We need more pianists
prepared to venture out into unfashionable
regions. American-born Kirsten Johnson
is one such pianist: valiant, having
the acumen to choose her revivals wisely
and with both sensitivity and fire in
her playing www.kirstenjohnsonpiano.com.
Having already recorded the piano music
of Goetz and Schulz-Beuthen (GMCD7282
and GMCD7277 review)
for Guild she now returns to Albanian
music. Her first disc from this neglected
genre is titled Këngë
on Guild GMCD7257 review
. Johnson was a pupil of Ronald Smith,
a noted champion of another neglected
composer, Alkan. Johnson has made four
tours of Albania and her concert in
Tirana was a televised gala event. Her
interest in the piano music of Albania
has been pursued with a pilgrim’s seriousness
extending to interviewing many of the
composers represented on these two collections.
Rooted in the folk
music and traditions of Albania these
pieces owe their existence to the communist
regime of Enver Hoxha (1944-1985). They
represent part of the response to the
demand for music borne of the soil,
not elitist but open to appreciation
by farm worker, shopkeeper, road worker
and factory hand. Kirsten Johnson points
out that Rapsodi "is a musical
representation of the epic, a narrative
folk-song which tells the story of an
historic event ... a central part of
Albania's folk tradition." I am
indebted to her programme notes which
you can read in full on the Guild
website
Çesk Zadeja
studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory
in Moscow (1951-56) and wrote works
for orchestra, choir and ballet, as
well as a piano concerto and smaller
instrumental pieces. He achieved the
highest honour bestowed on a musician
in Albania by being given the title
'Artist i popullit' (Artist of the People).
Tokkata dates from 1952 is tense and
peckingly insistent yet delicately attentive
to shifts in dynamic. His Theme and
Variations in E minor has dignity of
a village cortege, scintillating flair,
is elusively romantic and finally benignly
triumphant.
Feim Ibrahimi studied
with Tish Daija at Tirana Conservatory.
He is said to have used folk elements
to cover his real intentions as a composer.
He wrote works for orchestra, ballet
and choir, as well as two piano concerti
and smaller piano pieces. The Vals (Waltz)
softly enfolds dissonance in a piece
that suggests the flickering of goldfish
while Valle për piano (Dance for
piano) is much more robust, ruddy-cheeked
and heavy-footed.
Tonin Harapi also
studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory
in Moscow. His output includes operas,
works for choir and orchestra, songs,
a string quartet and a piano concerto,
as well as many pieces for solo piano.
The three movement Sonatina follows
the style-sheet with the traits of almost
Mozartian innocence, gentleness and
folk traits fully engaged. The Këngë
mbrëmje is kindly and impressionistic
- one of the most sheerly beautiful
pieces in the collection. The 1966 Temë
me variacione (Theme and Variations)
combines the quality of classical poise
and rustic innocence.
A. Komnino's
Këngë polifonike (Polyphonic
Song) is a guileless innocent song and
is followed by the same composer’s Song
- a piece that is reminiscent of a gliding
chiming Chopin waltz.
As Kirsten Johnson
points out Daija’s little Vals
(Waltz) is reminiscent of Satie’s famous
Gymnopédie but cast in wispy
nostalgia. Tish Daija is credited with
writing the first Albanian string quartet
(1953) and the first Albanian ballet,
Halili dhe Hajrija (Halili and Hajrija,
1963).
Baresha e Vogël
(The Little Shepherdess) by Jani
Papadhimitri is another lightly
dancing folk-inspired piece - part musicbox
and part whispered confidence.
Alberto Paparisto’s
Scherzo is elfin and flickeringly humorous
and there’s also humour to be heard
in the folksy-grotesque Val.
As with so many of
his gifted contemporaries Kozma Lara
studied composition at Moscow’s
Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He has written
five piano concertos, four rhapsodies
for piano and orchestra, six piano sonatas,
four ballades, four albums of piano
pieces, one set of theme and variations
(1965) and eight piano preludes (1997).
Ballade no. 2 (1983) is a grand affair
much taken up with bells and having
the feel of Rachmaninov’s Etudes-Tableaux.
The short Piano Sonata No. 2 is gruff,
flowingly romantic and with that same
sense of grandeur encountered in the
Ballade.
Ramadan Sokoli is
a much respected Albanian musicologist.
His Rapsodi Shqiptare nr. 2 (1961) is
discursive and exotic and here is played
with a sense of sinuous fantasy.
Following a concert
I gave in Tirana, the folk band at the
restaurant afterwards began to play
The Snowdrop (1949) by Simon Gjoni.
This song is a national favourite, and
the entire table of eminent musicians,
including the head of the Music Faculty
as well as government representatives,
stopped eating and chatting and joined
in full throttle to all of the verses
of the song, with tears in their eyes.
This passion comes through in Rapsodi
Shqiptare nr. 2, an arrangement of two
folk-like melodies.
Simon Gjoni studied
conducting in Prague (1952-1958) and
then worked at Tirana’s Opera and Ballet
Theatre. He was a founder of the Albanian
Radio-Television Symphony Orchestra.
He wrote over two hundred songs, pieces
for solo instruments, cantatas and major
orchestral works (Four Albanian Symphonic
Dances, the Symphonic Suite 'Albania
Celebrates' and the Symphony in E-flat
major). His hypnotically tolling Prelude
in E minor (1965) is both melancholic
and soulful. Things end on a sparkling
upbeat with the folk-dance inflected
Tokata (1968).
Folksy-romantic Albanian
piano music from the 1960s scintillatingly
revived and handsomely documented by
Kirsten Johnson. Now let’s hear her
in the piano music of other ex-communist
Balkan states. Surely there should also
be an opportunity to hear her in the
piano concertos of Lara, Zadeja and
Harapi.
Rob Barnett
Kirsten Johnson (piano) 
