Schubert, Berg, Cage, Copland,  Barber and Gershwin:  Marcelo Bratke (piano), Wigmore Hall, London, 25.1.2008  (BB)

Schubert: Four Impromptus, D899 (1828)
Berg: Piano Sonata, op.1 (1908)
Cage: In a Landscape (1948)
Copland: Four Piano Blues (1926/1948)
Barber: Four Excursions, op.20 (1942/1944)
Gershwin: Three Preludes (1926)


Marcelo Bratke is a young Brazilian pianist, with a fine technique, and a big career ahead of him. This recital showed us exactly what he can do.

The Schubert Impromptus were written at the end of his short life and are part of that amazing flowering of his genius following the 9^th Symphony – which includes the last Quartets and Piano Sonatas, the three great Song Cycles and the String Quintet. Apart from the sequence of keys for the Impromptus this is albut a Sonata in itself – today the key relationships wouldn’t matter – and Bratke seemed to feel this way, giving us the four pieces as one complete structure. Schubert is at his simplest here, spare means used to create large structures, and there is much melancholy. Bratke made the most of them, without overplaying the tragic elements, but with a bit of a heavy hand in the bass which, form time to time, boomed out and spoiled whatever was happening in the higher register. His interpretation was well thought out and will deepen, I am sure, with further performances.

After this classical elegance the Alban Berg Sonata came as something of a shock, which, 100 years after its creation, was quite an achievement. What Berg hadn’t learned yet, but would by the time of the Altenberg Lieder, was concision of material as a means to heightened expression. The piece is an expressionist ten minutes of dense textures and fleeting melody. Theodore Adorno said that this Sonata is as good an introduction to Berg’s music as you can get, but I disagree, finding it too frantic in its need to compress too much into its small time scale. It’s still a hard listen and tonight Bratke did his best to make the textures clear and luminous.

The second half found the pianist more at home with his repertoire. John Cage’s In a Landscape is one unending, continually evolving, melody. It’s a beautiful work and, like the Schubert Impromptus makes the most of little material. If anyone says that Cage couldn’t write a good tune I urge them to listen to this piece.

Copland’s Four Blues and Barber’s Excursions use the American vernacular in their own way, creating something highly personal, but always approachable and enjoyable. Copland is serious, but never maudlin (as the blues can sometimes be), dedicating each works to a different American pianist (the collection was written over a period of 20 years), and Barber’s suite employs the blues in the second movement and the cowboy song Streets of Laredo in the third with a sparkling fast finale. Gershwin’s Three Preludes are well known these days and are great fun. Bratke obviously enjoyed the release of tension from the seriousness of the first half and really let himself go in these, sometimes unbridled, compositions.

Encores were called for and he obliged his far too small, but appreciative, audience with two. The concert was inspired by a quote from the lyrics added to Duke Ellington’s Prelude to a Kiss – “Though it’s just a simple melody with nothing fancy, nothing much, you could turn it into a Symphony, a Schubert tune with a Gershwin touch.” – and Bratke gave us a nice arrangement, by Julian Joseph, of Ellington’s work, topping the evening with a barnstorming miniature by Villa Lobos which included  the best playing of the whole show!

Watch out for this young man.  We’ll be hearing more of him in the future.

Bob Briggs

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