Antonín DVOŘÁK (1841-1904)
Complete piano works
see end of review for full listing
Inna Poroshina, piano
rec. 1997-8, Kiev, Ukraine
BRILLIANT CLASSICS 94085 [5 CDs: 271:16]
We now have three complete box sets of Dvořák’s piano music,
and for some listeners that may sound like too many. Dvořák’s
piano works are the overlooked part of his output, largely because they almost
entirely comprise pleasing miniatures, with none of the obvious masterpieces
which characterize his chamber music, orchestral works or operas. But there
are little bits of treasure in the cycle, and if you haven’t explored
this corner of the great composer’s output, you now have three excellent
avenues of introduction.
Inna Poroshina’s budget-price set of the complete piano works was first
released on Ess.a.y. Records in the 1990s and then again by Brilliant Classics
a few years ago, to generally positive reviews. Now here it is again, with
a generic photo of a piano on the cover and, tucked inside, the best booklet
notes I’ve ever encountered in a Brilliant release. The extensive essay
covers every work, mentions a few piano works which are curiously not included
in this “complete” set - mostly youthful polkas and fragments
- and only includes a few of Brilliant’s trademark typos (“oratorias”?).
The competition here is a similarly slimline box from Supraphon, featuring
Radoslav Kvapil, and a Naxos slip-case containing their five discs with pianist
Stefan Veselka.
I will proceed work-by-work through Dvořák’s piano catalogue,
and attempt to survey both the music and the performances at the same time.
By far the largest piece Dvořák composed for piano is the suite
of Poetic Tone Pictures, a group of thirteen miniature tone poems composed
in 1889. The Poetic Tone Pictures are probably not just the largest
but the weakest of his various cycles of piano miniatures; over its hour-long
course are many a five-minute vignette with only two minutes’ worth
of melodic material. Still, there are good bits to be found: the opening movement,
“Twilight Way,” summarizes the suite’s potential and shortcomings,
with a gorgeous main melody framed by rather pretentiously grand opening and
closing chords. I’ll be honest: I don’t listen to this music much
at all.
Other large-form pieces are hit-and-miss. The Theme and Variations from 1876
end in a rather Brahmsian mood of reassurance, but only after some surprisingly
un-Dvořák-like bluster and banging. The Six Piano Pieces are rather
run-of-the-mill, too.
Far better are the four Eclogues, eight Waltzes, and six Mazurkas. These are
almost all unpretentious, charming, and rhythmically delightful; the eclogues
also contain quotes from other Dvořák works, including a Slavonic
dance (Op 72 No 1). The Silhouettes borrow multiple melodies from pieces like
the Symphony No 2, but with even less dressing: the twelve rail-thin sketches
together last sixteen minutes. The Mazurkas are exactly the happy products
you would expect from the combination of the mazurka and Dvořák:
solidly built, genial, falling satisfyingly on the keyboard.
CD 5 offers probably the most interesting program: besides the Humoresques
(see below), we have the Suite in A, “American,” the most successful
“big” work for piano the composer wrote, if big is the word for
a suite that doesn’t quite last twenty minutes. There’s a lot
of variety here, even some virtuosity in the second movement, and those wonderful
tunes which abound in the composer’s later years. Better still, Inna
Poroshina’s performance leaves nothing to be desired. The Lullaby and
Capriccio, Dvořák’s final piano work, is also top-notch.
The most famous of Dvořák’s piano pieces - indeed, maybe
the most famous thing he ever wrote, ironically enough - is the Humoresque
No 7 in G flat, a tune everyone’s heard a thousand times. But the other
humoresques are, frankly, even better. No 3 has a strong “American”
feel to its folksy main tune, and the secondary material has hints of livelier
dances still. Best of all is No 4, but in the hands of Stefan Veselka, who
breaks down the barriers between measures and gives us a free-flowing jazz
rhapsody. Yes, jazz: those impeccable opening bars with their well-targeted
chromatic notes, the broken chords, and the rapid-fire trio with the syncopated
chords. The humoresques are “American” works, and nowhere - except
perhaps in No 3 - does it show more than here, where Dvořák anticipates,
in different ways, Joplin, Tatum, and dare I say Brubeck.
