is No.
6 in D, Op. 106 – which is the only one in four movements and which includes a
very well-made and clever scherzo
all’antica. Also in a major key is Sonata No. 2 in E-flat, Op. 13, a
well-balanced work that is somewhat slighter than Nos. 4 and 6 – perhaps
because No. 2 is dedicated to Haydn and shows a considerable amount of his
influence. Then there are the two minor-key sonatas: No. 3 in F minor, Op. 20,
and No. 5 in F-sharp minor, Op. 81. Certainly neither is as dark-hued or deeply
probing as Beethoven’s minor-key works, but both fit exceptionally well on the
fortepiano, with its lighter sound, lesser key travel than modern pianos
possess, and altogether “cleaner” production of runs and arpeggios. Indeed, No.
5, a fascinating work that features a very unusual and forward-looking first
movement, does reach for some profundity, even if it never quite attains it.
Mastroprimiano plays Hummel’s sonatas on two instruments: a modern fortepiano
based on an Anton Walter instrument from about 1790, and a genuine Erard from
1838. The fortepianos sound quite different, but both fit these sonatas
exceptionally well. It is worth remembering that Hummel improvised at Beethoven’s memorial concert, as Beethoven had
explicitly requested, and that Schubert dedicated his three magnificent final
piano sonatas, D. 958, 959 and 960, to Hummel. True, listeners
today may think of Hummel more as someone who could compose (or improvise) elegant
drawing-room works such as the Fantasina
in C, Op. 124, which is based on familiar themes from Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and handles them
wonderfully adeptly. But there is a
great deal more to Hummel the composer than this little work, as pleasant as it
is in Mastroprimiano’s
performance. There was a great deal more to Hummel as pianist – or fortepianist
– as well. This excellent release offers an ideal opportunity to rethink the
quality of what Hummel wrote and how he played.
The pleasures are somewhat different in
Grand Piano’s three-CD set of the piano works of George Enescu (1881-1955).
Enescu was not a transitional figure but one with an unusual combination of
influences: he absorbed both French and German approaches of the late Romantic
era, and was also strongly influenced, especially early in his life, by
Romanian folk music. It took him some time to sort out, absorb and merge these
influences, which he eventually turned into a strongly personal style. But
little of that style is apparent in his early piano works – and most of the
music played by Josu De Solaun is early. Every piece on the third CD in this
set was written before Enescu turned 20, and of the seven works on the first
two CDs, only four were written after the composer’s 30th birthday: Pièces impromptus (1916), Pièce sur le nom de Fauré (1922), and
the sonatas of 1924 and 1935. Furthermore, those sonatas are an odd pair, being
numbered 1 and 3, with No. 2 apparently never having progressed beyond a few
sketches. There is a certain confusion about all this music, exacerbated by the
arrangement of the discs, which are neither chronological nor arranged in any
other discernible order: the whole project has a slapdash feel about it. Yet
there is so much interesting music here – and De Solaun, winner of the 2014
George Enescu International Piano Competition, plays it so well – that the
recording is intriguing and highly worthwhile almost in spite of itself.
Enescu was a prodigy, so the fact that he
wrote many of these piano pieces when very young is not in itself detrimental
to their value. Nor is the fact that he was primarily a violinist: no less an
authority than Alfred Cortot said Enescu had better piano technique than his
own. But these piano works are not really the best compositions through which
to enjoy Enescu, much less evaluate him: they are his solo piano pieces (and, despite the title of the release, not quite
all of them), but he also wrote works for two pianos, for piano four hands, and
for piano with other instruments. And many of these 17 solo-piano works are
less creative and unusual than other Enescu compositions: he wrote a work for
chromatic harp, one for four trumpets, one for violin and piano four hands, one
for two pianos with violin and cello, etc. Interestingly, though, one piece
that is especially noteworthy is in
the same key as the most intriguing of Hummel’s piano sonatas: F-sharp minor.
This is Enescu’s dense and complex Sonata No. 1, whose unusual structure
consists of two faster movements followed by a slower one, and whose contents
are so multifaceted that the work seems very extended even though it is, in
reality, shorter than Hummel’s in the same key. From a tinge of Shostakovich to
a finale that persists in delivering a pedal-point B despite uncertain
tonality, this is a work that shows how creative Enescu could be in his
compositions, and often was. In fact, the sonata’s finale has many surprises,
from its use of the melancholic Romanian doina
to a dynamic range that never strays far from pianissimo. In contrast, Sonata No. 3 initially sounds somewhat
more like a Hummel (or Beethoven) work, and has a more conventional
fast-slow-fast structure. There are slight hints here of Scriabin and Stravinsky,
but they are fleeting and occur within a series of melodic and harmonic
elements that testify to Enescu’s considerable ingenuity. The other later piano
works have considerable attractions of their own. The seven Pièces impromptus are character sketches
that range from the nostalgic to the forward-looking and that conclude with the
fascinating bell imitations of Carillon
nocturne. And Pièce sur le nom de
Fauré is a character sketch of a different sort, a two-minute exploration
of the musical notes in the name of Enescu’s onetime teacher: F, A and E.
There are many pleasantries and points of
interest in the other works that De Solaun plays, but their attractions are
generally momentary and passing ones. The extended Suite pour Piano “Des Cloches Sonores” (1901-03) deserves special
mention for the ways it both resembles similar works by Debussy and Ravel and
goes well beyond them – Ravel actually used one theme from this suite in his
own Tombeau de Couperin. The even
earlier Suite dans le Style Ancien
(1898), Enescu’s first major piano work intended for public performance, shows
the young composer adopting and adapting Baroque models skillfully, if a touch
pedantically. The Prélude et Fugue of 1903 is also skillfully done but rather academic,
while the earlier Prélude et Scherzo (1896)
offers insight into Enescu’s somewhat awkward attempts to reconcile the German
and French elements of his training. Of much greater interest is the Nocturne in D-flat, “Hommage à la Princesse
Marie Cantacuzène” (1907), an extended (nearly 20-minute) work written in
tribute to Enescu’s wife, whose mental illness haunted his personal life. Perhaps
reflecting this, the work has an overall unsettled, somewhat yearning quality. The
other pieces on this release are less compelling. They include Barcarolle (1897), La Fileuse (1897), Regrets
(1898), impromptus in A-flat (1898) and C (1900), and three pieces that have
never been recorded before: Scherzo
(1894), Ballade für Klavier (1894),
and Modérément (1896-1900). De Solaun
brings poise and sensitivity to all this material, even the slightest works,
and plays the deeper and more-extended pieces with conviction as well as skill.
Listeners who know Enescu from his works for orchestra, violin and other
instruments will scarcely get the full flavor of his creativity from these
piano pieces, but the set’s in-depth exploration of one element of Enescu’s
compositional life is most welcome, and the skill with which De Solaun presents
the material makes the recording a worthwhile exploration of the abilities of
this young pianist (born 1981) as well as the quality of what he performs.
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