(+++) PIANISTIC SCENE-PAINTING

Schumann: Scènes de la Forêt (Waldszenen); Ravel: Miroirs; Liszt: Feux Follets; Chasse-Neige; Felix Draeseke: Petite Histoire; Adolf Schulz-Evler: Arabesque sur “Le Beau Danube Bleu” de Johann Strauss; Bartók: Musiques Nocturnes (Im Freien). Zlata Chochieva, piano. Naïve. $24.99 (2 CDs).

Schubert: Piano Sonata No. 20, D. 959; Impromptu, Op. 142, No. 3; Schubert/Liszt: Ständchen (from “Schwanengesang”). Pam Goldberg, piano. MSR Classics. $14.95.

Music for Piano by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Isaac Albéniz, Alan Hovhaness, Igor Shamo, Natalie Draper, Helmut Lachenmann, Claude Debussy, Leopold Godowsky, Henry Cowell, Sergei Prokofiev, and Martin Scherzinger. Mirna Lekić, piano. Furious Artisans. $16.99.

     Think of the piano as an aural palette, comparable to the color palette used by painters, and you will have some idea of what pianists often look for in assembling recitals, whether in-person or recorded. Zlata Chochieva, for example, calls her new two-CD Naïve release Im Freien, which means “In the Outdoors” and is the title of the work by Bartók with which the recording concludes. Chochieva’s idea is to focus the audience listening to her wide-ranging program onto the natural world, which is something that, in her view, all the works she plays have in common. This is, of course, a matter of opinion: an individual pianist’s method of pulling together disparate pieces will not necessarily be in accord with a listener’s perception of the music. So assemblages like Chochieva’s tend to be of greatest interest to those whose view of the music matches that of the performer – because without a kind of attitudinal synchronization, this presentation of works by six composers can come across as thrown-together. Even then, though, it is possible to enjoy and admire Chochieva’s pianism, which is sensitive and well-thought-out throughout, whether the works she plays are well-known or unfamiliar. The first disc opens with Schumann’s Waldszenen, which Chochieva handles with commendable clarity and without seeking too much virtuosity in a work more notable for simple expressivity than complex technique. Next is Ravel’s Miroirs, which juxtaposes rather oddly, on a musical basis, with Schumann’s work – the pairing makes sense mostly when seen as Chochieva apparently sees it, as two ways in which humans interact with or perceive nature. In the Ravel, Chochieva’s lightness of touch is particularly welcome, as is her willingness to let the music seem to float gently in, for example, Oiseaux tristes, providing piquant contrast with pieces such as Alborada del gracioso. Indeed, the Ravel is in many ways the most attractively presented of all the works in this release. The second CD is somewhat more scattered than the first. Chochieva starts with two of Liszt’s Transcendental Études, whose portrayals of will-o’-the-wisps and snow are quite well-known and presented here with delicacy and a kind of transparent elegance. These are followed by something quite unusual: Petite Histoire by the nearly forgotten Felix Draeseke (1835-1913), once well-regarded for his four symphonies and four operas but even in his time not thought of as a piano miniaturist. This little three-movement work is delicate and rather sweet, perhaps not terribly consequential but certainly well-made and, in its own way, expressive of some of the same emotions that Schumann delivers in Waldszenen. The Draeseke is followed by another piece whose composer has virtually vanished into musical history. The work is an arrangement designated Arabesque on Johann Strauss Jr.’s Blue Danube Waltz, by Adolf Schulz-Evler (1852-1905). The waltz itself has precious little to do with the attempt at a pervasive “nature” theme for this release, but Schulz-Evler certainly makes the watery accouterments of the music crystal-clear in his handling of the introduction before the dance itself begins. There are many, many versions of and variations on this waltz, including ones in cartoons and video games; Schulz-Evler’s is pleasantly decorative and sounds just lighthearted enough to be thoroughly enjoyable in Chochieva’s performance. This work would have made a good finish for the recording, but Chochieva actually moves on from it to Bartók’s Im Freien for her conclusion, essentially drawing the veil of night over the various scenes of nature she has presented throughout the recording. Certainly listeners who find Chochieva’s thematic approach to this recital congenial will delight in it, and anyone enamored of very fine and sensitive pianism will find much pleasure here as well. The different elements of the recital do not, in truth, always hang together particularly well, or contrast particularly effectively, but heard as individual pieces, all are beautifully played and emotionally convincing.

