(++++) SOLO ENDEAVORS

Franz Xaver Mozart: Piano Sonata in G; Fantasy on the Russian Song “Tchem Tebya Ya Ogortshila” and a Krakowiak; Variations on a Minuet from the First Finale of W.A. Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”; Variations on a Russian Theme. Robert Markham, piano. Grand Piano. $19.99.

Nils Vigeland: Piano Sonata; 9 Waltzes and an Ecossaise; Mnemosyne; Perfect Happiness. Jing Yang, piano. New Focus Recordings. $18.99.

     The extent of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s uniqueness in musical history is highlighted, among many other ways, in the lives of his only two children who survived to adulthood (four others died in infancy). Karl Thomas Mozart (1784-1858), born second, tried to make a career in music, but gave up when in his mid-20s and became an accountant and Italian translator. He did, however, earn enough royalties from his father’s music so that he was able to buy a country estate near Lake Como. Franz Xaver Mozart (1791-1844), the last-born of the children, was only four months old when his father died, so any paternal musical influence would have had to be inherited – which it was not. F.X. Mozart did become a pianist of some note and a moderately successful composer with the misfortune to be a transitional figure between the Classical and Romantic eras – much like Hummel, with whom F.X. Mozart studied. The main way F.X. Mozart found his own compositional voice was through what was essentially salon music, especially the sets of Polonaises Mélancoliques for which he became modestly well-known. But as a new Grand Piano CD featuring Robert Markham shows, F.X. Mozart did have grander ambitions, at least early in his life: the four works on this disc were all created by the time the composer turned 24. The earliest of them – published when F.X. Mozart was all of 14 – draws directly on his father’s music, and is a well-wrought set of variations on the famous Don Giovanni minuet from the opera’s first finale. The seven variations make no pretense to profundity – even the F minor sixth is at most wistful or thoughtful – but all lie well on the keyboard and provide for an effective recital piece. Markham does a fine job with them and, indeed, with all the works here, including another set of variations (published when the composer was 18). These Variations on a Russian Theme wander further from their basis (an unidentified song) than do those based on Don Giovanni, and feature a variety of pleasant pianistic ornamentation that Markham handles with aplomb. A more-substantial work and the latest-composed on the disc is the elaborately titled Fantasy on the Russian Song “Tchem Tebya Ya Ogortshila” and a Krakowiak, which dates to 1815. This is considered F.X. Mozart’s most-virtuosic piano piece and is an interesting amalgam of Russian- and Polish-derived thematic material that becomes increasingly demanding of the performer as the variations progress – after which the attractive Krakowiak lightens matters for listeners although still making significant demands on the pianist. The longest work on this CD is the largest that F.X. Mozart ever composed: his Piano Sonata in G, which he completed at the age of 16. This is a well-made four-movement work that is somewhat oddly proportioned: its emotional center, a solemn Largo, is the shortest movement, lasting only three minutes in a work that spans nearly half an hour. There are plenty of interesting elements in the sonata, including the substantial first-movement development section and the increasingly elaborate technical display in the finale. But compared with the piano sonatas of W.A. Mozart or the early ones of Beethoven that were in vogue at the time, F.X. Mozart’s 1807 sonata is comparatively unconvincing, showing a good grasp of the formalities of the form but no significant interest in exploring new areas of either technique or emotion. It is a fine piece that might be more impressive had it not been created by someone named Mozart – and certainly Markham does his best to present it as convincingly as possible.

     A sonata is also the longest work on a New Focus Recordings CD of the solo-piano music of Nils Vigeland (born 1950). This sonata, begun in 1979 but not put into final form until 2008, retains roots and some structural elements from the past while using harmonic language and pianistic approaches that mark it clearly as a contemporary work. The first movement, which really is in sonata form, emphasizes the piano as a percussion instrument, as so many modern compositions do; the second offers elements of lyricism within a largely dissonant soundscape; and the third and last is notable for its extensive use of trills – not as ornaments, the way F.X. Mozart and many others use them, but as an integral part of the movement’s rhythmic structure. The sonata, which Jing Yang plays with fervor and commitment, takes up nearly half the length of this short (49-minute) CD, but is less engaging than the shorter works on the disc. The single-movement Mnemosyne (1987) offers an effective contrast between quieter inward-looking material and exuberant outward-focused music that is made with a strongly percussive orientation. The four short movements of Perfect Happiness (2000) do a surprisingly good job of expressing forms of joy: ebullience in the first movement, quiet peacefulness in the second, and a mixture of outward and inward feelings in the third and fourth (which Yang performs as a single track). The most-interesting work on the CD, though, is 9 Waltzes and an Ecossaise (1987), whose combinatorial title is reminiscent of F.X. Mozart’s for his fantasy/krakowiak. Interestingly, Vigeland’s piece harks back to F.X. Mozart’s time, although its specific compositional referent is Schubert. Yang does an especially good job of drawing attention to the underlying dance rhythms of the movements, which are often almost athematic but which require (and, here, receive) careful attention to the complementary material for the two hands. Three of the movements last less than a minute, and only one reaches minute-and-a-half length, but there is an impressive wealth of feeling communicated in the aptly named Appassionata and its immediate successor, Sardonico, while other movements clearly reflect such titles as Ostinato and Mesto – this last being the final one before the Ecossaise, which brightens matters considerably and retains a pleasantly dancelike feeling with some elfin touches in the keyboard’s higher reaches. Like Markham’s disc, Yang’s is at its best in the less-portentous pieces that, in the case of Vigeland’s music, showcase clear familiarity with the exigencies of piano performance (Vigeland is, like F.X. Mozart, a pianist/composer) while drawing on forms and approaches of the past and casting them in a more-modern aural idiom.

