Anton RUBINSTEIN (1829-1894)
Piano Music (1852-1894)
Sérénade russe in B minor (c.1879) [6:01]
Two Melodies Op.3 (1852) [7:01]
Souvenir de Dresde Op.118 (1894) [37:21]
Romance and Impromptu Op.26 (1854/58) [6:17]
Akrostichon No.1 Op.37 (c.1856) [18:42]
Joseph Banowetz (piano)
rec. March and November 2008, Skywalker Sound, Marin County, CA
NAXOS 8.570942 [75:21]
Anton RUBINSTEIN (1829-1894)
Piano Music (1871-1890)
Theme and Variations Op.88 (1871) [47:01]
Akrostichon No.2 Op.114 (1890) [26:43]
Joseph Banowetz (piano)
rec. March and November 2008, Skywalker Sound, Marin County, CA
NAXOS 8.570941 [73:44]
There are a number of first recorded performances in these two discs. Critics
are always wary of repeating the ‘premiere recording’ pronouncements made
by record companies, lest they receive angry communications from disgruntled
readers who have hoarded some obscure item for decades. The kind of thing
I do, in fact. But on this occasion I shall merely state that everything on
the 1852-1894 disc is claimed to be a première recording except the Op.3 Melodies
(one is Rubinstein’s Greatest Hit) and one of the Souvenir de Dresde set has
been recorded before, the sixth piece, the Polonaise. Both works on the companion
disc are also apparently making their first ever appearance on disc. Note
the ‘apparently’; old habits die hard.
Joseph Banowetz has made something of a study of the executant-composer Anton
Rubinstein’s works. There’s a sheaf of things on Marco Polo. So he’s ideally
placed to take on these solo works and present them knowledgeably and with
discriminating musicianship. The Sérénade russe is a pleasing if rather generic
morceaux, and acts as an entrée for the Melody in F major, the aforementioned
Hit. The Op.118 Souvenir de Dresde was written in the last year of Rubinstein’s
life. Each of the six pieces has features of interest. The first has florid
virtuosity, a Lisztian panache, whilst the second is an Appassionata with
stormy, if repetitious quasi-Brahmsian heat. The third, by contrast, a Novelette,
doesn’t try too hard and is doubly attractive as a result. It evokes the baroque
and harpsichord sonorities with wit but could have done with being truncated.
Rubinstein’s besetting fault is repetition. At one point I thought the Nocturne
– the fifth of the set – was going to break out into Chopinesque contrary
motion octaves. The Polonaise, the one that has been recorded, is again attractive
but at six and a half minutes, too long for its material.
The Romance and Impromptu are neatly contrasted – warm salon lyricism and
then playful energy. Then we have Akrostichon No.1 which, in English, spells
out the name of ‘Laura’, a crush of Rubinstein’s back in c.1856. This quintet
of charming little intimate sketches is dance saturated and Mendelssohnian-light.
The second disc focuses on the big Theme and Variations of 1871, three-quarters
of an hour in length in this performance, made up of a theme and twelve variations,
the last of which is a big ten minute Allegro moderato. Starting with gaunt
left hand octaves the theme itself soon opens out into Rubinsteinian grandiloquence,
romantic, stentorian, richly chorded. The variations that follow are varied
and various. Some manage to sing in the right hand over constantly, unrelentingly
arpeggiated chords [No.1] whilst others propound rolled chords and march themes,
as does No.3. We dip into the minor for the fifth variation before perking
up half way through, and also hear Rubinstein evoke Schumann in the rather
lovely seventh variation. This however, it seems to me, would work rather
better as a miniature in its own right. Being embedded into the superstructure
of what is, in essence, in any case, a Schumannesque work unbalances it. So
too, really, does the ensuing variation which sounds like an organ transcription,
heroically grand and suitably over-long. By now Rubinstein’s material is losing
focus and as if to reinforce the point the final variation is simply too grandiloquent
and massive – with the inevitable fugato included – to reconcile the heterogeneous
material that has preceded it. It’s something of a heroic failure.
The coupling is the second set of Akrostichon, written in 1871. These playful
salon effusions are full of dance patterns – note the increasingly virtuosic
Mazurka – and also have folkloric inflexions too.
Banowetz has been well served by the engineering at Skywalker Sound, Marin
County, a venue used quite often by Naxos. The notes are excellent. The first
reviewed disc has greater variety but the second is the more ambitious. And
of course there is that ‘premiere recording’ status to tempt you.
Jonathan Woolf
Banowetz has made something of a study of the executant-composer Anton Rubinstein
and is ideally placed to take on these works and present them knowledgeably
and with discriminating musicianship.