(++++) TAKING THE PIANO TO EXTREMES

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 21-23, 28 and 29; Andante favori. David Korevaar, piano. Prospero. $20.99 (2 CDs).

Grateful Dead Piano Works. Kristina Marinova, piano. Navona. $16.99.

     Beethoven’s vast expansion of the expressive potential of keyboard writing, and the huge demands he placed on pianos of his time – to the point of physically destroying some of them that simply could not handle his performance demands – is a thrice-told tale. But the musical ramifications of what Beethoven could hear emanating from the piano – including what he could hear internally despite his increasing deafness – continue to give pianists innumerable opportunities to explore works whose technical and emotional complexity are deeply intertwined, with each element literally playing into the other. Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas are a journey both musical and expressive, and David Korevaar shows himself well aware of the way these facets of the works intermingle in the latest offering of a projected six-volume Beethoven sonata cycle on the Prospero label. The two-CD set (part of a confusing mixture of physical and online-only releases) is called “Heroic to Hammerklavier,” and if the second part of that title is prosaic – Sonatas Nos. 28 and 29 are the two that the composer said were for the hammerklavier, even though the word is often attached only to No. 29 – the first part is more a matter of Korevaar’s concept and interpretations. The first disc includes the “Waldstein” and “Appassionata” sonatas, the mostly (and unjustly) neglected No. 22 that sits between them, and the Andante favori that Beethoven originally wrote as the second movement of the “Waldstein” but later replaced, instead using this Andante grazioso con moto work as a standalone piece in a number of his own recitals. Korevaar quickly puts a personal stamp on Beethoven with a “Waldstein” opening that hints at and soon delves into lyricism – nothing flashy, no virtuosity for its own sake, but close attention to the emotional heft of the first movement, followed by a very warm Adagio molto that leads into a finale in which Korevaar seems to find Beethoven foreshadowing the Romantic era to a greater extent than is usually displayed in readings of this 1804 sonata. The Andante favori follows on the CD, played with gentle sweetness befitting its origin as a declaration of Beethoven’s unrequited love for a countess. The two-movement Sonata No. 22 has the feeling of an intermezzo between the larger works on either side, but Korevaar finds considerable worth in its careful construction and elegant contrasts – the second movement is particularly well-handled. The “Appassionata” sounds a touch superficial at the start, but Korevaar soon intensifies the opening movement to an extent that makes the lovely Andante con moto that follows a place of genuine respite. And the finale is passionate indeed, with a growling quality in the bass and a slightly slow Allegro ma non troppo pacing that allows the climaxes to build very effectively. The second CD in this release opens with a delicately balanced, rather pastoral approach to the first movement of Sonata No. 28, to which the emphatic second-movement march provides a strong contrast. The sonata here sounds a bit like two two-movement works pasted somewhat uneasily together, so strongly emotional does Korevaar make the third movement and so carefully does he contrast it with the finale, in which he emphasizes the somewhat stop-and-go features of this sonata’s conclusion. In Sonata No. 29, Korevaar opens with all the strength that the work demands, but indulges in a touch too much rubato in the first movement and contrasts its differing segments a bit too strongly, resulting in a somewhat episodic feeling. The short Scherzo is also a touch lacking in forward momentum, but the Adagio sostenuto is handled with considerable sensitivity and a decidedly Romantic emotional approach that would not have been possible on the pianos of Beethoven’s time – here Korevaar fully uses the resources of a modern concert grand. After this, the concluding fugue proves a bit underwhelming: although it is well-played, it seems like something of an emotive afterthought. Throughout this release, Korevaar is at his best in the most emotionally charged elements of the music and is somewhat impatient with their structural underpinnings and scaffolding. The result is a highly personalized approach to Beethoven that should be of considerable interest to listeners interested in Korevaar’s entire sequence and willing to figure out which releases are physical, which are not, and how to cobble together an entire cycle accordingly.

     The extremes are neither emotional nor technical on a rather strange new Navona CD featuring pianist Kristina Marinova: they lie in the choice of musical material and the very unusual juxtaposition of classical instrumental training and style with popular music that is far more simplistic and monochromatic than anything usually performed by classical pianists. There are, of course, brief encores and deliberately light classical pieces that show up at recitals and on recordings – one could even argue that Beethoven’s Andante favori is an example – but the music of the Grateful Dead is on a different level, and an hour-and-a-quarter helping of piano versions of it is really a bit much except for dyed-in-the-wool fans, for whom Marinova’s classically poised pianism would scarcely be likely to be a significant attraction. This is nevertheless a fascinating musical experiment, in which Marinova tries to use the piano to incorporate the band’s vocal harmonies and the well-known lead guitar of Jerry Garcia and bass of Phil Lesh. It is certainly true that the Grateful Dead were known for combining rock and psychedelic elements with folk, country, jazz, blues and other popular musical forms, but no one ever accused the band of delving into anything approaching the classical realm. So the forced marriage on this disc never moves far beyond the “unusual but ultimately unconvincing aural experiment” stage. Parts of the presentation really are interesting, though, including the rhythmic flow of the opening melding of Cryptical Envelopment  and The Other One and the following mixture of China Cat Sunflower with I Know You Rider. Familiarity with the original music is something of a prerequisite for enjoying this unusual CD, since the material is musically a bit of a mishmash (or mashup, if you prefer) in which it hard to figure out what the bluesy Hurts Me Too and “swing-y” Ramble On Rose have to do with Uncle John’s Band and Morning Dew – beyond the fact that everything on the disc is in more or less the same tempo and shows only minimal inclination for key modulations, much less melodic or harmonic development (although there is enough rhythmic variation to keep things interesting). The emotional concluding track, BrokeDown Palace, is perhaps the most effective element of a (+++) CD that seems unsure of what kind of audience it seeks and how it intends to reach whatever listeners there may be for Marinova’s well-played but ultimately rather monochromatic survey of Grateful Dead musical material. In the final analysis, the disc is an intriguing curiosity: worth hearing once as the experiment that it is, even though its content is ultimately too vapid to have significant staying power or bear repeated listenings.