Poul RUDERS (b. 1949)
Piano Concerto No. 3 ‘Paganini Variations’ (2014) [18:14]
Cembal d’amore, for harpsichord and piano, second book (1986) [19:53]
Kafkapriccio (2008) [21:25]
Anne-Marie McDermott (piano)
Steven Beck (harpsichord) and Susan Grace (piano)
Odensesymfoniorkester/Benjamin Shwartz, Andreas Delfs
rec. 2016/18, Nielsen Concert Hall, Odense, Denmark; Packard Recital Hall, Colorado College, USA
Ruders Edition – Volume 15
BRIDGE 9531 [59:34]
The Danish composer Poul Ruders is well-regarded in his own country and has had some overseas attention too – his opera The Handmaid’s Tale was produced in London some years ago. I missed that, though it has been recorded (review), but I have heard and admired a number of his orchestral works, particularly the fifth symphony (review). His idiom may be described as mainstream modernist: he has heard Stravinsky, Bartók and the Second Viennese School and learned from them, but he does not embrace extremes of dissonance and his music always sounds well. He has been well served on record: the Danish company Dacapo have issued a number of his works, and the American company Bridge have done so too: this new issue is their fifteenth so far, as the CD spine proudly states.
This seems to be by way of a mopping up exercise. The third piano concerto is in fact a reworking of the composer’s second guitar concerto. It takes the form of a set of variations on the famous twenty-fourth Caprice of Paganini, the one which Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninov and Lutosławski all rehandled. In fact the Rachmaninov Paganini Rhapsody seems to be Ruders’s model here in two ways: positively, in that the piano writing is very full, and no way suggests the guitar original on which it is based; and negatively, in that he seems to be conspicuously avoiding Rachmaninov’s kind of treatment. The variations are indeed very varied, starting skittish and playful but becoming more serious. There are two slow variations, numbers fourteen and twenty, of which the second is dark and mysterious indeed. There is a fast and virtuosic coda. This is an enjoyable work, though, I have to say, not of the stature of the Rachmaninov.
The second book of Cembal d’Amore is a work for piano and harpsichord – the first book, which I have not heard, is on volume 5 of the Bridge series (BRIDGE 9237). The combination of piano and harpsichord is an intriguing one, almost unprecedented, though there is Elliott Carter’s Double Concerto for piano and harpsichord which presumably Ruders knows. Anyway, just the sound of the two instruments together is fascinating. Like Boulez’s Le marteau sans maître, which, I hasten to add, it does not otherwise resemble, the sound is so beguiling that one can just bask in it. In fact, it is a suite in nine movements, nicely contrasted. This work is a delight.
Finally, we have the orchestral suite Kafkapriccio, subtitled Five Paraphrases on the opera ‘Kafka’s Trial.’ The opera itself, which has been recorded complete on Dacapo (review), has a double plot: Franz Kafka’s real life hesitation over whether or not to marry his girlfriend Felice Bauer, and the fictional story of his novel The Trial, in which the hero Josef K. is arrested and persecuted by unnamed authorities for a crime which is never stated. The suite draws from the music of the opera with movements which represent Kafka himself, Felice, the arrest, surreal scenes following this and finally Josef K’s execution. The music varies considerably in mood, from a grim, Hindemith-like seriousness to wild klezmer riffs and Prokofiev-like wit. The sleeve-note suggests it is like a short symphony; I am not sure how well it stands on its own, but it certainly encourages me to seek out the parent opera.
Anne-Marie McDermott brings a lively sensibility to the piano part of the concerto. The Odensesymfoniorkester plays with conviction in both the concerto, under Benjamin Shwartz, and in the Kafkapriccio, under Andreas Delfs. Steven Beck and Susan Grace are used to playing together as a duo piano team, but in Cembal d’amore Steven Beck seems equally happy on the harpsichord. The recordings, though made on opposite sides of the Atlantic, seem to match well. Perhaps this is supplementary rather than essential Ruders, but it is certainly enjoyable.
Stephen Barber
