The title “Woman at the New Piano” indicates the pianist, Nadia
Shpachenko, but the composers are all men. This is a compendium of American
music by male writers from the year 2013, mostly for solo piano. As you’d
expect for such a yearbook-style compendium, there are some hits, some
near-hits, a few misses and a whole lot of stylistic diversity.
Let’s start with the youngest, most approachable and most
unfortunately-named composer here: Adam Schoenberg. Doomed to always be the
second-most-famous A. Schoenberg, Adam couldn’t be further removed from his
namesake’s shadow. His
Picture Etudes, each based on famous
painters, are catchy, witty and apt. “Three Pierrots” catches the clownish
spirit of the Albert Bloch original, which shows the Pierrots
dancing. “Miró’s World” is a bit jazzy, a bit silly and a whole lot
anarchic. Think of the Miró on the cover of Brubeck’s
Time Further
Out. The last two works are longer, including an impressionist
tone-picture depicting Van Gogh and very much in the style of Debussy,
Séverac or Pierné.
Schoenberg is very clear about the purpose of his two-piano piece
Bounce: “I knew that this work would be inspired by my first child.
It is a rhythmic, groove-oriented piece that is meant to be fun! ... It is
by far the most innocent and happy work I’ve ever written.”
At the other end of the emotional spectrum is James Matheson’s
Cretic
Variations, a fourteen-minute epic series of variations on the
long-short-long spoken rhythm. It’s a
tour de force. The chords and
harmonies sometimes remind me strongly of Brahms and Prokofiev, while the
breadth and scope inevitably call to mind Bach’s Chaconne. Despite those
echoes, it’s still a very original success. Even further “out there” is Tom
Flaherty’s piece
Airdancing, which requires a toy piano and
electronics. The creepy opening, and the spindly, percussive sound of the
toy piano, may put you in mind of a horror film.
Flaherty also contributes a punnishly-titled
Part Suite-a
(Partita-suite…get it?) with movements like a “Passacaglialude” and a
“Lullabande”. The first bars will scare anybody with a strong aversion to
music that’s “too modern”, but I have a hard time imagining anybody will
dislike the tortured nocturne that is the “Lullabande”. Rounding out the
disc is composer Peter Yates, whose five
Finger Songs are
miniatures that range from a rather dry take on the blues to two tracks
which sound like contemporary updates of Debussy. “Mysterious Dawn” sounds
like a
Prelude or
Image written by a
21
st-century conservatory teacher, while “All Better” is an
academized version of “Golliwog’s Cakewalk”. If this sounds like faint
praise, I’m afraid I am not a fan of the style.
One can never tell if a world premiere recording is definitive, but Nadia
Shpachenko plays excellently through the whole album. The composers love
her, too: Matheson says, of
Cretic Variations, every note was
“inspired directly by the brilliance, bravado, subtlety, poetry,
explosiveness and restraint of Nadia Shpachenko.” Most of the music here was
dedicated to her, although
Bounce is for the composer’s newborn
son.
Also, and I don’t know if this is relevant, the production of this CD
seems to have been a lot of fun. Tom Flaherty’s website is charmingly silly,
and so are all the photographs in the booklet, like the one where pianist
and composers sit underneath a “NO PLAYING” sign, arms folded, wearing their
unhappiest faces. There are also some very silly allusions to 2012’s Mayan
apocalypse, which I won’t dignify with a critical discussion.
If there’s a downside to this release, it’s that we might start expecting
a new one every year. Nadia Shpachenko has done heroic work here, and the
composers provide stimulating listening. I will be returning with special
interest to the works by Matheson and Schoenberg. Adam Schoenberg has an
orchestral recording coming soon; I don’t know what’s on it, but I’d guess
his
American Symphony and a commission which has been described as
a 21
st-century
Pictures at an Exhibition. I can’t wait
to hear it.
Brian Reinhart
