Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978)
Piano Concerto in D flat major, Op. 38 (1936)
Masquerade Suite (1944, arr. for solo piano by Alexander Dolukhanian, 1952)
Concerto-Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra in D flat major (1967)
Iyad Sughayer (piano)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Andrew Litton
rec. 2021, BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, Wales
BIS BIS-2586 SACD [76]
In recent years I have had a sense that Khachaturian’s star has been on the wane – the piano concerto last appeared at the BBC Proms in 1950! The repertoire that remains ‘active’ seems to be reducing down to the pops excerpts from Gayaneh, Spartacus and Masquerade with the Violin Concerto the most enduringly popular of the larger-scale works. But his works are attractive and enjoyable and worthy of attention. For sure Khachaturian was a product of the age and place that he was born. The reality is that his style and approach chimed with the requirements of the Soviet State and perhaps his legacy is in some way defined by his association with it. Which is all the more reason to welcome this new disc by such fine artists caught in BIS’s dependably sophisticated SACD sound especially when the disc has been produced by Andrew Keener. The main work is the Piano Concerto in D flat major and this is the second SACD recording I have reviewed – in 2015 I enjoyed the performance by Xiayin Wang with Peter Oundjian and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra on Chandos
(review). Here Andrew Litton is reliably responsive as are the skilled BBC National Orchestra of Wales accompanying Iyad Sughayer. Sughayer has already released a solo recital of Khachaturian’s piano works on BIS which I have not heard so this disc of the two concertante works is a logical companion to the earlier collection. There is the same combination of works on a 2015 CPO disc and another from way back in 1995 on Naxos although neither of those earlier discs offers an extra work. The coupling on Wang/Oundjian’s Chandos disc was a fine version of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.2.
Richard Whitehouse in the liner to this BIS disc makes the valid point that although Khachaturian was a late starter as a composer, most of his famous works were written in the earlier part of his career. Once he had been rehabilitated post the Zhdanov Decree in 1948 he undertook a range of administrative roles within the Soviet Musical hierarchy and as a consequence his compositional output tailed off. However in the 1960’s he did write a series of Concerto-Rhapsodies; one each for cello, violin and piano. The piano concerto dates from 1936 right at the end of his studies in Moscow with Myaskovsky. It is cast in the standard three movement fast-slow-fast form. It also displays all the hallmarks that were to prove to be Khachaturian fingerprints; sinuous folk-influenced melodies, exciting muscular rhythms and a gaudy almost crude use of orchestral colour. There is a valid case to argue that this music benefits from a style of performance that maximises those qualities by making a virtue out of what might be perceived as a shortcoming – Khachaturian is rarely a subtle composer but often an exciting one. So I find my reaction to this new disc almost identical to that I had back in 2016 for Wang. In terms of execution, playing by all parties, beautifully detailed and clear engineering this is beyond reproach. However, the slightly controlled, well mannered performance somehow draws the attention more towards the lack of sophistication in the actual writing. For evidence of just what a fine player Iyad Sughayer is, look no further than the cadenza towards the end of the concerto’s first movement which he plays with all the clarity, precision and virtuosity one could wish for but compared to some older-school players such as Yakov Flier accompanied by Kirill Kondrashin and the Moscow PO on Melodiya the difference is marked. Of course, many listeners might well prefer their Khachaturian reined-in and in that case this will be the disc for you. For BIS, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales has recorded quite a substantial quantity of Russian and Soviet music from Glazunov to Shostakovich to great effect. I must admit that although I cannot fault the technical quality and refinement of the playing on this disc, the lack of bite and personality in the playing surprised me. Andrew Litton is a conductor and musician whose work I admire so again I was expecting something rather more engaged and fervent than here.
The Andante con anima slow movement receives a beautiful and poised performance. The quirk of this section of the work is the inclusion in the score of an orchestral flexatone. Whitehouse states; “it is often put forward that Khachaturian .... intended the part to be played on a musical saw”. Every other performance I know – including the old Soviet performances which must have been made with the composer’s awareness if not oversight – uses a flexatone which produces a significantly different sound. This is because the bending metal is hit by a pair of rubber hammers to initiate the sound as opposed to the use of a bow for the musical saw. The musical saw player on this new disc - Su-a Lee - is given a liner credit and the instrument is given considerable prominence in the orchestral balance. Make no mistake Su-a Lee produces a beautifully ethereal unworldly sound which sounds closer to an early electronic instrument rather than anything percussive. Perhaps it is because I am used to the individual sound of the hammer flexatone that is balanced within the orchestra as a slightly strange acoustic halo around the violin melody it doubles but it seems to me that that is more interesting than the beautiful but blandly pure musical saw. The closing Allegro brillante offers more cleanly articulate and impressive playing which is notably different from say Constantine Orbelian with Neeme Jarvi and the SNO on Chandos who are more muscular and overtly athletic than this new disc. Sughayer’s nimble and neat style is much closer to that of Wang although she is a full minute swifter than Sughayer in this movement alone. If this approach appeals more than the direct occasionally brutal style of Flier with Kondrashin, then I would opt for Wang rather than Sughayer simply because she is even more fleet and brilliant than this new disc fine though it is.
