December 11, 2012

  • Review: Farwell Piano Music

     

    Arthur Farwell: Piano Music, Volume One
    Lisa Cheryl Thomas, piano.
    Toccata Classics 0126
    Total Time:  60:53
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

     

    As the 19th Century came to a close, American composers were in some respects seeking to discover the country’s musical “identity.”  Or so we are often led to believe.  The first symphonic composers of note at the end of the century certainly developed their own musical styles though, like many of their European colleagues, it often derived from Germanic Romanticism.  Though some would argue that these early New England Romanticists are often quite American in their music if one looks and listens close enough.  Arthur Farwell, a St. Paul, MN, native, did not have the funds to study with these men, though he did spend some time with Edward MacDowell and travels to Germany allowed him the opportunity to study with Engelbert Humperdinck (of Hansel und Gretel fame).  By the time Farwell began exploring Native American music, the roots of Impressionistic style were already quite in the air.

    The American Indianist composers fortunately appeared at a time when many musicologists and composers were beginning to explore native musics around the world in more detail.  Bartok and Kodaly in Hungary get the most notice, but men like Farwell (and others such as Cadman, Skilton, Orem, and Gilbert) tried to be faithful to the melodies of tribes like the Sioux, Omaha, and others.  Somewhat encouraged by Dvorak’s encouragement to seek out American folk music, they approached these melodies with the best of intentions and interest.  Unfortunately, the Native Americans who may have heard these works would not easily recognize these melodies as they tended to be a bit “transformed” both by each composer’s own style and mix if European harmony.  Perhaps the irony, is that Farwell, most often discussed briefly (if at all) in American music history classes tends to be lumped together with this group of composers.  This new release, and what looks to be an encouraging series, intends to correct this error.

    Pianist Lisa Cheryl Thomas is herself descended from Cherokee, Blackfoot, and Sioux tribes.  More importantly, she recently completed her doctorate focusing on the work of Native American music used in the piano repertoire by these Indianist composers.  Her performances come informed from her meticulous research and her commitment to presenting the work of these composers.  Her booklet notes are among the best one could hope to read and should make for a great introduction to Farwell’s music.  Most interesting was her point that the works that Farwell often is associated with make up only 10% of his total output; yet another reason for us all to explore our own musical heritage.  This particular release will be quite striking as it brings three important works here receiving their first recordings.

    The first work on this release will immediately strike listeners, even those familiar with Farwell’s Indianist works.  The Vale of Enitharmon, Op. 91 is a work from the latter patter of the composer’s life.  Its opening is fascinating in its harsher modern tendencies but this gives way almost immediately to a host of beautiful Impressionist-ic piano colors with lots of parallel harmonics and glimpses of Romanticism.  The music takes its inspiration from the work of William Blake through the mythology surrounding a character in his mystical books of prophecy.  This Is music that moves beyond that heard in the music of Griffes and displays a more complex rhythmic language of duple against triple patterns.  In this performance, one simply wonders why it is not heard more often.

    The central portion of the disc is from Farwell’s Indianist period, Impressions of the Wa-Wan Ceremony of the Omahas, Op. 21 (1905).  It is receiving its first complete recording here.  The ceremony itself is represented here by 8 movements each with a character intending to recreate the essence of this rite.  The melodic ideas here are all tribal melodies and Farwell states them as plainly as one would hope though moving then into harmonic language that tends to provide dramatic or narrative support to these lines.  Most will hear these as extensions of Debussy-ean impressionism.

    The final work is the most massive of the three.  Farwell’s Polytonal Studies, Op. 109 were originally to number 46 but he managed to complete half that.  The first was begun in 1942 and he continued working on these throughout the last years of his life.  They are indeed studies of both harmony, or bi-tonality, as well as of other techniques of sequences, inversions, and rhythmic variation.  As Thomas points out in her informative notes, “ he wanted to prove that you can set the first key against all the other keys that start on any of the other seven diatonic pitches of that key and, by basing the chordal structures on a series of major and minor thirds, make them all sound compatible” (Thomas, 14).  Each of the studies lists first the key of the bass clef and then that of the treble clef, as in the first study listed as being in “C major/G major”.  These are fascinating pieces that are interesting to listen to with their often open harmonic results that also explore a range of moods. 

    Toccata Classics has certainly launched what could be an impressive and historically important piano music series with this release.  The piano sound is quite well done and properly imaged.  The performances are committed and tend to less pedal allowing for crisper textures that create clean performances of this music giving the music a chance to be heard as that of another important composer of the early 20th century.  The release is simply a must have for American music enthusiasts.