I have
already commented on this Canadian
artist’s companion disc "The Evocative
Piano". The present programme was
recorded a little earlier and spreads
its net wider than the later one, which
contained only music by British, Canadian
and American composers. Listeners who
are induced by Frances Gray’s technical
security and well-rounded tone to feel
she is a plausible guide to little-known
repertoire may discover that the Scriabin,
where alternatives abound, gives the
game away. These qualities are just
not enough when there is no "orchestration"
of the music to clarify the often teeming
textures, and the comfortable tempi
reduce the composer’s strange imaginings
to the level of salon music. It is useless
following Scriabin’s wild journey "vers
la flamme" if you are not prepared
to risk singing your wings, and one
is left thinking that this music should
be reserved for geniuses like Horowitz
and Richter who knew what reckless living
was all about.
The first of Bridge’s
"Three Poems", "Solitude",
gives a prime example of Gray’s failure
to "orchestrate". The composer’s
two inner lines are not differentiated
with the result that they gel to make
one single accompanying figure which
the composer did not write and which
trivialises the piece. The second, "Ecstasy"
is more impressive (in spite of its
"difficulty" in the sense
of having a lot of notes it is actually
easier to bring off), except that in
order to sound ecstatic a faster tempo
seems called for and I note that Paul
Hindmarsh’s Thematic Catalogue of Bridge’s
works (Faber 1983) suggests a timing
of 3’40" compared with Gray’s 4’33".
These are not among Bridge’s more listener-friendly
pieces and they do not really convince
here.
In "Poppies",
the first of Scott’s "Poems",
the eighth-notes are all deadeningly
equal without any attempt to make the
melodic line sing and the other notes
just supply a halo around it. Dennis
Hennig (on ABC – see reviews
on site) doesn’t differentiate either
though his slower tempo perhaps helps
the music to make the point by itself.
But surely Scott’s "Lento"
refers to the fourth-notes not the eighth-notes
and the new idea starting at bar 8 is
impossibly weighed down in both versions
by the accompanying chords that are
spelt out like funeral cortège.
Gray is considerably more free-flowing
than Hennig in the second piece, "The
Garden of Soul-Sympathy" and her
"Bells" (no.3) chime more
joyously. Hennig ignores completely
Scott’s markings of piano – crescendo
– forte – mezzo piano on pages 14-15
and bulldozes through at a steady forte.
Though both pianists are heavy with
the repeated-note ostinato in no.4,
"The Twilight of the Year",
Gray achieves rather more mobility since
Hennig seems to conceive the music only
vertically, proceeding chord by chord
without any attempt at an overall line.
The last poem, "Paradise-Birds",
is the most effective from both pianists
– it is the one piece of the five which
responds to a generalized romantic approach
– but again Hennig barges through Scott’s
carefully graded dynamics on the last
page at an unremitting forte so Gray
is preferable. One day we must hope
that a pianist will set down these pieces
with something of the magic and freedom
of Scott’s own few recordings of his
works (not including any of the "Poems");
meanwhile Gray is at least acceptable,
which Hennig is not.
This was my first acquaintance
with any piano music by Bloch. These
pieces veer in idiom between quite astringent,
modernist moments and others that are
disturbingly bland. More curious than
convincing.
Quite what the post-Schumann
pieces by MacDowell are doing among
turn-of-the-century decadents and post-impressionists
I’m not sure; since the composer here
jettisons his usual (quite pretty) leanings
towards Grieg without putting anything
in their place, the answer would seem
to be, nothing very much.
If you have a particular
reason for wanting any of the rarer
pieces here, you will find performances
that are carefully prepared and sympathetic
up to a point (as I said of the other
disc); the recording is less rich on
this earlier record though it is decent
enough.
Christopher Howell
Frances Gray (piano)