Separating the two concertante works is a piano version of the ‘standard’ five movement orchestral suite Masquerade. The original work was written as incidental music to the 1941 play by Lermontov with the piano reduction prepared by Alexander Dolukhanian. This suite appears to have been recorded in part or full in this arrangement at least a couple of times before. Online biographical detail on Dolukhanian is sparse to the point of non-existence. This suite embodies Khachaturian’s ability to write memorable attractive melodies and certainly Sughayer presents this suite very effectively and sympathetically with Dolukhanian transferring the original musical material to the keyboard with considerable skill. The music itself is more aligned with Sughayer’s preference for very clean and articulate playing which is again beautifully caught by the BIS engineering. My only observation with this arrangement is that it does seek to add anything to this work – it remains a technically skilled if rather dutiful transcription. Likewise Sughayer’s playing is a model of good taste and considerable ability but just a little lacking in character. I dipped into Anthony Goldstone’s performance of the suite via online streaming. Taking the Galop as an example; Goldstone is more riotous (less well recorded!) more anarchic. Sughayer’s playing is certainly the technical equal of Goldstone but just all a bit polite.
The three Concerto-Rhapsodies have never achieved the popularity of the earlier concertos. Probably because – simply put – they do not combine the virtues of melody, rhythm and orchestral colour of the earlier works. Khachaturian seems less successful as a composer when he is trying to be an abstract ‘serious’ composer rather than a colourful illustrative one. The Concerto-Rhapsody for piano was completed in 1967 and first performed in 1968 with Nikolai Petrov playing the solo part. There is a recording by Petrov under Khachaturian [an effective conductor of his own music] that dates from 1973 which one must assume is a pretty good touchstone of how the work should be played even allowing for the technical limitations of this actual recording. Petrov is a good minute and a half faster than Sughayer; 21 minutes as opposed to 22.5 and the playing both by soloist and orchestra verges on the harsh/brutal throughout. A feature of these works is that they play continuously albeit with clearly defined sections. Usefully this new BIS disc separates these sections into individual tracks. The work opens with an extended and rather manic piano solo that runs for the best part of two minutes. Listeners familiar with the “Dr Phibes” organ solo in Khachaturian’s Symphony No.3 will know what to expect. To be honest this is a rather vacuous and hollow section that needs a sense of total wild abandon to have any impact at all. When the orchestra enters powerfully the BIS engineering is predictably impressive yet detailed with the harp and additional tuned percussion caught perfectly. As a whole this new recording is a lot more sophisticated than the older Soviet-sourced one. The soloist has another extended solo passage around the five minute mark and again the contrast between Petrov’s brute force and Sughayer’s clean and controlled style is very evident. Sughayer is effective in the second section which is the “slow movement” of the work with the detail of the orchestration where harp, pizzicatti and piano passage-work overlaps clearer than I have heard elsewhere. The third section – allegro vivace – is the most reminiscent of the younger balletic composer with playful rhythms and folk-inspired melodies. This style works well in this new recording, in the older Petrov the tempo is more driven and the closer harsher recording gives the music a sense of machismo display that this new version avoids – actually I like both performances here. Certainly the BBC NOW is encouraged by Andrew Litton to play with a lithe energy that makes the USSR Radio SO under Khachaturian sound rather unrelenting. This section’s energy subsides into another – relatively - reflective piano solo. However the cascading piano runs of the opening solo begin to build again under slow moving blocks of orchestral texture for the work’s closing section marked feroce. The composer seems to be recalling elements of the preceding sections. There is a distinct sense that this is a rather laboured ending musically which Petrov and Khachaturian minimise by driving hard into the closing bars. Sughayer and Litton clearly play every note quite perfectly but do not convince the listener that these pages are anything but rather empty.
I suspect a listener’s response to this disc with depend on their personal preference for the basic style of playing this music. From my perspective, it does require that unwritten primary colour and unabashed crudeness to make the greatest visceral impact. This new disc has many virtues from the excellence of the playing by all involved to the expected brilliance of the engineering and production. Perhaps because I grew up hearing this music in Soviet-era performances that sound and style is imprinted on me for swathes of Russian/Soviet repertoire. That being the case I find the finesse on offer here to be counter-productive so by that measure alone this is a rare BIS ‘miss’.
Nick Barnard
Previous review:
Jim Westhead (October 2022)
Published: November 4, 2022
