I must admit to being
a complete newcomer to the music of
William Bolcom, and I shall be eternally
grateful to Naxos for introducing us.
Norman Lebrecht (Complete Companion
to 20th Century Music) is
mildly dismissive, summing him up as
a ‘Crossover composer between jazz and
classics’, so I wasn’t expecting to
be bowled over with anything as intense
and dramatic as much of the work on
this disc.
Bolcom was partly responsible
for rescuing the American Ragtime style
from obscurity in the late 1960s, and
the last two pieces are recent arrangements
of works originally for solo piano.
This CD begins with Recuerdos
(Reminiscences), which derives from
Latin American dance forms. Bolcom has
in the past quite legitimately drawn
on American musical traditions much
as a European composer might refer to
classical models. In taking Latin American
music as his springboard he has created
three entirely new, and at the same
time completely authentic-sounding dance
movements. If they sound facile to contemporary
music buffs or composition students
they should try making something similar
and finding out how hard it is. These
pieces are superbly written for the
two pianos and infectious in the extreme.
The rest of this CD
has me grasping for superlatives like
a sports commentator whose home side
is unexpectedly winning everything in
the Olympics. Frescoes adds a
harmonium and a harpsichord to the mix,
and the first entry of the pedal organ,
emerging from sustained piano chords
is quite magical. There is no instrumentarium
listed here, and I suspect this ‘harmonium’
is in fact an American organ: its rather
muffled and doleful sound, while completely
appropriate for this music, is completely
unlike the reedy, slightly nasal acidity
of a ‘proper’ harmonium in the French
or German tradition. For trivia seekers,
the bellows of a harmonium blows air
over the reeds, an American organ sucks,
if you will excuse the expression. While
I am having my one moment of criticism,
the harpsichord also sounds a little
thin and distant. In The Netherlands
we are of course spoiled a little by
having contemporary harpsichord music
being played on meaty instruments like
that of Annelie de Man. I feel the recorded
balance might have been tweaked a little
more in its favour, though I freely
admit it might well accurately reflect
the effect in a concert hall. Each instrument
is slightly out of tune as well, but
I think Bolcom is having us on a little
here: not long into the first movement
‘War in Heaven’ (2:42), each instrument
has a moment on one and the same note.
Knowing darn well there is no way a
piano, a harmonium and a harpsichord
can ever really be in tune with each
other, Bolcom seems to be teasing our
senses, and pointing out another little
aspect of his ‘War’ at the same time.
Brief moans aside, this is a roller-coaster
ride of powerful ideas. The pianos set
in, Saint-Saëns like, with punching
chords and octave scales – the carnival
of animals arriving in ‘Madagascar’.
This is serious, strong stuff however,
and the listener is drawn along by grand
tonal gestures, polytonal juxtapositions,
rhythmic contrasts and the occasional
‘persiflage’, the whole of which could
be inchoate and disorientating, but
which somehow isn’t. There is a remarkable
and chilling section in the second movement,
‘The Caves of Orcus’, where an initial
low cluster in the harmonium is set
against soft, dryly clattering impacts
on the piano strings – good material
for spooking boring and unwanted guests.
The Sonata begins
with a firm, serialist-sounding statement,
and continues in this intense, tightly
argued vein for the much of its 15 minute
duration. Bolcom has a Poulenc moment
at 2:25, the melody in octaves reminiscent
of the end of the first movement of
Poulenc’s Concerto in D minor for two
pianos, this time without the ‘gamelan’
effects. There are other, more direct
quotations from Schönberg and Debussy
as well. These moments sometimes jump
out like a familiar voice in a crowded
room, but at the same time fit like
a glove. The whole piece is a richly
rewarding blockbuster to which I shall
be returning often.
Interlude is
described as being from the composer’s
‘total chromatic period’ and is the
most relentlessly modern in idiom. Fleeting
filigrees of notes, twists and turns
of dynamic and extremes of range flow
effortlessly from the fingers of the
excellent Bergmann duo, which make a
forceful argument for this mature sounding
‘jeugdwerk’. The final two rag pieces
emerge from all of this concentrated
forcefulness like a breath of fresh
air. There is humour here in the tap-dancing
pianists (listen, and you’ll find out
what I mean) but the pieces are enriched
with and never quite escape from that
latent taint of angst: a hangover from
the civil wars, repression, depressions,
racism, crashes and dust-bowls which
are part of the origins of this kind
of jazz.
I love this CD more
than anything else on my shelves at
the moment, and want to keep it all
to myself. It’s hard to believe Naxos
can get away with selling such wonderful
productions at the budget level they
do. Stick a yellow plaque on it, triple
the price, and many would be rejoicing
at the refreshing and adventurous revival
of a respected label which has lost
its way a little in recent years. Naxos
seems to conjure this sort of thing
from their sleeve like a magician’s
never-ending handkerchief – long may
it remain so.
Dominy Clements
Elizabeth and Marcel Bergmann (pianos) 
