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Neither composer, of
course, was much known for piano composition
and in that shop-soiled critical pronouncement
of which we are all guilty "there
are no masterpieces here." That
phrase is however generally qualified
by a ‘but’ and it must be said that
Sticken does us a real service in uncovering
these lesser known examples of Martin
and Honegger’s inspirations (literally;
Martin was inspired by Dinu Lipatti
in the Preludes and by Segovia in Guitare,
Honegger by Bach in his tribute piece).
The recordings were made in radio studios,
I’m assuming for broadcast. Whether
they were or not the piano sound is
rather hard and there’s a distinct lack
of bloom and sympathetic acoustic. Good
for clarity, not so good for warmth.
Which isn’t entirely inappropriate because
some of these short pieces – some of
Honegger’s last all of 24 seconds –
do have a brittle whimsy about them:
but not all.
Martin’s Huit Préludes
pour le piano date from 1948. They open
sternly with a Grave full of space and
questing runs, embrace a quizzically
insistent Allegretto with a rather hypnotic
drive and expand to the insect like
scamper in the unusual Vivace. This
is a delicious piece of naughtiness.
The Andantino grazioso’s more elliptical
cast would have been well suited to
Lipatti’s penetrating sense of depth,
though once again Martin ensures that
there’s a real sense of motion and movement;
this is the spirit that animates the
whole cycle. But it’s the penultimate
Lento for which Martin reserves the
greatest weight, a six and a half minute
span of rather unsettled writing reaching
a peak of abstract tension. All this
is swept away by the driving high spirits
of the Vivace finale. Guitare
was written in 1933 and sent to Segovia.
I remember reading the guitarist’s autobiography
and laughing at his description of ‘My
Shelf of Forgotten Music’, a presumably
huge slush pile full of the discarded
votive offerings of two or three generations
of composers. Well, Martin’s Guitare
is doubtless there because Segovia never
even acknowledged receipt and the composer
very sensibly and practically arranged
it for piano. One can hear the Iberian
influence and also the chordal/single
note dichotomy that Martin explores
all too well and is duly present in
the arrangement. It’s a four-movement
work, about eight and a half minutes
long in this performance with the expected
indications of Prelude, Air, Pleinte
and Comme une gigue. It’s variously
plaintive and full of fresh air effectiveness.
He returns to the Spanishry forty years
later in the Fantasie sur des rhythms
flamenco, dance rhythms of brio in the
Rhumba but more engagingly cultivating
notable treble sonorities in the Soleares
third movement.
Honegger’s contribution
here is much slimmer. The Bach tribute
was written in 1932, using the familiar
BACH motif and spicing it with some
modernistic colour. He manages to evoke
Bach without really letting us in on
the act – the harmonic sophistication
is splendidly achieved. It was part
of his contribution to a musical supplement
of a music journal – Malipiero, Poulenc,
Roussel and Casella also contributed.
Le Cahier romand consists of five slivers
of pieces, each dedicated to a friend.
They all involve technical dexterities
and compositional enthusiasms – the
rich contrapuntalism of No. 3 and most
startling of all the pungent rhythmic
syncopations of No. 4 Rythmé
(aptly titled). Sept pièces brèves,
written slightly earlier, is cut from
the same kind of cloth. Concise, insistent
with a cosmopolitan pastoralism fully
furnished with harmonic spice these
pieces are a fine way to while away
seven unurgent minutes. Try the puckish
fourth, the glinting insistence of the
second (Vif) or the concentration of
the second slow movement, No. 5, or
the ebullient violence of the concluding
No. 7.
Though they may represent
only a small, relatively insignificant
component of Martin and Honegger’s creative
work these slight pieces are representative
of much of their aims and compositional
methodology. They may not often demand
to be played – but they are valuable
to know.
Jonathan Woolf
Klaus Sticken (piano) 