Marx’s Romantic
Piano Concerto was written between 1919
and 1920 and is a generously warm-hearted
work that sports a fecund optimism.
It opens in surging Straussian mid-stream
style and pitches the soloist into battle
from the start. The see-saw between
gorgeous extrovert Romanticism and moments
of fugitive introspective lyricism is
best exemplified between the orchestral
writing, which can sound very
Straussian, and the piano writing, which
hews closer to Rachmaninov. The plasticity
of those melody lines however is unarguably
lissom and attractive and there’s also
a distinctly Delian patina to some of
the writing as well – all these three
influences, if such they were, proving
heady but not at all incompatible.
When Marx really fires
his engine the ebullient romanticism-cum-impressionistic
touches fuse with bravura technical
demands to coruscating effect. These
are the immediate impressions of the
first movement; the second is altogether
a more backward and nostalgic affair,
a Pastorale with nevertheless plenty
of pianistic finery to titillate the
ear and some plush, firm, romantic chording.
Some of the writing for piano filigree
and supple wind tracery is exquisite
and the strings, subdued and warm, add
to the feeling of cool ravishment.
Later in his life,
especially in his Second War Serenade,
Sinfonia and Partita, Marx’s nostalgia
became decidedly parochial but here
nothing could be less like that. The
opening of the finale cannily mirrors
the opening of the first movement and
Marx bedecks it with a loping wind theme,
and some puckish orchestral material.
He doesn’t stint the noble-heroic cantilever
though and the brief undercutting of
the piano’s vaunting bravura is another
pleasing sign of his control over cause
and effect.
Coupled with the Concerto
is Castelli Romani in its first
commercial recording. It was written
a decade after the Romantic. Slimmed
down from the bumptiously orchestrated
earlier work this can sound rather too
Respighi-like for its own good but it’s
nevertheless a fascinating listen. The
"Roman" motifs have an MGM
shiver to them and the piano writing
veers from incipient heroism to impressionist
musing to a refined late nineteenth
century salon style; try the strange,
almost absent minded salon interlude
towards the end of the first movement.
All the while the colours are heady
and in the central panel we have some
RVW-like string and wind writing and
yet more of Rachmaninov’s influence;
when the strings scintillate however
the piano dapples. There’s some trace
of Iberia in the finale and a really
free-spirited dance. You’ll find a popular
Neapolitan song, as well - the sort
that Gigli could have spun - as well
as a mandolin, solo violin and all sorts
of local colour and incident, topped
by a heady conclusion.
The performances are
warm and technically fine, drawing great
richness from the orchestral writing
and with Lively living up to
his name in the decorative skittishness
that co-exists with the virtuoso-pianistics
elsewhere. With fine notes on board,
this is a wild-card entry for lovers
of rich brew and ebullient musical cross-pollination.
Jonathan Woolf
see
also review by Rob Barnett
David Lively (piano) 