But if you’re not listening to Stefan Veselka, you may not hear things
that way. Poroshina plays by the rules and her interpretation is less free;
Kvapil, fast-driving and fiercely Slavonic, sounds least jazzy of all, because
he makes the works sound very Czech instead. Choose Kvapil for sheer excitement,
Poroshina for the most straightforward account, and Veselka for an idiosyncratic
leap across time and genre.
Various isolated miniatures fall into various places on the spectrum. The
polka in E, dated 1860 and Dvořák’s third composition (!),
is totally lovable, a great joy to behold and over in just two glittering
minutes. The two Minuets, Op 28, are very plain, as are a handful of dull
Album Leaves, but all the dumky (plural of the dumka dance)
and furiants throughout the set are unsurprisingly poignant and energetic
in turn.
What comparative conclusions can be made? I suppose that choosing between
the three complete sets on offer is a bit like choosing a local sandwich shop:
on the surface, they are not dissimilar, and no matter which you choose you
will probably end up largely satisfied, but once you have made your choice
you will surely find reasons to prefer it over the competition. Poroshina’s
accounts are straightforward, elegant, and cleanly articulated; Kvapil’s
are the most rhythmically “Czech” and therefore generally the
fastest, and the Alto CD in which he plays Dvořák’s piano
has added interest for historical reasons and for the piano’s lovely
rich but clearly aging tone; Veselka is the most idiosyncratic, with his jazzy
humoresques and generous rubato - his Lullaby, for instance, is much
dreamier. The one work in which Poroshina definitely takes last place is the
waltzes - too dainty and finicky compared to the others.
If you invest in one of these sets, though, you’ll be happy with it;
I have two-and-a-half and like them roughly the same. The Poroshina is well-annotated
(far above Brilliant’s average - exception: the total CD timings are
off; CD 2 is 56 minutes, not 61) and in a slimmer box than Naxos has; that
might be a deciding factor. I heard Veselka first; that might explain my own
point of view.
More generally, I do think it’s worth pointing out that you ought to
have one of these sets. Dvořák’s piano music has its gems,
and much of the late music - the Humoresques, Lullaby, and American
Suite - share the same tunefulness, confidence, and rich lovability which
make his chamber music from that time so popular, though don’t expect
profundity! The miniatures are “merely” charming and freshly-cut,
a more southerly Grieg, and although the Poetic Tone Pictures are a
bit overambitious, the Suite, Humoresques, and dumky are mighty fine works,
and there are a few other hidden gems. If you haven’t yet heard this
music, give it a try.
Brian Reinhart
If you haven’t yet heard this often-excellent music, give it a try.
CD 1 [50:22]
Theme and Variations, Op 36 (1876) [14:55]
Polka in E, B3 (1860) [2:17]
Silhouettes, Op 8 (1879) [16:49]
Two Minuets, Op 28 (1876) [9:19]
Dumka, Op 35 (1876) [7:03]
CD 2 [56:33]
Two Furiants, Op 42 (1878) [12:14]
Eight Waltzes, Op 54 (1880) [25:12]
Four Eclogues, B103 (1880) [13:59]
Scottish Dances, Op 41 [5:10]
CD 3 [48:12]
Four Album Leaves, B109 [7:20]
Six Piano Pieces, Op 52 [17:58]
Six Mazurkas, Op 56 [15:45]
Moderato in A, B116 [2:19]
Question, B128a [0:27]
Impromptu in D minor, B129 [4:25]
CD 4 [57:27]
Poetic Tone Pictures [57:27]
CD 5 [58:42]
Humoresques Op 101 (1894) [23:31]
Dumka and Furiant, Op 12 (1884) [7:31]
Two Little Pearls, B156 (1887) [2:59]
Album Leaf in E flat, B158 (1888) [0:50]
Suite in A, “American,” Op 98 (1894) [16:28]
Humoresque in F sharp, B138 (1884) [2:29]
Lullaby and Capriccio, B188 (1894) [4:55]