Vierne: Piano Works, Vol. 1. Michael Schöch, piano. MDG Scene. $24.99 (SACD).
Mozart: Violin Sonata No. 32, K 454; Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 3; Shane Shanahan: Audacity; Oil Field Fires; Khanda Jog; Ariana Kim: Migrating Home; traditional Indian, Macedonian and Bulgarian works. Ariana Kim, violin; Roger Moseley, fortepiano; Shane Shanahan, percussion. Saffron Soul Records. $15.
The name of Louis Vierne (1870-1937) is inextricably linked to the organ, given that he famously died while performing his 1,750th recital at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, where he had been organist since 1900 – and given that his six organ symphonies are major milestones in compositions for the instrument. So hearing Vierne’s music for other instruments is something of a surprise, although one of his non-organ pieces, his Piano Quintet, is still occasionally performed. It turns out that the piano was a secondary focus for Vierne in ways that are not often acknowledged – a state of affairs that Michael Schöch is moving to alter by recording all of Vierne’s solo-piano music for MDG Scene. The first volume of the series, although it contains nothing earthshaking, offers multiple works of considerable interest, starting with the seven-movement Suite bourguignonne, Op. 17. Individual movements here have pleasures all their own, reflecting various moods, and the suite as a whole is interestingly structured to move listeners through a full day of feelings and thoughts, from its opening Aubade to its concluding Clair de lune. Schöch takes full advantage of the 1901 Steinway used in this recording (and in a number of other MDG releases): it is a piano with very wide dynamic range but a softer and less-brittle sound than newer Steinways tend to possess, apparently thanks to a highly sensitive Manfred Bürkl restoration. The richness of the piano’s sound helps highlight ways in which Vierne’s musical thinking dips frequently into organlike realms: many of the works on this SACD sound as if they would, at least in part, be as effective on the organ as on the piano. Schöch follows the extended suite with a brief Air à danser, which proves to be a slight but upbeat waltz, and then with Deux pieces, Op. 7, the first a short and crepuscular Impression d’automne and the second an even shorter, virtuosic Intermezzo. Then there is another multi-movement suite, Silhouettes d’enfants, Op. 43, whose title and approach echo those of Schumann’s Kinderszenen but some of whose technical demands go beyond the level of most younger players. There is a pleasant openness in the sound of this suite’s five pieces, the last of which is a Gavotte that, uncharacteristically for the Vierne piano works here, has something of a stylistically imitative feel to it. Airs de danse, heard after this grouping, includes two movements discovered after Vierne’s death (a third is apparently lost) and is noteworthy for the rhythmic and harmonic effects in the second piece, Les esprit de la nuit. Schöch’s recital concludes with Trois Nocturnes, Op. 34, a rather lugubrious set of Impressionistic pieces, each preceded in the score by a phrase intended to show the evocative nature of the work. Echoes of Debussy are notable in one piece, and an overall sense of pervasive although non-gloomy darkness pervades all three. This piece actually received its première from Vierne himself, although he rarely performed on piano in public, and its swells and dwellings on sustained sounds show why that initial performance proved quite a success for a composer/performer whose special relationship with the organ is complemented, even to some extent enhanced, by this recording’s rediscovery of his skill at writing convincingly for a very different instrument.
Melding of another sort – a cultural and auditory one – is at the heart of a Saffron Soul Records release built around and featuring violinist Ariana Kim. What is heard here is not just beyond the usual expectations, as is the case of finding convincing Vierne music not written for the organ: Kim, the mastermind of this recital, has a very, very personal and personalized conception of the juxtapositions present throughout the hour-and-a-quarter production. She suggests that a focus on improvisation is what unites these otherwise disparate works, and for audiences that are in tune (so to speak) with Kim’s thinking, that assertion may suffice to provide connective tissue among the pieces. Simply hearing the CD as a collection of pieces of music, though – without feeling obligated to study the theory underlying the CD’s development – produces much less of a feeling of unity among the works and a much greater sense of discontinuity. Certainly the actual performances are at (++++) level – indeed, the handling of the Mozart and Beethoven sonatas (in E-flat and B-flat respectively) is exceptionally impressive, thanks not only to Kim’s excellent back-and-forth with Roger Moseley on fortepiano but also to the inherent sound of the violin and aptly selected keyboard. Kim’s use of gut strings and the duo’s performance of these sonatas with A=430 Hz contribute to the effectiveness of these readings, although that tuning is not quite historically accurate: Mozart was probably accustomed to a warmer A=420 Hz, more or less, while Beethoven actually seems to have favored A=450 Hz or even a bit higher, producing a brighter sound than the accepted modern level of A=440 Hz. The point of Kim’s choice is not historical accuracy, though, but production of an aural environment supportive of her interpretation of these sonatas in conjunction with the sort of keyboard instrument actually in use when the pieces were written. The “improvisation” connection to these sonatas is tenuous at best, but the actual performances are first-rate, the instrumental blendings handled with exactly the sort of seemingly effortless companionship that produces a sense of intimacy and flows from an equal commitment by both players. The remainder of the CD, however, is much more of a mixed bag for any listeners who are not like-minded in terms of Kim’s thinking. The disc includes three works by percussionist/composer Shane Shanahan (born 1972), all designed to meld Western and non-Western musical traditions; they are intermingled with three pieces traditional to three distinct cultural milieus. The Shanahan works are Audacity for violin, djembe (a West African drum), and ocean drum (a Messiaen invention intended to mimic ocean sounds); Oil Field Fires for violin, riq (a traditional Arabic tambourine), and ocean drum; and Khanda Jog for violin, frame drum (a tambourine-shaped handheld instrument), kanjira (a frame drum specifically from South India), and udu (a clay-pot instrument from Nigeria). It is interesting to hear the ways in which the violin blends or contrasts with the various exotic percussion instruments, and the improvisational elements of the pieces (all of which have some) give the works something in common. But however meaningful to Kim personally, and to Shanahan, the pieces may be, their placement on a recording with the Mozart and Beethoven sonatas seems quirky, if not arbitrary. The Shanahan pieces alternate with three tradition-based offerings. Raga Aalapana: Bahudari, arranged by Kim for solo violin, has a calm and meditative sound above a continuous drone. The traditional Macedonian Lesnoto: Cveta Moma Ubava, for violin and frame drum, is a dance with alternating sections dominated by rhythm (emphasized by the drum) and free-ranging violin lines. The traditional Bulgarian Krivo Sadovsko Horo for violin and darbuka (a Middle Eastern hand drum) is rhythmically uneven, opens with an extended portion on percussion alone, and gives Kim ample opportunity to display fiddle-style virtuosity. Kim also plays a work of her own, Migrating Home for violin and looper pedal (a record-and-playback device usually associated with guitar); this allows her to layer sound upon sound and have her improvised violin part transformed into something vaguely choral. This work and several others on the CD are intended to reflect or comment on various nonmusical sociopolitical matters, creating yet another way in which the disc is an extremely personal one whose fine musicianship is not enough to produce a convincingly integrated – or convincingly contrasted – program for listeners who are disinclined to study the material thoroughly and absorb its background and intentions rather than simply to hear and appreciate it. On balance, performance quality aside, this is a (+++) disc that is presented as if it reaches out beyond standard musical boundaries – but that in fact aims for a small and narrow audience whose members will perceive, through choosing to convince themselves, that the music and the thinking behind it have been tailored exclusively to them.
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