Being familiar with
Toch’s Symphonies (#3 won a Pulitzer
Prize), film scores (Catherine the
Great, Address Unknown),
and a set of songs from "The Chinese
Flute" (from which Mahler had taken
the texts for "Das lied von der
Erde"), I was naturally curious
about his piano works, and found them
somewhat surprising. His music generally
features innovative sound-painting on
an essentially conservative, tightly
structured, foundation. He also wrote
the famous (hilarious? notorious?) "Geographical
Fugue" for chorus of rhythmic speakers,
without pitch.
These piano works are
all early works, to be sure. They are
understated musically, almost impressionistic,
but still feature unusual piano textures.
Toch was a self-taught composer who
later became a renowned teacher, so
his music reminds one of Villa-Lobos,
another self-taught composer. A reason
for this may be that conservatory students
learn how to write music-like sounds
while they are waiting for inspiration,
whereas self-taught composers have no
recourse but their own inspiration and
imagination. As a result, there is no
"note-spinning" in these works,
they are lean and concentrated. At times
they sound a little like Schoenberg
(yet they are never atonal) at other
times like Debussy. They require a number
of hearings to get to know them.
The sonata is in the
usual three movements, but also all
the other works are actually collections
of miniatures, many of them less than
a minute long, some with names like
"The Juggler," "Phantom,"
"Young kitten," "with
humour;" others bear straightforward
descriptions of tempo or texture.
Never having seen the
scores nor heard anyone but Seidler
play this music, I can say only that
he seems to appreciate the composer’s
mood and match it carefully by not attempting
to over-dramatise these works, or pump
them up into something they’re not.
His playing is very likely as Toch himself
played: carefully, fluently and with
no overstatement.
Paul Shoemaker
Christian Seibert, piano 
