Northscapes
Ieva Jokubaviciute (piano)
rec. 5-7 September 2019 Sono Luminus Studios
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
SONO LUMINUS DSL-92251 [54:50]
When I was offered this recording to review, I assumed that what I was
getting was an intriguing collection whose principal interest lay in how
various contemporary composers are approaching writing for the piano. It is
that, but much more. It is, in fact, a superb recital disc from a quite
exceptionally talented pianist. I didn’t find all of the music on this
recording to my taste but I was consistently won over by the fabulous talents
of Jokubaviciute. The representative of her agency described her in an
email introducing this recording as “one hell of a pianist”. For once, such
a comment is an understatement!
The first thing that grabbed my attention listening to the opening track,
one of two pieces included by Norwegian composer Lasse Thoresen, apart from
the quality of the music, was the diversity of tone colour Jokubaviciute
draws from the piano. If you think of contemporary piano as grey serialism,
think again. Thoresen is one of the composers on this disc who is new to
me, and on this basis I will be exploring his work more. That said, I have
more than a suspicion that a good part of my enthusiasm is down to the
interpretation. Of course, all new music needs to be well performed but
sometimes a great performance can elevate a work beyond itself.
A case in point is the pieces included here by Bent Sorensen. I doubt I
would have persevered with them but for Jokubaviciute’s seductively
persuasive way with them. Inspired by Goethe’s Mignon, and also by the
subsequent artistic tradition associated with Mignon, these are pieces that
could have easily been written in the 1890s, but unlike similar pieces,
such as those by Lera Auerbach, I found they lacked the strange,
disconcerting dream like oddness that the Russian composer brings to her
music. I would love to hear this pianist play Auerbach!
The theme of this recording is Northscapes, though the liner notes point
out that this doesn’t just mean evocations of northern scenery. As those
same notes put it rather aptly, this collection is concerned with
landscape, soundscape and mindscape. All of the composers featured hail
from Northern Europe and some, like the Icelandic composer Anna
Thorvaldsdottir, produce suitably craggy music to summon up images of
bleak, snow covered terrain. Thorvaldsdottir has a psychological dimension
to her music which makes it much much more than just a postcard of a
natural scene. In terms of soundscape, what Thorvaldsdottir creates using a
prepared piano is remarkable. It is relatively rare to hear a piece for
prepared piano that isn’t just about the way the piano has been prepared.
This piece is about Thorvaldsdottir’s imagination, not the technical means
required to realise it. Jokubaviciute delivers a suitably intense and
focused rendition of this powerful piece.
The music of Kaija Saariaho couldn’t be further from the savagery of the
Finnish landscape so vividly portrayed by her compatriots from Sibelius
onwards. If Thorvaldsdottir is able to translate her expansive symphonic
canvases to the piano with the aid of some tacks and a thimble, then it is
even more impressive how well Saariaho is able to reproduce her sensuous,
diaphanous orchestral writing on a conventional piano. What emerges sounds
like a logic progression from the piano music of Debussy, if one that goes
down a very different path than either Messiaen or Ligeti. In
Jokubaviciute’s hands it is spellbinding.
The description “post romantic” normally makes my heart sink as I brace
myself for music in the style of someone else but less well done. The
Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė happily confounded my worst
expectations even if her Fantasia seems to start pretty much where Scriabin
left off. It helps that Jokubaviciute’s playing here is simply sensational.
It is probably the best thing on a recording stuffed to the gills with good
things.
I found her playing so ravishing that I was persuaded to overlook my usual
antipathy toward Vasks where she makes a rather run of the mill piece sound
thrilling.
A quick word of praise is needed for her label, Sono Luminus, for
committing to such an enterprising release and for the wonderfully
realistic sound they have provided. It is almost certainly the
best-sounding piano disc I have heard this year.
Looking over this review, I feel I have rather damned the music with faint
praise. Lots of it would be delightful to discover in any performance. But
it is hard to escape the fact that this is the performer’s album and,
regardless of how you feel about the repertoire, it is a recording that all
lovers of piano playing will need to hear. I know it is greedy, given that
this record has only just come out, but I can’t wait to hear what she does
next.
David McDade
Contents:
Lasse THORESEN
Invocation of Pristine Light, Op 52 No 1 (2014) [7:55]
Anna THORVALDSDOTTIR
Scape (2011) [7:42]
Bent SORENSEN
12 Nocturnes (2000-2014):
I Mignon – Und die Sonne geht Unter [4:08]
III Nachtlicher Fluss [1:16]
VII Mitternacht mit Mignon [2:46]
Kaija SAARIAHO
Prelude (2007) [6:58]
Raminta ŠERKŠNYTĖ
Fantasia (1997) [10:18]
Pēteris VASKS
Music for a Summer Evening (2009) [5:57]
Lasse THORESEN
Invocation of Rising Air, Op 52 No 2 (2014) [7:44]
