July 27, 2015

  • Modernism for Piano

     

    Concord: Ives, Berg, Webern
    Alexei Lubimov, piano
    Zig-Zag ZZT 362
    Total Time:  61:12
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Alexei Lubimov presents a recital of three modernist pieces from the early 20th Century in this fascinating release that invites us to hear and connect three seemingly disparate musical voices.  The monumental second sonata of Ives, the short “subtitle” being “Concord” is in one respect a unifying philosophical point listeners are invited to enter in to experience.   The recording is taken from two live concerts in 1997 (Ives) and 1999 (Berg, Webern).

    Charles Ives’ sonata is a dense and difficult work that can be difficult to crack.  On the surface are the myriad quotations that float through the work, sometimes feeling almost as if things are pasted in to create a kaleidoscope of musical experience.   The movements take their inspiration from the philosophical and literary world of New England transcendentalists (Emerson, Hawthorne, The Alcotts, and Thoreau).  But the music itself also seems to be a musical discourse that expands upon the fate motif of Beethoven’s fifth symphony as well.  The notes and rhythm are both explored throughout the opening movement.  It is not all massive chords and seemingly disjointed rhythms though.  The “argument” seems to have its moments of extreme intensity and insistence with reposeful reflections that can in and of themselves be quite beautiful.  The sense of the music though always lends itself as if the pianist is making the music up on the spot.  One might see a bit more of the dissolution of the world itself that Ives is referring to, or trying to communicate in this piece.  The bitonal, or perhaps better, pantonal sense of the work aurally, belies the actual undercurrent of harmonic motion that still somewhat roots the piece in more traditional harmonic progression.  Unique techniques and experiments with sound reproduction are also part of the ideas incorporated into the work.

    Lubimov’s interpretation of the opening movement manages to help guide the listener well structurally.  The phrasing of repeated segments is well matched such that they feel less random and more integral to the music.  The second movement, with its jazzier and ragtime rhythms, is a truly virtuosic exploration of the piano.  Somehow, Ives manages to instill a variety of musical gestures that feel pulled between two centuries and Lubimov’s interpretation allows this to be heard well.  The music of the past is a pale ghost of itself in the discourse that surrounds it as more often dissonance clouds even the most traditional music like some disturbed memory that even childlike circuses cannot dispel.  The third movement finds a bit more Romanticism entering into some of the rich harmonic moments, with a recalling of the Beethoven to link things together, and remind us of how we might hear this music now after such previous arguments.  A bit of gentility appears in “The Alcotts” as well, a reminiscence of Belle Epoque hopes and dreams.  After all the harsher opening moments of the preceding three movements, the final movement seems to want to return more to harmony with almost impressionistic writing at times.  The use of a flute appearing out of nowhere (a viola part if also possible but unused here) makes for a rather unusual color and is excellently realized here by Marianne Henkel.  Lubimov manages to find a way to lend the lyrical lines the right contour, even the massive chordal sections are given good shape.  The result is an often intense but very engaging performance that even with a bit of audience noise at times, may be among the finer recorded versions of this work.  It certainly sounds more coherent as a whole than can be the case with Ives.  The shaping of the music is what helps as well.  Lubimov is not interested in “Ives the Radical” so much as he is trying to help us understand the music as one expression among many disparate and dissonant voices struggling with a changing world in the early decades of the 20th Century.

    While it might be a stretch to think of Ives connecting to the music of the Second Viennese School, at least aesthetically, the music may at first have some similarities with its abandonment of traditional harmonic motion (though often these pieces do indeed “move” harmonically “correct”).   After the massive musical explorations of the Ives’ sonata, Lubimov turns to the brief Variations, Op. 27 of Webern.  Often Webern’s music gets piled on to retrospective of the composer himself so few people make that leap to give him more context for this music (though Pollini’s recording for DG did program it with more familiar 20th Century music).  Composed from 1935-36 and following the death of Berg, the work, the only one of Webern’s for solo piano, finds him at the height of 12-tone writing.  The title itself refers to Schoenberg’s own explorations.  It is a bit like a miniature suite where the idea of “variation” has more to do with the way rhythm, line, and harmony are treated.  Originally premiered alongside music of Beethoven (in particular the Diabelli Variations), one might consider reflecting on how the idea of theme and variations has itself been condensed in Webern’s style that is also beginning to expand beyond the row itself how music might be serialized.  Lubimov’s intelligent performance helps to provide the proper dynamic and relaxed approaches to the music.  One should not expect to soak in everything here at once, but careful listening allows you to make some sense out of ideas and the experimentation with the tone row in what is an almost pointillistic exploration of sound.

    Finally, the program concludes with Berg’s first “opus”, the Piano Sonata.  In contrast to the Ives, this is a single movement work.  Berg explores form in this work as much as the idea of “bithematic” writing with recognizable motifs becoming important hinges for the listener to guide them through a somewhat adapted and stretch sonata-allegro form that may be perceived more as a long arch.  The opening has a feel much more like a jazz ballad that moves into more intense harmonic territory with subtle Impressionist flourishes and interesting shifts between lines that feel like extensions of chromaticism of the last century.  Even in this sonata, one hears how Berg’s style is going to still be more linked to the Romantic tradition with less harsh edges to and more smoothness to even the most angular of lines.  This is captured beautifully in Lubimov’s performance.

    With these three works, one can quickly experience a great wealth of musical style that is quite different from one another, but which still maintain some connections.  Listening to these three works, one senses the unique way that each of these composers explores dissonance and how little, or how much, they wish to allow more traditional harmony to peak out from time to time.   Audience noise is a little more audible in the Webern, and the sound does shift a bit as a result of the venue and keyboard change, but this is a minor quibble as the Berg is not hampered by this at all.  An excellent recording, this is a set of pieces worthy of deeper exploration and one may not find a better way to experience this cross-section of works without picking up a host of discs.