(++++) FOR ALL SEASONS

Bach: Easter Oratorio; Magnificat. Nola Richardson, soprano; Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, countertenor; Thomas Cooley, tenor; Harrison Hintzsche, baritone; Cantata Collective conducted by Nicholas McGegan. AVIE. $19.99.

     It is a tribute to Bach’s extraordinary creativity that his intensely religious Lutheran compositions, written within the conventions of the 18^th century (although sometimes stretching them), continue to have both musical and liturgical appeal 300 years after their creation. Even in contemporary times that are so much more secular than Bach’s, the emotional intensity of these works is uplifting – even to audiences that do not share Bach’s beliefs and may not even know or understand the words he set, much less their purpose within the ecclesiastical year. No small part of the never-ending appeal of this music are the advocacy and excellence of historically informed performances by ensembles such as Cantata Collective under Nicholas McGegan – interpretations that resolutely refuse to regard Bach and his music as fusty museum pieces and that breathe new (or, rather, continuing) life into Bach’s works by recognizing them as deeply felt expressions of faith that can and do reach out far beyond their original audiences and intentions.

     McGegan and Cantata Collective have already produced exemplary recordings for AVIE of two of Bach’s largest religious works, the St. John Passion and Mass in B Minor. Their new release includes two somewhat less-expansive pieces that nevertheless have grandeur of their own. Both the Easter Oratorio (1725) and the Magnificat (1723/1733) are festive works that call for large orchestras including trumpets, timpani, flutes, recorders, oboes and bassoon as well as strings and continuo. And both have specific seasonal purposes: the Easter Oratorio, obviously, for the celebration of the central mystery of Christianity, the resurrection of Jesus; and the Magnificat for the Feast of the Visitation (July 2) and also for Advent and/or Christmas. The works differ in significant ways: the Easter Oratorio largely rearranges music Bach had written earlier, and the text is in German, while the Magnificat is filled with new music and is in Latin (a less-common language in the Lutheran faith). But these historical matters are of no significant consequence for modern performers and listeners – which is exactly the point for interpretations like McGegan’s, which are historically aware without being historically insistent in a way that would make them time-bound.

     What listeners hear in McGegan’s Easter Oratorio and Magnificat is celebratory music delivered with understanding, suitable intensity and an unerring sense of style. In the Easter Oratorio, the four soloists – representing Mary Magdalene, “the other Mary,” Simon Peter and John the Apostle – carry forward the story after the chorus initially urges everyone to “hurry and run” to the now-empty tomb of Jesus (the chorus does not reappear until the very end of the work). The emotional underpinnings of the story are well communicated by the sensitivity of the singers, from Mary Magdalene (here sung, interestingly, by a countertenor rather than the more-usual alto) exclaiming about the “cold hearts of men” to John the Apostle being “delighted that our Jesus lives again” and the chorus, at the work’s end, rejoicing that “Hell and the devil are conquered.” And in the Magnificat, the back-and-forth between chorus and various solo and duet parts enlivens the recitation of the formulaic words of praise and helps give them depth of feeling and conviction. The simplicity and purity underlying Quia respexit humilitatem, and the unusual use of three accompanied high voices in Suscepit Israel, are among the elegantly realized touches in this performance. But such details are always subsumed within the work’s overall structure, which is as it should be. Like the prior Bach recordings by Cantata Collective, this one combines a well-sized chamber choir with a well-balanced instrumental ensemble, with all performers collaborating with great sensitivity to the music as music – and to the messages Bach intended to convey. Those messages are scarcely irrelevant to believers in modern times – but even for those who are not believers, or whose beliefs are not in line with those expressed by Bach through these works, the music, as performed here with expressiveness and sensitivity, conveys heartfelt joy and emotional engagement in ways that reach out across the centuries and well beyond the context in which these works were originally created.