Hovhaness: Piano Music. Şahan Arzruni, piano.
Kalan Music. $18.59.
Scott Wollschleger: Piano Music. Karl Larson, piano. New
Focus Recordings. $16.99.
Brian Ferneyhough: Complete Piano Music, 1965-2018. Ian Pace, piano; Ben
Smith, second piano. Métier. $18.99 (2 CDs).
To composers of the Classical era, the
piano (that is, fortepiano) was an instrument allowing greater expressiveness
than the harpsichord, or at least expressiveness of a different type. To
Beethoven and the early Romantics, the steadily improving piano made possible
increasing emotional communication in music, as well as substantial virtuosity,
often for its own sake. To Liszt, one of the most-substantial virtuoso players
of his era, the piano – which came into essentially its modern form during his
lifetime – was an orchestra in miniature. To later composers, the piano took on
expanded roles or very different ones, including some (such as “prepared
piano”) that changed the instrument’s inherent sound and placed it even more
firmly in the percussion realm than it had been before. And to some composers
of the 20th and 21st centuries, the piano became, or has
become, a newly expressive instrument, even to the point of connecting to
realms beyond the musical. That is how Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) appears to
have seen the piano, on the basis of a generous selection of his solo-piano
music that was originally released in 2019 but is only now being made available
in the United States. Pianist Şahan Arzruni, a longtime friend and colleague of
Hovhaness, seems as finely attuned to the underlying mysticism of Hovhaness’
piano works (and, indeed, his works in general) as any performer can be.
Arzruni’s extensive familiarity with Hovhaness’ oeuvre, and his personal possession of numerous hand-written
manuscripts of Hovhaness’ music, make it possible for him to place the 10 works
on this Kalan Music CD firmly within proper context. And Arzruni’s sheer
pianistic skill helps him do something that is by no means straightforward in
Hovhaness’ music: to make it colorful and convincing in and of itself, without requiring
complete understanding of the philosophical trappings in which so much material
from this Armenian-American composer is clothed. Arzruni presents these works
in a way that he believes will help them communicate Hovhaness’ beliefs and
intentions most effectively – not chronologically, and not arranged by length
or other obvious methods. Furthermore, Arzruni offers pieces of piano music in
combination with ones that Hovhaness originally conceptualized differently.
Thus, Invocations to Vahakn (1945)
was written for piano and percussion (Adam Rosenblatt is the percussionist); Yenovk (“The Troubadour,” 1947/1951) was
created as seven movements for piano solo; Lalezar
(1950-52) derives from a set of songs for bass voice and orchestra; and so
forth. These are the first three works on the disc, lasting, respectively, 13,
11 and four-and-a-half minutes. So in less than half an hour, Arzruni already gives
listeners a portrait of Hovhaness presented at varying lengths. In terms of
time span, it is true that most of the pieces date from the mid-1940s through
the mid-1950s, but even within that period, there is considerable variety. Like
many other prolific composers – and Hovhaness was quite prolific, although very
little of his music is heard frequently – Hovhaness is said to have had
“periods” of differing focus. Thus, some works here imitate the sound of Near
Eastern and Middle Eastern string instruments. Some draw directly on specific
nations’ music, not only that of Armenia but, for example, that of Greece in
the three-movement Suite on Greek Tunes
(1949), one of a number of world première recordings heard here, and that of
the Orient in general in Mystic Flute
(1937). Other pieces here are Journey
into Dawn (1954), Laona (1956), Lake of Van Sonata (1946/1959), Vijag (1946), and Hakhpat (1946/1951, another piano-and-percussion piece). Although
there is much of interest to be heard by simply listening to this disc, the
barriers to full enjoyment and understanding of Hovhaness are shown through the
works’ titles: the references are often obscure and generally necessary for a
listener to apprehend the mood fully – and, in many cases, to connect to the specific
form of mysticism that the composer is expressing. Arzruni is an excellent
interpreter of this rather rarefied repertoire, and this disc is as good a
choice as any for listeners who would like to hear more of Hovhaness than his
few works that are occasionally programmed in concerts and recitals. The CD is
very much an acquired taste, although it will be to the taste of listeners
wishing to acquire greater familiarity with an unusual, visionary 20th-century
composer.
