November 4, 2015

  • Harpsichord Music in the 20th Century

     

    20th Century Harpsichord Music
    Christopher D. Lewis, harpsichord.
    Naxos 8.573364
    Total Time:  60:05
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    One of the main areas of musical interest for this reviewer, and subsequently Cinemusical, is the music of the early 20th Century.  It was during this period that so many different musical aesthetics seem to have appeared, interconnected, and built upon the grand traditions of the past centuries of Western Music.  Music tended to sort of try and hold on to the past in some cases while others wanted to move us inexorably into the future.  This shift sometimes gets lumped under the term “Modernism”.  A whole host of musical styles and composers might end up falling into that category.  Musical scholarship was also progressing during this period.  Most readers will recall the interest in authentic folk music that we began seeing in Bartok and Kodaly, and later in Copland.  There was also a renewed interest in early music.  Wanda Landowska was one of these early music enthusiast and performance pioneers.  It was she who began resurrecting the harpsichord and helped in the design of an instrument by Pleyel that expanded upon the Baroque models.  She would first perform on one of these instruments in 1912 and preferred it until her death in 1959.  It is the one heard on her classic recordings of the Goldberg Variations.  It was Landowska who also inspired composers in the early 20th Century to provide new music for the instrument.

    For this recording, Christopher D. Lewis is performing on one of these 1930s Pleyel instruments.  It is a restored instrument found now in San Francisco and originally was at the Toronto Eaton Auditorium.  His collection of modern works is essentially a rather intriguing collection of rarities by French composers, with one of the great Neo-Baroque/Neo-Classicical composers, Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) who would head to Paris in 1923.

    The music of Frances Poulenc (1899-1963) is perhaps the most familiar for audiences.  His Suite Francaise (1935) serves as the perfect introduction to this interesting recital.  Poulenc had previously composed his Concerto Champetre for Landowska, this wind band work featured the instrument in this collection of seven 16th-Century styles.  Sometimes the music has more of a Renaissance feel, especially with the various dance forms Poulenc is using.  They are coupled with interesting harmonic shifts.  This piece and Martinu’s Two Pieces for Harpsichord, also composed in 1935, provide nice framing points for the interior works.  The Martinu features some of the composer’s unique harmonic style and energetic rhythmic playing that both demonstrate Lewis’ skill as well as further explore the instrument’s capability.

    Martinu’s music is featured at the center of the disc as well.  First, are the Two Impromptus (1959) which are a blend of Scarlatti and Bach with modern sensibilities—reminiscent of the composer’s explorations in his Concerto Grosso (1941).  The Sonata for Harpsichord (1958) is a three-movement work that seems to take its inspiration from the work of Rameau with a bit of Scarlatti’s lyrical sensibility.

    The Martinu pieces are themselves framed by two world premiere recordings.  The first is a work from 1977 composed by Jean Francaix (1912-1997).  Perhaps looking back at the way the instrument had been adapted for more unusual musical settings and applications, the Two Pieces for Harpsichord feature first an exploration of the lower end of the harpsichord’s range in modern language followed by a fast-paced “Vivace” with a bit of macabre circus-like atmosphere.  The other premiere is by Louis Durey (1888-1979), a relatively unknown composer who wrote in a number of genres for orchestra, and would provide scores to a number of films.  He was one of the Les Six group of composers who would become a music critic for L’Humanitie.  The Ten Inventions though (composed between 1924 and 1927) take their cues from J.S. Bach’s inventions though cast now in more contemporary terms and gradually revealing Durey’s own compositional predilections, appreciated as one gains more familiarity with the music.  Regardless, this is a significant addition to the discography.

    The performances here are perfectly fine.  The music is perhaps not among the “greatest” works of these composers, but there is just enough variety to make the pieces interesting.  One does wonder if perhaps the composers all expected these works to be part of a more traditional concert which would allow them to perhaps shine a bit more than they might in this close company of similar approaches.  White is fairly early in his recording career and so perhaps this will be just one of many more explorations of the repertoire that we can expect to hear in the future.  This one is certainly worthy of attention for those interested in 20th Century music and the resulting rediscovery of this instrument.