Egon KORNAUTH (1891-1959) Piano Music - Volume 1
Phantasie, Op.10 (1915) [13:04]
Three Piano Pieces, Op.23 (1920) [13:33]
Little Suite, Op.29 (1923) [14:05]
Prelude and Passacaglia, Op.43 (1939) [13:16]
Five Piano Pieces, Op.44 (1940) [14:58]
Jonathan Powell (piano)
rec. August 2008, Durham University Music School
TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC 0159 [69:00]
Though he was for some years the toast of Vienna, Egon Kornauth was, like
many an outstanding citizen of the Dual Monarchy, a Moravian. Born in Olomouc
in 1891 he studied in that city before travelling to the Imperial capital
to pursue composition first with Robert Fuchs and later with Schreker. He
also studied musicology with Guido Adler. But it was only when he studied
privately with Franz Schmidt that he seems to have found a teacher whom he
felt truly sympathetic. Kornauth gradually rose to a position of some eminence
in Vienna, where he lived until his death in 1959.
His piano music, of which this is the first volume (and all of which is heard
in first recordings) proves highly diverting listening. The Phantasie
of 1915 – the recital runs chronologically - is tightly constructed, indeed
almost sonata-like. Opening restlessly it soon relaxes into a ‘second subject’
redolent of Richard Strauss at his most opulently operatic; all this allied
to piano writing of post-Lisztian panache and turbulence. The other influence
here is surely more Schmidt than Schreker, and though there is intensity,
nowhere is Zemlinsky evoked. The Three Piano Pieces, Op.23 followed in 1920.
The first is rather funereal, whilst the central piece, an ‘Improvisation’,
is flowing and fluid, harmonically piquant without ever being quiet ŕ la mode.
The waltz with which this little set ends shifts its moorings from time to
time, rhythmically speaking, so one can’t always tell its origin.
A few years later Kornauth wrote his Little Suite, Op.29. The seven movements
are very brief but well characterised. Whilst there are Mahlerian suggestions,
pianist Jonathan Powell notes in the booklet that Kornauth may have imbibed
some of the more Mediterranean spirit of Joseph Marx at this time in his development.
Certainly the free-spirited, amply chorded fulsomeness of much of this suite
is engaging. There’s light-heartedness too. That quality is necessarily in
shorter supply in the Praeludium and Passacaglia written many years
later, in 1939. Here the fascinating feature resides in the commingling of
Bachian and Chopinesque elements in the Praeludium’s ceaseless harmonic
quest. The Passacaglia has its lighter textures but insidious pessimism
haunts many of its paragraphs, before the work ends with a declamatory fanfare.
Hopeful, ascending lines proclaim a promise for the future.
The following year Kornauth composed his Five Piano Pieces, Op.44.
Brief though they are, they cover some interesting ground, from loquacious
polyphony to fulsome diatonic writing in tribute to his native soil - a Moravian
ballad, though characteristically he ploughs his own furrow and shows no sign
of having heard Novák, who went foraging for folk songs in Kornauth’s neck
of the woods, or indeed the Bohemian Suk.
All these pieces are brought thoughtfully and stylishly to life by Powell
in performances given in the slightly chilly acoustic of Durham University
Music School back in August 2008. They augur well for the next volume.
Jonathan Woolf
Music brought thoughtfully and stylishly to life.
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