SILVER AGE / Daniil Trifonov / Review

SILVER AGE

Daniil Trifonov, Piano

Mariinsky Orchestra

Valery Gergiev

DG 483 5331 (2 CDs)

 

The “Silver Age” was used by impresario Sergei Diaghilev referring to an epoch of musical activity in Russia that lasted from the death of Tchaikovsky to the rise and entrenchment of Soviet socialist realism. That period of creative efflorescence spanned some thirty years, from the mid-1890s through the fin de siecle and First World War to the late 1920s. Prize-winning Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, having served Rachmaninov’s music (mostly the piano concertos) well on Deutsche Grammophon, now turns his attention to the piano works of Scriabin, Stravinsky and Prokofiev.   

 

In the notes, he describes “an increasingly fractured, social, political and intellectual environment – a cocktail of different artistic expressions, in agitated interaction.” This handsome double album has a convenient dichotomy: solo works fill up the first disc while concertos occupy the second. The formula works pretty well for continuous listening except for issues of chronology.

Great Russians:
Scriabin, Stravinsky & Prokofiev

 

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) was a Chopin devotee before turning into a self-styled mystic and messianic spiritualist. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) began as the folksy disciple of Rimsky-Korsakov, later espousing primitivism (for The Rite of Spring) and neoclassicism. Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) was the enfant terrible of modernism but eventually settled down to an appeasing lyricism during the Stalin years. Trifonov, for reasons best known to him, somehow gets these dates jumbled up.

 

The first disc opens and closes with Stravinsky. However one first gets to hear his neoclassical phase with the Serenade in A (1925), a four-movement suite based on antique forms. Its polite sensibilities are however rocked by Prokofiev’s five Sarcasms Op.17 (1912-14), music from his iconoclastic phase, deliberately grotesque and provocative as one can get. Then its a thirty year leap forward to his Sonata No.8 in B flat major (1944), the most lyrical (albeit its fair share of barbed wire and gunfire) of his “War Trilogy” and the dainty Gavotte from the ballet Cinderella (1940-44). Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (1910) as transcribed by Guido Agosti makes a suitably sonorous end to the recital, but should this have been the Prokofiev sonata instead? Make no mistake, Trifonov performs these varied works, despite stylistic differences and quirks, to the manner born.

 

In a logical and natural progession of things, Scriabin’s youthful Piano Concerto in F sharp major (1896), with its Chopinist musings, ought to precede Prokofiev’s brooding yet swashbuckling Piano Concerto No.2 (1913, reconstructed 1923) with Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka (1911) as sandwich filling. From a listener’s stand point, that should have been ideal, but Trifonov however reverses the sequence, opening with Prokofiev before going back in time to Scriabin. In doing so, he seems to be reclaiming the nostalgia of the pre-Bolshevik revolution era, by turning his back on decadance to witness the last hurrah of lush Romanticism.

 

It is interesting to note that both concertos have not been particularly well-served by DG over the decades. For the Scriabin, there is only the eccentric Antol Ugorski (remember him?) with Pierre Boulez from the late 90s. Trifonov is preferable here. For the Prokofiev, which has enjoyed a renaissance at the turn of the millennium, Trifonov’s rivals are two Chinese pianists: Yundi Li (with Seiji Ozawa) and Yuja Wang (with Gustavo Dudamel). Wang edges this contest simply because her reading generates the greatest excitement.

 

Make no mistake, Trifonov double-disc album is a worthy addition to any pianophile’s library. He is a commanding artist in his native repertoire, but do have a programming facility ready on your disc player to enjoy the music in a chronological and historically-informed sequence. 

CD Review (The Straits Times, January 2019)

PROKOFIEV FOR TWO

MARTHA ARGERICH

& SERGEI BABAYAN, Two Pianos

Deutsche Grammophon 479 9854 / *****

Although she may be 77 years old, Argentine piano legend Martha Argerich continues to perform and record. A recent release is an hour of music by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953), transcribed for two pianos by Armenian-American pianist Sergei Babayan, the latest in a long illustrious line of piano duo partners.

Twelve movements from the ballet Romeo And Juliet are performed as a suite, and there are only several movements in common with Prokofiev’s own original set of solo pieces (Op.75) for two hands. New are the evocative Dance With Mandolins and the scintillating music-box effects in Morning Serenade. The Gavotte is a familiar dance rehashed from the 3^rd movement of his Classical Symphony while Death Of Tybalt provides a suitably dramatic and violent end.

Much of the music exploits the lower registers of two pianos. The results are brooding and darkly sonorous but richly detailed. Much less familiar are arrangements of Prokofiev’s incidental music from Eugene Onegin and Hamlet, film music from The Queen of Spades, a waltz from the opera War and Peace and one Pushkin Waltz. The performances sound freshly-minted, spontaneous, and are brilliantly recorded. Highly recommended.   