Hovhaness put the piano at the service of
the mystical; Scott Wollschleger (born 1980) puts it at the service of
synesthesia, a condition he shares with Scriabin, among others. And just as
Arzruni’s interpretations of Hovhaness draw on his longstanding personal
relationship with the composer, so do the readings of Karl Larson on a New
Focus Recordings release draw on his friendship with Wollschleger. The actual
sound of Wollschleger’s piano pieces, however, is worlds away from that of
Hovhaness’ music. The 10 pieces on this CD, which date from the years
2007-2020, are delicate but determinedly dissonant, clearly seeking a kind of
intimacy but achieving it only rarely. The works come across as close
collaborations between composer and pianist, but as dualities that offer little
entrance space for anyone other than the two involved in creating and
re-creating them. Their sound sometimes differs, as in the contrast between the
focus of Dark Days on the piano’s
lower register and the overtly tinkly sonic world of Tiny Oblivion. But other works, synesthetic or not, simply sound
like a great deal of contemporary stop-and-start, here-and-there keyboard
pieces: Music without Metaphor, for
example, and Blue Inscription. And
then there is Lyric Fragment, which
is scarcely lyrical – it has a nocturne-like quality whose sound, however, is
far from restful. The disc includes three pieces labeled as Brontals by the composer: No. 2
(“Holiday”), No. 6, and No. 11 (“I-80”). These contain abrupt contrasts of low and
high notes and of slow and speedy sections, but despite the representational
implication of the two pieces with titles, there is very little distinctive
from one piece to the next, and nothing particularly illustrative. Similarly,
the two works here called Secret Machine,
Nos. 4 and 6, have nothing apparent to do with their title, although No. 4 does
contain more-interesting rhythmic and dynamic contrasts than many of the other
works on the disc, while No. 6 has a pleasant bell-like clarity that maintains
interest throughout its modest length. Wollschleger’s form of synesthesia
connects sound with color – a not-unusual presentation of the condition – but
the composer does not bring his unusual sensibilities to bear in ways that reach
out to an audience to any significant extent. Someone who knows him personally
and plumbs his works with that knowledge front-and-center, as Larson does, can
certainly play the music convincingly. But listeners not already well-versed in
Wollschleger as both a person and a composer (plus a synesthetic) will find
little here that is distinctive and not much with communicative potential.
Although significantly older than Wollschleger, Brian Ferneyhough (born 1943) – who does not have synesthesia – treats the piano in many similar ways. A new two-CD Métier release featuring all of Ferneyhough’s piano works created from 1965 to 2018, played by Ian Pace (with Ben Smith assisting in the Sonata for Two Pianos), shows the sorts of deliberately extreme contrasting sections and unwillingness to approach warmth or lyricism that are characteristic of a great deal of contemporary music (and not just for piano). One distinguishing characteristic that helps make some of these works listenable is their brevity: many are epigrammatic, including six tiny pieces in a work actually called Epigrams, and the concluding movement of a piece called Lemma-Icon-Epigram. The first piece on the disc, Invention, is itself short (less than two minutes), with chordal emphasis typical of much recent piano music. In Epigrams, the first piece is slow-paced, the second is all over the keyboard, the third focuses on high notes, the fourth on lower chords, the fifth on individual notes in stop-and-start fashion, and the sixth on a kind of stop-start-fade approach. Sonata for Two Pianos does not use the dual instruments to any significant purpose: it basically sounds like Ferneyhough’s solo-piano pieces, but doubled. In Three Pieces, the approaches of Epigrams are again employed, but at considerably greater length – which does not serve the material well, since there is, after a while, a repetitiveness to the techniques that, in the absence of harmony or consonance, simply becomes tiresome. The first movement of Lemma-Icon-Epigram has a somewhat discursive quality; the second makes note duration and eventual silence into important elements; and the third whirls by quickly with notes all over the piano in an apparently random display that, in reality, is carefully planned. Opus Contra Naturam is another three-movement work, but here the central movement is twice as long as the first and third put together. The first movement tinkles and growls simultaneously; the second spreads with seeming randomness around various sections of the keyboard; and the third proffers a slow and irregular pace that is largely unconnected to what has gone before. Quirl is an extended single movement incorporating essentially the same epigrammatic techniques used elsewhere by Ferneyhough, but less effectively, because they simply wear out their welcome comparatively quickly. Finally, El Rey de Calabria concludes matters in moderate tempo and with figurations that sound as if they are about to turn into melody even though they never quite do so. This is one of those releases clearly intended for people who are already familiar with the composer, if perhaps not with his piano works, and who want to explore his keyboard interests at some length (the two CDs together run an hour and a half). The release may also appeal to people who do not know Ferneyhough himself but who find contemporary approaches to the piano congenial and worth listening to, since the sound of these works fits quite neatly into the general realm of recent piano music without presenting anything startling or surprising or, indeed, much of anything to differentiate Ferneyhough from many other modern composers who use the piano to produce their effects.
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