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 Reviews (The Straits Times, March 2017)

STRAVINSKY The Soldier's Tale

SCHOENBERG Chamber Symphony

Boston Symphony Chamber Players

Eloquence 480 3300 (2 CDs) / *****

Here are some classic 1970s recordings of chamber works by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), centred on his neoclassical phase of composition. During the years between the World Wars, he presided over a paradigm shift from the orchestral opulence of his earlier ballets to sparer textures involving small groups of instruments. 

The quintessential work is The Soldier's Tale (1918), a chamber melodrama with narration featuring a series of marches and dances with a touch of jazz idioms. This is often regarded as the best recording of this work, with a starry cast of violinist Joseph Silverstein, narrator Sir John Gielgud, Tom Courtenay as The Soldier and a  beguiling but positively malevolent Devil in Ron Moody.

The Septet, Octet For Winds, Concertino, Pastorale and Ragtime represent the most attractive of Stravinsky's shorter pieces, made better by the excellent Chamber Players of the Boston Symphony Orchestra who combine finesse with virtuosity. 

Stravinsky's greatest composing rival was Arnold Schoenberg, ironically a fellow emigré living in Los Angeles. The Chamber Symphony No.1 is one of the Austrian's most popular and approachable works, and the chamber transcription for five players by Anton Webern is as transparent as it is effective. This and Alban Berg's piano trio transcription of the Adagio from the Chamber Concerto get excellent readings, a good introduction to the Second Viennese School as any. Highly recommended.

STRAVINSKY'S THE SOLDIER'S TALE / Produced & Conducted by Adrian Tan / Review

STRAVINSKY’S THE SOLDIER’S TALE

Adrian Tan, Producer & Conductor et al

Esplanade Recital Studio

Saturday (15 November 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 November 2014 with the title "Catchy music makes great Tale".

It was the First World War that caused a paradigm shift in the scope of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky’s compositions. The large orchestra in The Rite of Spring (1913) had shrunken to just seven musicians for his melodrama The Soldier’s Tale (1918), based on the Faustian tale by Swiss writer Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz.

In an all-new production commissioned, directed and conducted by local conductor Adrian Tan, the emphasis was on music and movement, with the story told by choreographer-cum-narrator Timothy Colemen and three dancers from the Singapore Dance Theatre. The script by Michael Flanders and Kitty Black was heavily edited and adapted to keep the action flowing and taut.

In stark contrast to the opulence and dissonance of The Rite, Stravinsky had turned to jazz and popular dance music in this score, along the path to his neoclassical phase. Textures were lightened, with musical language kept plain and direct for the work’s discrete but continuous movements. It was in this milieu that the musicians, which included clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trumpet, double mass, percussion, headed by Loh Jun Hong’s violin, shined.

His was a virtuoso role that encapsulated the soul of the Soldier, whom despite his conscience and resistance eventually succumbs to the entreaties of the Devil, represented by Iskandar Rashid’s percussion. Along the way, the music included marches, a pastorale, tango, waltz and ragtime, all rendered in the inimitable and catchy manner of the Russian composer.

The dancers were excellent throughout, with Stefaan Morrow’s Soldier, more athletic than martial in his khaki fatigues, as chief protagonist. Opposite him, Nazer Salgado’s Devil was slickness personified, his whiter-than-white showman’s outfit concealing all sorts of dark secrets. Beatrice Castaneda’s Princess was a smaller part, delivered with grace and some playfulness.

As with such stories, there is a cautionary tale: One cannot alter the past. One happiness is all you will get. Man can never be satisfied, and that is when the Devil invariably gains his foothold. Conductor Tan’s conception of interdisciplinary collaboration was a success in all counts, all’s the pity that it was witnessed by a modest-sized audience.

With minimal publicity and held on the same evening as a Singapore Symphony Orchestra gala concert and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there was always a risk of being crowded out.