Myron Silberstein: Piano Sonatas Nos. 1-5; Four Impromptus; Four Winter Landscapes; Prelude and Fugue; Transformations; Jortunioca. Myron Silberstein, piano. Toccata Classics. $20.99.
Antonio Soler: Harpsichord Sonatas Nos. 15, 19, 24, 39, 42, 84, 85, 87, 88 and 90. Gerardo Teissonière, piano. Steinway & Sons. $20.
Listeners determined to build their holdings of modern American piano music – admittedly a rather rarefied group – may well have encountered pianist Myron Silberstein, who has made performance of the works of less-known American composers something of a specialty. Now Silberstein (born 1974) has turned his attention and attentiveness of performance to his own piano music, proving to be just as tireless an advocate of himself as he is of others. Everything on a new Toccata Classics CD is a first recording, and everything explores and re-explores the communicative territory that Silberstein has chosen to stake out as his own. It is a forthright region, filled with dissonance although often hovering on the edges of tonality, emotive by design even if it is not always evocative of the feelings it is designed to express. Although not really a miniaturist, Silberstein favors short forms: for instance, only one sonata movement lasts longer than five minutes, and two complete sonatas last seven-and-a-half apiece. The sonatas were composed in a short time period, No. 1 in 2016, No. 2 in 2018, Nos. 3 and 4 in 2019, and No. 5 in 2020. The fifth is a single-movement work; the first four are all in three movements and share a plainspokenness in labeling that is reflective of their comparatively straightforward rhythmic and harmonic approach (for 21st-century music, anyway). By designating the movements of No. 1 as Light, Quiet and Bold, for instance, and those of No. 3 as Lively, Gentle and Brilliant, Silberstein gives listeners clear guideposts of his intent without requiring the sort of study of background, influence and inspiration that far too many contemporary composers expect of listeners. The clarity of the labels does, however, create communicative expectations that the music does not always fulfill. Sonata No. 3, for instance, feels more relaxed and somewhat more comfortable in its own musical skin than Nos. 1 and 2, and what is distinctive in the finale of the third sonata is not anything “brilliant” but a notable level of delicacy. Likewise, persistent atonality makes the Calm designation of the second movement of Sonata No. 4 unattainable; the cascades of notes in the concluding Vigorous are more fitting. There is pervasive brittleness in many of the sonatas’ movements, as if real warmth and lyricism are missing by intent and design – but this is mostly a function of the musical language in which Silberstein writes, which is better at acerbity than expressiveness. In fact, outside the sonatas, there is a smidgen of Impressionism lurking. Four Impromptus (2022) may not fully reflect their designations – the titles of No. 2, Lamenting, and No. 3, Contemplative, could easily be swapped – but all seem designed to evoke feelings that are almost present even if they remain just out of reach. And Four Winter Landscapes (2022), all of them essentially brief essays in stasis, are effective in their own way. Also here are two essays in reinterpreted musical formulas: Prelude and Fugue (2018) is a sort of demonstration project suggesting persistence of form, if not memory; and Transformations (2021), in scope a bit like a one-movement sonata, incorporates variation form without adhering to it in anything like a rigid manner. The disc concludes with a very short work that is enjoyable in part because it seems less seriously self-aware than anything else on the CD. Dating to 2020, it is called Jortunioca – a portmanteau of the names of three dance forms – and is both an encore and an encapsulation of Silberstein’s style, from its rhythmic assertiveness to the insistent chords with which it ends. The casual listener will not be converted to a fan of 21st-century American piano music by anything on this disc, but those already interested in the continuing evolution of pianistic expression will find much of Silberstein’s music engaging – and his performance of it exemplary.
In some ways, keyboard expressiveness has not changed nearly as much as would be expected over a period of many centuries. Structurally, for example, Silberstein is partial to the warmth of Dorian mode as a means to boost emotive qualities, and that is also how Antonio Soler (1729-1783) used the mode in 22 of his 120+ keyboard sonatas. Soler was also – also like Silberstein – the creator both of single-movement sonatas and of ones in multiple movements. What has certainly changed since Soler’s time, however, as is clear from a Steinway & Sons release featuring Gerardo Teissonnière, is the disposition of keyboard writing and the requirements of counterpoint and of binary and ternary construction. Teissonnière is sensitive to these, allowing seamless flow of the material in the 10 single-movement sonatas he offers on a modern piano whose excesses he keeps in check but whose sonority certainly does not match that of the instruments of Soler’s time. Actually, the instrument for which Soler wrote is not clear, and he may have intended different sonatas for different ones. They are usually identified as harpsichord sonatas, since Soler was a fine harpsichordist and harpsichord teacher, and in general the harpsichord seems like the best choice for these works. But at least some of them could have been intended for the clavichord, spinet, organ, even the virginal – or perhaps the fortepiano, although certainly not the not-yet-existing modern concert grand. In any event, inauthentic Teissonnière’s performances may be, but expressive they certainly are – without overdoing matters to the point of obscuring the sonatas’ structure. Interestingly, seven of the 10 sonatas that Teissonnière offers are in minor keys, a clear indication of his pianistic disposition where Soler is concerned and a reasonable use of the greater warmth available through a modern piano’s resonance and longer key travel than existed in instruments of Soler’s time. Soler identified himself as a disciple of Domenico Scarlatti, whose 555-or-so keyboard sonatas are clear models for many of those by Soler – who, indeed, may have been Scarlatti’s pupil. Their works share many formal elements, such as modulations to the dominant and, at the end, back to the original key, but Soler’s have some coloristic distinctions that Teissonnière appears predisposed to bring out – likely one reason for his favoring of minor-key material. The Teissonnière CD is scarcely historically informed and may not be the best introduction to Soler for listeners unfamiliar with his music, but for those interested simply in pleasant music-making, skilled pianism, and a sense of hearing material whose structure and emotive nature are readily graspable, the disc provides a myriad of pleasures that, one would hope, may lead at least some audiences to seek out recordings offering more-authentic presentations of Soler’s intriguing sonatas.
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