Liszt: Marches for Piano. Christopher Williams, piano. Naxos. $19.99.
Music for Solo Guitar by Chopin, Agustin Pío Barrios Mangoré, Sérgio Assad, John Field, and Johann Kaspar Mertz. Laura Lootens, guitar. Naïve. $16.99.
James Díaz: Music for Solo Cello. John Popham, cello. New Focus Recordings. $20.99.
Some instruments lend themselves to solo performances and are often heard on that basis – the piano and guitar being two examples. Frequently deemed an orchestra in miniature since reaching an approximation of its modern form in the middle of the 19th century, the piano was exploited – if “exploited” is the right term – to an extent never reached before or, arguably, since, by Franz Liszt and the other great virtuoso player/composers of his time. Liszt remains preeminent among them by reputation even today, not only because of the scope and complexity of his piano music but also because he created music within a philosophy of expressiveness that he himself developed by significantly extending the thinking of others. Liszt was a consummate showman, yes, but he was not just a showman, and in that way set himself apart from virtually all the highly skilled performers who, like him, chose the solo piano to communicate with audiences. Liszt’s piano output is so vast that Naxos, which set out to record his complete piano music more than a quarter of a century ago, is still not done with it: a new CD of marches is the 70th release in the long-running sequence. Inevitably in so extended a project, some items will be more worthwhile than others; and with someone who wrote as much music as Liszt did, some pieces will be far more effective and some less so. The marches heard here fall on the “less so” side of the spectrum despite the strength and firmness with which Christopher Williams plays them. There are 14 in all, some of them occasional pieces and some written in specific formats or orientations. Because Liszt was an inveterate rearranger and updater of his works, they come from many times in his life. And because he sometimes re-created a piece years after first writing it, some are designated as different versions of the same music. As if that were not confusing enough – and it is confusing – the arrangement of the works on the CD is completely incoherent, increasing the feeling of hodgepodge instead of making any attempt to bring order to an admittedly disorderly state of affairs. Thus, a substantial march from 1849/1857/1872 – that is, the third of three versions of a “second version” of that specific piece – is followed by a short piece written in 1827 (when Liszt was 16 years old), then a medium-length 1842/1876 work (also a “second version”), and then a 56-second fragment from 1844, and so on. There is no rhyme or reason to the order of works on the disc; the fact that it opens and closes with marches relating to Goethe is about the only attempt at a modicum of coherence. What is present in the mishmash is a sense of Liszt’s dedication to producing everything from patriotic parade-ground-style marches to works with a distinctly Hungarian sound and focus, plus the occasional oddity: the latest piece of all here (1883) is intended as a tribute to Hans von Bülow, although unfortunately the music itself is rather bland. Williams does the best he can with all these works, from the foursquare to the expressive, and certainly listeners interested in some of the less-known nooks and crannies of Liszt’s piano music will find the disc instructive even if it is not, taken as a whole, particularly pleasurable.
The milder, expressive sound of the solo guitar is the whole point of a new Naïve CD featuring Laura Lootens: the instrument actually matters more here than the music Lootens performs. The whole point of this multifaceted recital is personal feeling – the disc bears the title “Shape of My Heart” – and the recording appears designed for audiences more interested in being carried away by fine guitar playing of generally warm and welcoming music than in exploring any sort of carefully arranged musical presentation. The whole CD has more the feeling of a pop-music artist’s focus than of a traditional classical-style production; indeed, the disc concludes with three pieces associated with, respectively, Édith Piaf, Jacques Brel, and Sting (the final track, which gives the release its overall title). Since the guitar sound and Lootens’ emotive performances are the main point here, there seems to be little concern for finding audiences that might focus on the specifics being performed. There is also no particular reason for the pieces being offered in the order in which they appear. The first five tracks are arrangements of works by Chopin: two waltzes, two preludes and a nocturne, four arranged by Jerzy Koenig (born 1956) and one by Tariq Harb (born 1981). The delicacy of the “Raindrop” prelude, Op. 28, No. 15, comes through particularly well on the guitar. The Chopin works are followed by three pieces by Paraguayan guitarist/composer Agustin Pío Barrios Mangoré (1885-1944): a mazurka and two nicely contrasted waltzes (D minor and G major). Then there are a 90-second Preludio Chopiniano by Brazilian guitarist/composer Sérgio Assad (born 1952) and a three-minute Notturno by John Field (1782-1837) that Assad arranged for guitar. After those, Lootens plays the one fairly substantial work on the disc: Élégie in A minor by Austrian guitarist/composer Johann Kaspar Mertz (1806-1856). Reaching for heights that nothing else here seeks or attains, this piece is substantive and convincing as well as virtuosic, standing out from everything else on the CD through its treatment of the guitar as more than a vehicle for personal emotional expression. The three pop-music offerings are placed after the Mertz, returning the disc to its primary focus, but it is pleasant – and, in this context, somewhat surprising – to have been taken for a while to a realm of guitar music that Lootens otherwise leaves unexplored in her determination to make the disc as personal and personalized as possible.
The cello is heard much less often than the piano and guitar as a solo instrument, Bach’s six suites for cello notwithstanding. There are significant 20th-century solo-cello works by Kodály and Ligeti, and 21st-century pieces by Philip Glass, but by and large, cello solos are heard more often within larger musical canvases (from concertos to Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals) than in complete works of their own. However, Colombian composer James Díaz (born 1990) has recently created a number of solo-cello pieces, nine of which are played by John Popham on a New Focus Recordings release. Díaz is strongly committed to modernistic techniques, from extended performance practices to minimalism, so his cello music in some ways undercuts the instrument’s natural affinity for warmth and lyrical expressiveness. Aural texture matters a great deal here. Espacio absoluto opens the CD with discontinuity and fragmentation, while Espacio tiempo closes it with a typical minimalist aural world that sounds like clouds floating in space. Three brief pieces designated Interludio separate the somewhat longer works on the disc (although at 49 minutes the CD is scarcely of extended length). The first Interludio is somewhat propulsive and highly dissonant, the second is all about spiccato, and the third is focused on the cello’s lower register – although it appears to keep trying to break away from it. More-extended works make up the rest of the recording. Desiertos verdes creates a sense of space mostly through lengthy silences after fragments of sound. From Pink to Orange moves from the cello’s higher registers toward its lower ones, presumably reflecting the work’s title. Grand Oasis is another long-silences work, its intervallic note fragments sometimes slow, sometimes quick. And A Warm Place without Memory sounds as if it will become melodic but never quite does, leaving its decorative trills with nowhere in particular to go. There is no concerted attempt here to connect emotionally with an audience or to plumb the considerable expressive power of the cello: Díaz is more interested in forming soundscapes that sometimes exploit the instrument’s capabilities and sometimes deliberately work against its inherent warmth. Cellists interested in contemporary works that they may wish to explore will find more of interest here than will listeners for whom the cello is an emotive solo instrument with a sound pervaded by depth and warmth.
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