Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952)
Elegie in D flat for cello and piano, Op.46 (1936 arr of piano original, 1931)
Three Pieces for violin and piano (1911, 1935)
Suite for violin and piano, Op.63 (1946)
Trois Morceaux for cello and piano, Op.25 (1924)
Violin Sonata in G minor, Op.26 (1922)
Cristian Persinaru (violin), Paul Fox (cello), Nils Franke (piano)
rec. 2002/04, Parry Hall, Eton College, Windsor, UK
BRILLIANT CLASSICS 96586 [74]
The violin and piano works in Brilliant’s disc are, in fact, ex-Apex (review), in which form Rob Barnett gave them a sympathetic listen when they were released a couple of decades or so ago. Coupling them there with Rachmaninov’s Morceaux de Salon Op.6 was in many ways an appropriate conjunction. Both men were exiles and both espoused a ripe late-Romanticism, though Rachmaninov was to project an altogether more bracing and ambivalent conception than Bortkiewicz, the disappointments of whose career make for sad reading.
For this reissue Brilliant instead includes two cello works. The first is the Elegie of 1936, based on a piano original of 1931, that nostalgically and quite deliberately quotes from Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto and that exudes a spirit of earnest lyricism. The Trois Morceaux (1924) are nostalgic pieces, the first a slow romance, the second a pastiche Gavotte with serio-comic elements, and the third a genial and again somewhat comic Waltz. Cellist Paul Fox plays these with perceptive tonal reserves and generous phrasing.
The Three Pieces for violin and piano are also based on piano originals, a process of recycling that might suggest that Bortkiewicz was keen to give them renewed life in another form. The most attractive is the Berceuse, a romantic effusion, but the final one is a sultry dance that is probably the more distinctive.
In 1946 he wrote the Suite, Op.63 which he dedicated to Willi Boskovsky, concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic. Its original title of ‘Four Pieces’ is probably a more realistic view of it, as it includes a quiet generic dance, a waltz, and an ardent meditation with a faster B section rich in aching nostalgia. The final piece is a bit of salon Spanishry, splendidly dispatched by Cristian Persinaru and Nils Franke. This leaves the 1922 Violin Sonata, a big three-movement work. The opening movement presents the dilemma Bortkiewicz faced between effusive Russian extroversion and more domestic lures. Essentially late nineteenth century in thematic invention, it does generate some flair though this alternates with a salon imperative that is almost Raff-like in places. Expressive lyricism is a given and melancholy too, though in the central movement one feels a brief agitato shudder. The finale is in some ways the most intriguing movement, with its rampant moods and Schumannesque reverie-reflection at the end.
Ateş Orga puts up a strong case for the composer in his notes and the recording is certainly right at you. Probably heard at his best on bigger canvasses, the chamber works, such as have survived (there’s a lost Cello Sonata for example), offer rather more compact and – truth to tell – variable pleasures.
Jonathan Woolf