CD Reviews (The Straits Times / March 2016)

IVO POGORELICH

Complete Recordings

Deutsche Grammophon 479 4350 (14CDs) / ****

It has been 36 years since the Belgrade-born pianist Ivo Pogorelich burst onto the scene after being eliminated in the semi-finals of the 1980 Chopin International Piano Competition. 

Martha Argerich's famous walkout from the jury sealed his notoriety, which was further fuelled by his unconventional attire and provocative interpretations. He made 14 albums for the German yellow label from 1981 to 1995, all of which have been reissued here. A given with uncommon and unpredictable genius, his playing ranged from transcendental to outright perversity.

Begin with his “brave new world” debut all-Chopin recital, which includes a brisk, angular and unsentimental Second Sonata “Funeral March”. A must-listen is his Ravel Gaspard de la nuit, one of the best versions ever committed to disc, coupled with a blistering account of Prokofiev's Sixth Sonata, and excitable takes on Bach’s Second and Third English Suites. 

The downsides include an auto mechanic's view of Beethoven's last Sonata Op.111, a bloated Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition, and a constipated Brahms recital. Also, how could anyone possibly make Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales sound this ponderous? In between there are illuminating views of Scarlatti, Haydn and more Chopin, which sound quirky at first but grows on one's further listening. Never boring for a second, here is an original from first to last.

PETER AND THE WOLF IN HOLLYWOOD

ALICE COOPER (Narrator)

National Youth Orchestra of Germany

Alexander Shelley (Conductor)

Deutsche Grammophon 479 4888 / ****1/2

In an effort to update Sergei Prokofiev's 1930s children's musical adventure to the present day, the American creative team of Giants Are Small have crafted a prequel set in Los Angeles of the 21^st century. Peter is an orphaned Russian boy who moves to America to live with his hippie grandfather who is a gardener in a once-famous actor's Beverly Hills mansion. A wolf escapes from the zoo, gobbles down a school of ducks and sets Peter on his big game hunt.

The prequel takes up half the disc and includes a redundant episode where Peter builds a giant robot for his quest which breaks down anyway. It contains no new music, instead cleverly splicing together music by Wagner, Elgar, Zemlinsky, Satie and others before seguing into Prokofiev's iconic score.

The narrator is rock icon Alice Cooper (of heavy metal Alice Cooper Band fame), who is engaging in an easy, avuncular manner, regularly dropping words like “dude” and “cool”. The hunters of the original story are replaced by camera-toting paparazzi, and there are also American-styled radio news commentaries. 

The young German orchestra is excellent and this version can be safely recommended for children's enjoyment wherever one comes from. 

OLLI MUSTONEN Piano Recital / 22nd Singapore International Piano Festival / Review

OLLI MUSTONEN Piano Recital

22^nd Singapore 
International Piano Festival

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (26 June 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 June 2015 with the title "Bizarre but rewarding fare".

It would appear that concert-goers are still scared by the name of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953), which might explain how a near full-house that greeted Imogen Cooper's recital of Chopin, Schumann and Schubert on Thursday had almost halved by the time of Finnish pianist Olli Mustonen's recital on Friday evening. What he offered was unprecedented in Singapore: an all-Prokofiev programme comprising five of the 20^th century Russian composer's nine piano sonatas.

To the less initiated, Prokofiev equates with loudness, percussiveness, abrasiveness and dissonance. Mustonen was to partly dispel that notion, but did not always help his cause by the affectation and mannerisms in his playing. He used very little sustaining pedal, prefering a dry and tinny sound as if to accentuate the music's acerbic qualities, and then placing accents, often hammered out like a dentist's drill, in spots where one would least expect them.

Add these to his playing with the aid of scores, the finicky tendency of his right hand to quiver and quake just before descending on the keyboard, and his sitting on a stool that had been raised to its highest limit and further placed on a wooden board (like a Glenn Gould in reverse). All these were recipe for a potential artistic disaster. Despite the I-do-as-I-please stance which occupy piano narcissists like Ivo Pogorelich, Lang Lang and Tzimon Barto, he kept the audience spellbound and enthused, which was no mean task.

The first half opened with Fifth Sonata in its earlier version (with a quieter ending), which was mostly congenial in a neoclassical way, but with a brittle central movement played with so much staccato as if he was daintily skipping through a floor of broken glass. The monumental Eighth Sonata that followed, arguably the greatest work of the set, came close to a travesty.

Those who grew up with Sviatoslav Richter or Emil Gilels' classic recordings would have found Mustonen's version a caricature of the masterpiece, sickly and grotesque. The first movement's bittersweet lyricism was run roughshod but its development was undeniably thrilling. The second movement's gavotte was soggy rather than crisp and the athletic finale becoming a breathlessly incoherent race to the finish line. At least he was not boring.

The second half began with two single-movement sonatas that played for under eight minutes each. The First Sonata, a student work, was lathered with so much romanticism and rubato that it began to sound like Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov. The penchant for exaggeration was even worse in the popular Third Sonata which despite its compactness was strangely shapeless. Young pianists who play like this will be ejected in the first round of any competition, anywhere.

