This new recording has a trilogy of Diaghilev ballets by Igor Stravinsky
in, with the exception of The Firebird, the composer’s own
versions for piano duet. Stravinsky composed his ballets at
the piano, and the four-hands piano versions were used to rehearse
the productions, so there are plenty of authentic reasons for these
as valid performances.
With no Stravinsky
four-hand transcription of The Firebird available, Philip
Moore undertook the project of arranging the work for four hands,
recorded here for the first time. As with all of these works,
the music has a directness and logic which almost transcends
the instrumentation used, but Moore’s arrangement is more than
mere transcription. Certainly it creates a useful addition to
the piano duet repertoire, but it also creates some marvellous
pianistic moments. The rocking Lullaby takes on the character
of Mussorgskian Russian bells at times, and the outer movements
both create a musical tour-de-force which I suspect will find
its way into core repertoire territory.
Petrushka again
presents no problems in this format, with plenty of ‘orchestral’
colour and dynamism. The quicksilver contrasts and programmatic
nature of the motives make this harder to bring off in some
ways than The Firebird, but while there are one or two
slightly heavy moments with repetitive passages this duo manages
the complex and richly notated score well enough.
Philip Moore and
Simon Crawford-Phillips have been performing as a piano duo
since 1995 when they met as students at my old school, the Royal
Academy of Music, and they have won numerous awards since then.
Their technical prowess in these pieces is without question,
but of course I had to have a rummage to see which other versions
I could come up with. Here in The Netherlands we have a long
tradition of messing around with multiple-piano composing, and
while it is unfair to compare disparate arrangements I had some
fun re-discovering the Maarten Bon four-piano recording of The
Rite of Spring. There is also the impossible piano roll
version, which appeared alongside Benjamin Zander’s orchestral
recording with the Boston Philharmonic on IMP Masters. Bernard
Job and John-Patrick Willow received a rather matte sounding
recording on Vogue Classics, but more useful as a comparison
is the Naxos recording by Benjamin Frith and Peter Hill, which
appeared in 1996.
The Naxos sound
is more recessed, but also has the benefit of a church acoustic.
With a far closer presence this new recording has an intense
spotlight on the duo, but I have the feeling that they are more
under the skin of the Rite than with Petrushka and
there are therefore fewer question marks. The burgeoning feeling
one should receive through the opening Introduction is
well in evidence, and with each section I was given the feeling
that Moore and Crawford-Phillips had the right approach – making
the work a convincing piece for piano rather than bending over
backwards in an attempt to emulate an entire orchestra. Their
tempo tends to be more measured, and as a result they can sound
a little less spectacular than Frith and Hill. On the other
hand they do hold onto that weight and earthiness which would
seem to be an essential feature of the score. Frith and Hill
are Parisian Rite, Moore and Crawford-Phillips catch
the Russianness in the work and avoid the shadow of Debussy.
If there is anything I could have wished for more of, then it
would be a little more atmosphere in movements such as the Introduction
of the Second Part. It might be the recording or the instrument,
but there are very few moments when I felt a true pp pianissimo
was being achieved: accompanying lines and the hierarchy of
dynamics in certain places being to my mind less effective as
a result.
I am seriously impressed
by this duo, and this new recording mixes it well with other
established names in this repertoire. With an ounce more finesse
and poetry in the simpler, mood-orientated moments it would
be entirely outstanding, but even so this is a recording and
performance which will supplement the orchestral version in
your collection - you do have the orchestral version,
don’t you? - and add a refreshingly new and technically imposing
view on these seminal 20th century masterpieces.
Dominy Clements
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Philip Moore and Simon
Crawford-Phillips (piano duet)
