I recently reviewed an earlier volume
in Labor’s series ‘Music of Tribute’
(see review)
where the object of tribute was Villa-Lobos.
I said then that the concept was a very
interesting one and that it made for
a very stimulating CD. The same goes
for this volume, made up of keyboard
music by - or in tribute to – Domenico
Scarlatti.
The pianist here is
Viktoria Lakissova, who is a new name
to me. She was born in St. Petersburg,
studied at the Special School of Music
at the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory
and then at the Conservatory itself.
She later studied with Ekaterina Murina
and at the Hochschle für Musik
und Theater in Hamburg. She has won
her fair share of international piano
competitions. On the evidence of this
CD she is a decidedly promising young
pianist. She has clear articulation,
technical facility and musical perceptiveness.
While her performances of the Scarlatti
sonatas are not the very finest I have
ever heard on the modern piano – the
competition, after all, includes Horowitz
and Pletnev, to name but two – they
are far more than merely adequate. Nor
does she find too much to trouble her
in the considerable technical demands
in some of the other pieces, such as
those by Alkan, Lewenthal and Hamelin.
Sonatas by Scarlatti
are interleaved, as it were, with tributes
by other composers. The nature of the
‘tribute’ naturally varies a good deal.
Francaix’s characteristically witty
Hommage employs such Scarlatti
characteristics as the contrast of keys
and imitation between the hands. As
well as Scarlatti there are allusions
to Beethoven and Debussy, too. Still,
the Hommage was published
(in 1987) in a set called Promenade
d’un Musicologue Eclectique!
Manziarly’s Hommage is vivacious
piece full of Scarlatti-like effects,
its tonal writing spiced by occasional
unexpected harmonies.The piece by Steffens,
on the other hand, uses intervals of
a decidedly modern kind, and has a less
direct relationship to the Scarlatti
model, though it does adopt the binary
form that characterises the sonatas.
Kurtag’s 17 bars of music introduce
four changes of tempo and create the
illusion of a Scarlatti sonata that
has been passed through a kind of serialising,
compressing machine!
The Toccata alla
Scarlatti is, so far as I can remember,
the first composition by the pianist
Raymond Lewenthal which I have ever
encountered. It is a convincing piece
of pastiche with, unsurprisingly, plenty
of opportunities for bravura playing.
Marc-André Hamelin is, of course,
another who is far better known as a
pianist than as a composer. The full
title of his piece is Étude
No. VI, Essercizio per pianoforte
and it carries the subtitle ‘Omaggio
a Domenico Scarlatti’. Scarlatti, it
is worth remebering, used the word Essercizi
to refer to his keyboard compositions.There
is a recording of this piece by Hamelin
himself on the CD Kaleidescope (Hyperion),
which I haven’t heard. This particular
‘ommaggio’ is an absolute joy! I can’t
better the description of it by Eric
Salzman in his booklet notes for this
issue, where he describes it "as
a piece that Domenico might actually
have written, but which is constantly
interrupted by wrong notes, not to say
streams of wrong notes, à
la Maestro Jones" (Spike Jones,
that is!).
You will gather that
there is plenty of fun on this CD, as
well as some serious reflections – some
of the pieces are, indeed, mirrors held
up to specific earlier works – on the
wonderful keyboard compositions of Domenico
Scarlatti. I recommend it warmly.
Glyn Pursglove
Viktoria Lakissova (piano) 