As if reserving his best for the last, the Seventh Sonata – Prokofiev's most popular - was a total triumph. The work is already so over-the-top, and indestructible like a Soviet T-34 tank, that any overstatement would scarcely be possible. Here all the excesses Mustonen could muster just aided its inexorable narrative.

Its impression of a war juggernaut was totally apt, and the tolling bells of the slow movement a memorial to total war and utter desolation.  The notorious precipitous finale was taken a breakneck speed and he did not let up for a single moment until its romping bitter end. 

The tumultuous applause was totally deserved, and two Prokofiev miniatures as encores – the harp-like Prelude (Op.12 No.7) and the March from The Love For Three Oranges -  completed a bizarre but surprisingly rewarding evening's fare.   

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, March 2014)

PHILIPS ORIGINAL JACKETS COLLECTION

Decca 478 4614 (55 CDs) / *****

Did anyone mourn when the iconic Dutch record label Philips was absorbed by the British Decca group in 1998 and ceased to exist in name some ten years later? Here is a walk down memory lane with a retrospective look at some of its best-loved recordings, with the original cover art retained.

                                                                                    

Artists forever linked with Philips are immortalised, including conductors Dutchman Bernard Haitink (in Bruckner, Debussy and Mahler), Russian Valery Gergiev (Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring), pianists Alfred Brendel (Liszt late works and Beethoven piano concertos), Mitsuko Uchida (late Beethoven sonatas and 2^nd Viennese school pieces) and violinist Arthur Grumiaux (Brahms Violin Concerto and chamber music).

There are two complete operas within: Rossini’s The Barber of Seville (Thomas Allen in the title role, conducted by Neville Marriner) and Verdi’s The Corsair (a star-studded cast of Jose Carreras, Montserrat Caballe and Jessye Norman). Whether one randomly dips into the set or listens alphabetically according to performer, from Italian violinist Salvatore Accardo (Bruch violin concertos) to Dutch maestro Edo de Waart (Mozart’s Gran Partita), there is much to marvel and enjoy.

Available at around $130 (including postage and packaging) at www.prestoclassical.co.uk

PROKOFIEV Symphony No.4

The Prodigal Son

Sao Paulo Symphony / MARIN ALSOP

Naxos 8.573186 / ****1/2

               

Recycling of earlier music by composers for use in their new works has been an age-old practice. J.S. Bach and Handel were experts in filling old wine into new bottles. Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) most notably did the same with his ballet The Prodigal Son (1928), written for the impresario Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, by refashioning the music for his Fourth Symphony (1929-30). The symphony was further revised in 1947, and this is the version included here.

Listen first to the ballet for its narrative on the familiar biblical parable and its melodic themes. A number of these themes later appear in the symphony’s four movements with the added dimension of development. For example, the sultry theme of the seductress in the ballet becomes the flesh of the symphony’s third movement. Although this symphony is not as popular as the heart-wrenching wartime Fifth Symphony, it matches its successor for originality and invention. Both ballet and symphony are each about 40 minutes long, and the Sao Paulo Symphony led by Marin Alsop bring out Prokofiev’s gift for lyricism and dramatics. 

SEPARATED AT BIRTH? Composers and their Lookalikes

How funny it is for a Formula One Grand Prix in Singapore to cause a complete cessation of musical life in the city. As it is Esplanade, venue of my last five concert reviews, will be closed for the entire duration of the race and more. So here's spending some time in fooling around: I've been on a lookout for musical personalities who look like other people in popular culture and the like. Separated at birth? Here's the first group of looklalikes.

Credit goes the the stylist of German conductor Claus Peter Flor, who has made him look like the splitting image of a certain Ludwig van Beethoven. Flor will be conducting Beethoven's First and Third Symphonies on 29 September, probably the closest we will get to seeing Beethoven conducting his own symphonies.

Still a sceptic? Here's another look at the coiffs of Beethoven and Flor.

Look who's recently completed his cycle of Beethoven piano concertos? Its none other than Dutch pianist / fortepianist Ronald Brautigam paying tribute to his musical idol. Does anyone remember the fact that Beethoven's ancestors were actually Dutch?

Hair plays a part in French pianist Cyprien Katsaris, looking very much like Franz Liszt. Do check out his phenomenal recording of Liszt's transcriptions of the nine Beethoven symphonies.

Carry on Composing is the comedy movie never made where Sid James plays the part of Benjamin Britten about frolics on a Suffolk beach. Maybe it should be called Carry on Decomposing...

Britten's Girl Friday was Imogen Holst, daughter of the composer of The Planets, who herself has a following, being the triplet sister of Miss Grundy (Archie Comics) and Irene Ryan, the granny of Ella Mae Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies.

Both of them are Russian. But has anyone noticed the resemblance between the young Sergei Prokofiev and the former Russian premier Vladimir Putin?

Finally, now we know why Finnish composer Jean Sibelius did not write any other new symphonies in the last forty years of his life. He was busily playing Uncle Fester in The Addams Family.

Coming up: Conductors & Pianists and their Lookalikes