(+++) PIANO INS AND OUTS

Schoenberg: Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11; Fünf Klavierstücke, Op. 23; Klavierstück, Op. 33; 17 Fragments. Yoko Hirota, piano. Navona. $14.99.

Garth Baxter: Chamber Music. Navona. $14.99.

Paul Green: A Bissel Rhythm; Zoey’s Chosidl; My Own Freilach; Doina and Ramble; Prelude to the Blues; Joe’s Hurra; The Jewish March; Lisa’s Song. Paul Green, clarinet; Charles Tokarz, tenor saxophone; Jason Ennis, guitar; Ben Kohn, piano; Daniel Broad, bass; Peter Sweeney, drum set. Big Round Records. $14.99.

     Listeners interested in a less-familiar side of Arnold Schoenberg’s music, and in some additional insight into what he hoped to do as he moved farther from tonality, will find much to think about in Yoko Hirota’s performances of three of Schoenberg’s five completed piano works – plus 17 fragments that he did not bring to fruition and that are, in some ways, more interesting than the piano pieces that he did finish. Hirota’s new Navona CD includes the completed Op. 11, Op. 23 and Op. 33, omitting Op. 19 (which has some resemblances to Op. 11) and Op. 25 (written about the same time as Op. 23). Most of the individual pieces within these sets are quite short, around one to three minutes apiece, although the second piece within Op. 11 is much more extensive, at six-and-a-half minutes. Op. 11 sounds comparatively mild by 21^st-century standards but quite forward-looking by the standards of its own time (1909). The pounding elements of the third piece, in particular, look well beyond an era when piano music was still largely Brahmsian, and the lapses into pseudo-lyricism provide little respite. Op. 23 (1920-23) incorporates a twelvetone row, albeit only in the final Waltz movement, which accordingly is the movement that sounds more as listeners will expect Schoenberg to sound than do the others. Op. 33 (1928-31), Schoenberg’s final piano piece (or pieces: he may not have intended them to be two parts of a single work), is both thoroughly twelvetone in conception and execution. Hirota has no difficulty with any of the rhythmic and thematic complexities of these works, even seeking and periodically finding a degree of emotional conveyance that frequently seems to be absent from the usual rather dry interpretations of Schoenberg’s music. The most-interesting material here, however, if also the most abstruse, lies in the fragments, which range in length from 16 seconds to the size of a complete Schoenberg piano piece – more than three minutes. The fragments are given chronologically, to the extent that their dates are known. The earlier, longer ones, much like the completed Op. 11, pay homage, to some degree, to Brahms, but the middle fragments take pianistic matters in a different direction: close attention to soft dynamics in the ninth and tenth, for example, and preoccupation with forms of accentuation in Nos. 13-16. Hirota makes no attempt to over-perform this material or make it seem any more complete (or incomplete) than it is; as a result, she offers pianists and listeners who have special interest in Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School an unusual opportunity to explore Schoenberg’s compositional process for the keyboard, including its uncertainties and limitations. The result is a CD that, although of rather limited audience appeal, will be fascinating to those with a particularly strong interest in this composer.

     Solo-piano material also appears on a new Navona CD featuring works by Garth Baxter: Resistance, Romance without Words, and Ballade for a Princess, are all piano pieces (played by Andrew Stewart). But these contemporary piano works seek out and find considerably more lyricism and are far more comfortable with tonality than anything Schoenberg wrote for piano. Ballade for a Princess, in particular, reaches back for inspiration to Chopin and has some distinctly Romantic-era musical touches. Many of Baxter’s other works on this disc, for two or more instruments, also feature the piano prominently. The Silver Run, for flute (Melissa Wertheimer) and piano (Stewart), intended as a portrayal of a specific geographical area, comes across simply as a rather pleasant two-instrument idyll. Could You Dream What I Dream, for violin (Nicholas Currie) and piano (Diana Greene), is exceptionally neo-Romantic, enough so that the “neo” seems nearly unnecessary: it is a throwback, yes, but quite a lovely and engaging one. Des Larmes Encadrées, for saxophone (Kenny Baik) and piano (Bonghee Lee), is also sentimental, although it is more pretty than profound. Il Y a Longtemps for violin (Currie) and piano (Greene) is another warm, romantic (and Romantic) work, giving some extra prominence to the piano in the mood-setting. And then there is a three-instrument work that includes piano, From the Headwaters, for violin (Heather Haughn), cello (Diana Flesner), and piano (Jay DeWire). This is a piece that walks the tonal/atonal tightrope rather adeptly, waxing sentimental at certain times while becoming more acerbic at others. The CD also includes two pieces without any piano at all. Macpherson’s Lament is for string quartet (played here by the Azimuth String Quartet: Currie and James Tung, violins; Alice Tung, viola; Adam Gonzalez, cello). Based on the tune and song written by Scottish outlaw James Macpherson just before he was hanged in 1700, this is a dark and meandering work, not deep but affecting. Also here is Edgefield, a piece for two guitars (Kathrin Murray and Troy King), whose sound differs significantly from that of the other music on the disc but whose rather gentle emotional expression fits the rest of the material well. The (+++) CD is something of a hodgepodge of pieces and performances, although the musicians in the 10 works are uniformly skilled and all sound involved in the proceedings. Baxter’s chamber works, at their best, sound modern enough to engage the ear but also old-fashioned enough to engage the heart – a winning combination, if not one offered consistently.

     Baxter’s works tend to combine some contemporary sensibilities with some Romantic-era ones. Paul Green’s, heard on a new Big Round Records recording, offer a different combination, of jazz and Jewish music. The piano is a force to be reckoned with here as in Baxter’s pieces, but Green generally uses it as a foundational support of the ensemble, along with the drum set, rather than as the front-and-center instrument. That role more frequently goes to the clarinet, which Green himself plays on this CD. This recording will appeal mainly to listeners interested in Jewish music with some contemporary flair: strictly as jazz, it is on the mild side, with its creativity coming in the way Green adapts Jewish tunes into the jazz medium. This is particularly clever in A Bissel Rhythm, which is loosely based on nothing less than Gershwin’s famous I Got Rhythm. The sinuous Zoey’s Chosidl uses a Jewish dance form to produce a tribute to a dog that Green especially loved and that died of cancer. Much bouncier, My Own Freilach is based on a dance often played at Jewish weddings and other celebrations, here heard with a variety of jazz embellishments and performed with considerable enthusiasm. Doina and Ramble contrasts sadness with liveliness in a work intended to re-create the form of music used at New Orleans funerals a century ago. Prelude to the Blues lets performers create their own melodies from within a specified set of notes – a semi-aleatoric approach intended to keep the material sounding jazzy while placing it firmly within the realm of Jewish music. Joe’s Hurra sounds a bit like a slow waltz with improvisational elements. The Jewish March stands in strong contrast: another look back, this work tries to approximate the way Jewish immigrants to the United States might have celebrated musically a century in the past by mixing tunes from the “old country” with rhythms prominent in the New World. And Lisa’s Song, dedicated to Green’s wife, opens and closes with cadenzas that sandwich a sweet if rather obvious Jewish melody. The playing on the disc is quite good in traditional jazz style, with Green making sure his clarinet is prominent a great deal of the time. Jazz fanciers looking for something a bit different in the underlying material on which improvisations are built will enjoy this foray into music that is not usually associated with the jazz medium.