Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. “0”; Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 5; Clementi: Piano Concerto in C. Anna Khomichko, piano; Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mino Marani. Genuin. $18.99.
György Kurtág: Játékok—selections; 8 Klavierstücke, Op. 3; Bartók: Mikrokosmos—Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm; 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs; Meredith Monk: Ellis Island; Charles Mingus: Myself When I Am Real; Ligeti: Etudes, Book 1, No. 4—Fanfares; Schubert: Ungarische Melodie. Julia Hamos, piano. Naïve. $16.99.
Beginnings are slippery. The new Genuin CD featuring Anna Khomichko is actually titled “Beginnings,” but only one of the three works on it has what could be called “startup” quality. That is Beethoven’s first E-flat piano concerto, WoO 4, also known as No. “0.” This concerto is about as different as can be from the later E-flat “Emperor” concerto, but that is scarcely surprising in light of Beethoven being only 13 or 14 when he wrote it, at a time when he was to a great extent under the spell of the works of J.C. and C.P.E. Bach. An interesting thing about this concerto is that it almost never sounds the same twice, because there are just about as many orchestrations as there are performances: Beethoven gave some indications of orchestral plans, but nothing specific has survived. So the concerto was orchestrated and arranged first by Willy Hess and since then by Hermann Dechant, Mari Kodama and Kent Nagano, and Ronald Brautigam – whose orchestration, a particularly well-conceived and idiomatic one, is used by Mino Marani and the Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra. The concerto is highly virtuosic, almost a display piece in proto-Lisztian guise, filled with strong dynamic contrasts, extended complex passages (for example, in thirds in the first movement), complicated ornaments, wide leaps, and a finale characterized by headlong momentum. Khomichko plays the work with considerable relish and finds a good deal of charm in it to go with the somewhat overdone elements. However, her use of a modern concert grand – a Steinway D, no less, on which she plays her own very elaborate first-movement cadenza – somewhat vitiates the effectiveness of the interpretation, since this work was explicitly conceived pour le Clavecin ou Fortepiano: so says its sole surviving version, a two-piano reduction. Khomichko and Marani do a very fine job with the music, which is fascinating in part because it does not exist in definitive form. The delicacy of the second movement is especially winning. But this rendition should not be confused with ones that pay more attention to the instruments that Beethoven was actually writing for and performing on during his early years in Bonn. As for the other works heard on this so-called “Beginnings” CD, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 5, K. 175, is obviously not his first, but it is indeed his first fully original one: the four prior concertos are usually referred to as pasticci because they are arrangements of the works of other composers (combined with some original material). C.P.E. Bach proves to be as significant an influence for Mozart as for young Beethoven, and it is interesting that Beethoven was actually younger when he wrote his No. “0” than Mozart was when he created his No. 5 at the age of 17. Once again, Khomichko and Marani handle this music with sensitivity, elegance of a galant sort, and a pleasantly forthright approach. However, once again, a modern grand piano and elaborate Khomichko-created cadenza (here in the third movement) are not really appropriate for this material, giving the undoubted pleasantries a sort of aural asterisk. Piano construction was in fact a major focus of the third composer heard on this CD, Muzio Clementi, who took over the manufacturer Longman & Broderip in 1798 and for years produced some of the best pianos in Europe. It was not until about 1810, though, that Clementi’s firm made pianos with as many as six octaves – a fact that further cements an understanding of just what sorts of keyboard instruments Mozart and young Beethoven would have known, composed for and played, and how different they were from modern pianos. As for Clementi’s own concerto on this disc, it is certainly not a beginning of anything; it just happens to be the only one by Clementi that has survived – in a manuscript copy from 1796, which is likely a decade or more after the work was written. This is a well-made if not particularly significant work, less display-oriented than Beethoven’s No. “0” and less galant than Mozart’s No. 5. It sounds quite good in the performance featuring Khomichko and Marani, and the lack of authentic, apt piano sound is less of an issue here, simply because the concerto is not well-known and most listeners will have no more-historically-informed reading with which to compare it. Taken as a whole, this is a very pleasant CD that shines an enjoyable light on some less-than-familiar music, rendering the material pleasurable in much the same way as, say, a good piano presentation of Bach’s harpsichord works: nothing here sounds as the composers intended it to, but everything is well-played and convincing on its own terms, the not-quite-apt title “Beginnings” notwithstanding.
The title of the new Naïve recording featuring pianist Julia Hamos refers to beginnings of a different sort. The CD is called “Ellis Island,” referring to the place in New York through which some 12 million immigrants passed between 1892 and 1954. Almost everyone who arrived there was allowed into the United States to start a new life in the New World, and it is this sort of beginning to which Hamos, whose first language was Hungarian, devotes a very personal selection of music by a very wide variety of composers. It is the exceptionally individualized nature of these musical selections that somewhat limits the effectiveness of this disc, since the music itself does not tie together particularly strongly – the connections come from the meaningfulness of the works to Hamos, and will be fully appreciated only by others for whom they have equal meaning. Hamos does play every work on the disc with feeling and stylistic sensitivity, but listeners not imbued with their own Eastern European immigrant experience will find the works’ sequence on the jarring side. The keyboard sweeps contrasted with individual notes, pounding chords succeeded by gentle passages, and ever-present Webernesque miniaturization of Hamos’ chosen pieces by György Kurtág contrast with the milder dissonances and more strongly rhythmic dances and folksongs by Bartók. Ellis Island by Meredith Monk (born 1942) has a quiet delicacy and consistent flow that make it quite unlike the Kurtág and Bartók works, while Myself When I Am Real by Charles Mingus (1922-1979) exists in an altogether different space and time as an extended, meditative work of contemplative lyricism. György Ligeti’s Fanfares is rapid, jazzlike and without any of the clarion calls its title suggests. And Schubert’s Ungarische Melodie, which ends the disc, is wistful, nostalgic, and harmonized with a beauty and simplicity that pretty much put all the other works to shame. Many of the individual pieces here are well worth hearing – those by Bartók come across particularly well – but the totality of the disc never quite gels except within the context that led Hamos to choose to present these specific pieces in this specific sequence. The whole endeavor is undoubtedly heartfelt, and all the music is well-played and offered with sensitive understanding. The CD will have considerable meaning and emotional resonance for listeners who connect with it viscerally, as Hamos herself clearly does. Others, however, will most likely find that the various parts of the disc do not add up to a thoroughly effective totality. The CD is ultimately more experientially oriented and narrowly tailored than it is musically convincing.
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