     The music itself, rather than an overarching program, takes center stage on an MSR Classics CD focusing on Schubert as interpreted by Pam Goldberg. Here too, however, there is something knitting the material together, since Goldberg says her 2017 recording of these works occurred at a time in her life when they had special meaning for her. That gives a personalized gloss to interpretations that are, in and of themselves, well-thought-out and well-balanced. The major work here is the A major Piano Sonata No. 20, Schubert’s penultimate sonata for the instrument. The work mixes traditional forms with strongly contrasting melodic material, and includes in its moderately slow second movement (marked Andantino) considerable chromaticism within a fantasia-like presentation. Goldberg’s playing is very fine, if sometimes a bit tentative in the most-intense portions of the sonata. The lyricism of the concluding Rondo comes through to especially good effect, with the sense of this movement providing a pleasant emotional parallel to the Andantino. This is the most cyclical of Schubert’s last three sonatas, and if there is a weakness in Goldberg’s performance, it is that this cyclicality is not made especially apparent: she treats each movement more-or-less independently, which gives each its full due at the expense of a close connection among all four. The Impromptu, Op. 142, No. 3, seems in some ways to fit Goldberg’s temperament better. This is a genuinely lovely performance, delicate and well-balanced, emotive without ever becoming cloying. The theme-and-variations pattern is clear (with the theme itself sounding like one from Rosamunde); the ornamentation of the variations has clarity and grace; and Goldberg’s performance whets the appetite for hearing how she would play the three other Op. 142 Impromptus. The CD concludes with Liszt’s arrangement of Ständchen, the fourth piece from Schwanengesang and, in the original, the protagonist’s plea for his lover to make him happy. Liszt actually set the entire song cycle for piano, albeit in an order of his own, and his changes in the piano texture replaced the original verbal elements of the songs with a kind of keyboard commentary on the material. Hearing a single one of these 14 pieces as an encore removes any sense of context, but Goldberg seems mostly concerned with being evocative of the underlying emotional expressiveness of the music, playing it with just the right mixture of wistfulness and intensity. As a whole, this CD produces a sense of lyrical engagement with an overlay of a kind of eloquent fragility – an effect that fits the shorter works better than the sonata, although Goldberg’s reading of the more-extended piece also has much to recommend it.

     The inclusion of works by 11 very different composers in a recording by Mirna Lekić on the Furious Artisans label turns the disc into something akin to modern art in painting. The CD’s overall title, “Mirage,” hints at what Lekić is looking for here: ways in which the piano takes on the sonic appearance of other instruments, using its unique percussive capabilities to produce aural scenes that sound as if they are being musically painted by sound producers of many types. As with the Chochieva release, this one requires listeners to be fully attuned (so to speak) with the pianist’s ideas in order to appreciate the individual works as parts of a larger whole. Also as with the Chochieva recording, the pieces here do not really relate all that well to each other sans the connective tissue supplied by the pianist’s intent in performing them. Strictly on a musical basis, the works here are often jarring in juxtaposition – which is not much of a surprise, given that they were composed as long ago as 1892 and as recently as 2013. The composers are also a highly varied group, some being quite well-known and others being thoroughly unfamiliar. The selections are presented in scattershot fashion that presumably reflects Lekić’s notions of the colors and shapes of the individual works. First is Music for Piano (1989/1997) by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh (born 1947), featuring string harmonics with a vaguely Middle Eastern sound beneath shimmering ornamentation. Next is Albéniz’ Leyenda (Asturias) from 1892, filled with staccato emphasis. Then come the two very short pieces of Achtamar (1948) by Alan Hovhaness, the intentional exoticism of the first contrasting with the rhythmically varied second. Next is Prelude in F-sharp Minor (1962) by Igor Shamo (1925-1982), its Rachmaninoff-like elements given some updated harmonic twists. Then comes Fractured Bells (2013) by Natalie Draper (born 1985), its skipping about the keyboard intended to reflect its title. Next is Guero (1969/1988) by Helmut Lachenmann (born 1935), its use of stroked piano innards giving it the effect of a John Cage soundalike. This contrasts very strongly with Debussy’s 1903 Pagodes, in which Lekić emphasizes the bass elements and somewhat compromises the Impressionism of the whole. Godowsky’s Gamelan (1925) fits well after this, though, since Lekić handles it similarly – and more effectively, in light of the composer’s approach. Henry Cowell’s 1923 Aeolian Harp is another work using stroked piano strings – a very early example of the technique – and it is certainly reflective of its title, although that makes it more of a curiosity than anything else. It is followed by Prokofiev’s 1913 Prelude, Op. 12, No. 7, which comes as a breath of fresh air after the prior pieces and allows the piano to shine forth in its own right rather than an imitative one. The CD then concludes with The Horse Is Not Mine, a Hobby Horse (2012) by Martin Scherzinger (born 1975), a work that interestingly combines some of the pianistic techniques and harmonies of several others on the disc and that thus makes for a surprisingly strong conclusion to a hit-or-miss collection of pieces whose mostly brief durations mean that the whole recital takes just 50 minutes – but seems more extensive and exploratory than its timing would indicate. The CD has enough intriguing elements to help balance some of the oddities involved in setting those elements adjacent to each other.