Piano Music from an Important 20th-Century American Composer
J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 05/02/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"George Rochberg (1918-2005) was initially a serialist/atonalist before he came to a post-romantic style (best represented in his Third String Quartet) after the death of his teenage son in the 1960s. The music on this disc, all for solo piano, is written mostly in his somewhat more difficult style but one hears things Rochbergian no matter what style the composer is writing in. Apparently Naxos is bringing out a series comprising all of Rochberg's piano music played by Evan Hirsch, and this one is No. 2. The first CD contained two-piano music played by Hirsch and his wife, Sally Pinkas; it was lauded here at Amazon and although I didn't review it -- there are already excellent reviews by Robin Friedman and Discophage Rochberg: Piano Music, Vol. 1 - Circles of Fire for Two Pianos -- I was very much taken by it. My admiration for Rochberg's music goes back to recordings of his Third Quartet Rochberg: String Quartets Nos. 3-6, his Caprice Variations for solo violin Rochberg: Caprice Variations, and the wonderful Violin Concerto in both its shortened version Stravinsky: Violin Concerto / Rochberg: Violin Concerto / Stern / Previn and in its original form Rochberg: Violin Concerto. I also like the symphonies on Naxos, e.g., George Rochberg: Symphony No. 1.
Volumes Nos. 1 & 2 of the piano music were originally issued on the smaller Gasparo label, still available but at higher price than in the Naxos versions, and were appreciated when they came out. It is to Naxos' credit that they got the rights to reissue them and that they plan to add three more CDs in which Hirsch completes his traversal of Rochberg's piano oeuvre.
The music on this disc was written mostly in the '40s and '50s. The Twelve Bagatelles (1952) are serial music. It can be said, though, that they are not forbidding nor difficult to comprehend aurally. They range in mood from dramatic (No. 1) to conversational (No. 5) to joky (No. 12) to satirical (No. 6) to authoritarian (No. 9, which, in his excellent notes, Evan Hirsch calls 'The Word of God'). There are a march, a waltz and a cha-cha. None of these pieces lasts much over a minute -- the whole set requires only fourteen minutes -- and none outstays its welcome. I'd not heard them before, but they really grabbed me. I suppose I have favorites, like No. 12 or No. 5 (a soliloquy of palpable tenderness), but all repay close hearings. A wonderful set played with verve and understanding by Hirsch.
The Three Elegiac Pieces (1945-1995) are larger in form, the set lasting 22+ minutes. They also vary more in compositional style. No. 1 (1947, rev. 1998) illustrates a simply fairy tale: 'Once upon a time/There was a king and a queen/The queen died/And the story ended.' Its tenderness and lyrical melodies are both restrained and heart-wrenching; its B section is a Coplandesque funeral march. No. 2 (1945, rev.1998) was inspired by a poem written by the composer's son Paul: 'The clock turns/and casts up the minutes of life. ... I breathe and deny for now/The fate that is no end/But circular.' Whole tone progressions have a prominent part in the piece. The tone is musing, almost despairing. No. 3 (1998) was written at the end of Rochberg's compositional life; indeed it is the last piano music he wrote. The work of an older man facing his own mortality, it is anguished, dissonant, brooding. Its epigraph is lines from King Lear: '...but I am bound/Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears/Do scald like molten lead.' Taken together, these are evocative, powerful works worthy of being better known.
Sonata Seria (1948-1998) has an interesting history. It was written in the mid-1940s as a dense, chromatic neo-classical three-movement work. It was significantly recast in the 1950s. But in 1998 the composer virtually restored it to its original form and it was published. The first movement is a fairly classically constructed sonata-allegro with clear motivic elements but with modern harmonic relationships, e.g. it moves from C major/minor to a predominately G-ish area to D before returning to C major. The second movement is a two-voice canon which provides an area of smoothness and repose between the two angular outer movements. The finale is an agitated three-voice fugue marked 'Giocoso ma non troppo', itself something of a joke because there is little jocose about this increasingly angular and furious music. Minor thirds, notably absent from the first two movements, are a major feature of the movement. Sonata Seria is a major accomplishment both in tightness of construction and in conveyance of an unrelentingly serious mood. Hirsch's playing is sensational here.
One looks forward to further issues in this series. I particularly look forward to hearing Rochberg's early (1941) Variations on an Original Theme, his Book of Contrapuntal Pieces for Keyboard Instruments, and his 1976 Carnival Music, but actually I'm eager to hear all he wrote for the piano.
Scott Morrison"
George Rochberg's Piano Music on Naxos -- 2
Robin Friedman | Washington, D.C. United States | 05/21/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The American Classics series of the budget-priced Naxos label offers an outstanding way to get to know American art music. Naxos is in the process of releasing five CDs of the complete piano music of George Rochberg (1918 -- 2005), a composer I have come to love through earlier CDs in the American classics series. This, the second CD of the Rochberg piano series, is a reissue of an earlier CD on the Gasparo label performed by pianist Evan Hirsch, a specialist in Rochberg's music. The earlier CD, also a reissue of a Gasparo CD, featured Hirsch and his wife, Sally Pinkas, performing Rochberg's late, highly metaphysical work for two pianos, "Circles of Fire." On this CD, Hirsch performs three compositions spanning Rochberg's long career as a composer. Hirsch also wrote the highly informative performance notes for the album. My good Amazon friend, Dr Scott Morrison, has written a wonderfully detailed and enthusiastic review of this CD. My thoughts follow.
The CD opens with Rochberg's "Twelve Bagatelles" dating from 1952. The composer was always conscious of his musical predecessors, and these little works show the influence of Beethoven and Schoenberg. Together with his sonatas and variations, Beethoven composed several sets of bagatelles or "trifles", including two sets during his final compositional period. Rochberg follows in Beethoven's path. Rochberg's Bagatelles also owe a great deal to Schoenberg, as he writes in the atonal, twelve-tone and musically concentrated style developed by this pioneering 20th Century composer. (Rochberg would later make a sharp break with serialism.) Rochberg's bagatelles range in length from about 30 seconds to just in excess of two minutes and exhibit a variety of emotional moods from the introspective and sad to the jocose. There are several short dances and marches in the set. The pieces are so short that their serialism does not put much of a strain on the listener. The highpoints of this set are the three somewhat extended and introspective bagatelles marked "Quasi parlando" (no. 5), "Teneramente e liricamente" (no. 7) and "Intenso, con un sentimento di destino". (no. 9)
Rochberg frequently would revise and rework his compositions over the course of many years. The first two of his "Three Elegaic Pieces" were composed in the 1940s and revised in the late 1990's when Rochberg was a very different composer. The last of the three elegies dates from 1998 and is Rochberg's final composition for the piano. The elegies make a beautiful, meditative, and highly varied set. Each of the three pieces has a romantic cast, and the mood for each work is set by a short verse which Rochberg appends to his score. The first elegy is sad and, for the most part, reserved, with the introductory verse speaking sparely of the death of a queen. The second short and melancholy elegy is prefaced by a quotation from the composer's son Paul who died in his 20s. The poem speaks of the inevitability of death and of the circular nature of time. The final, late elegy begins with a text from Shakespeare's King Lear. It is craggy, heavily chorded, and of a resigned character.
The final work on this CD, the three-movement Sonata Seria, also occupied Rochberg for a lengthy period. Originally composed in 1948, Rochberg had second thoughts and revised the work heavily in the 1950s. Then, in the late 1990's Rochberg had third thoughts and decided he liked his original version of the piece better after all. He went back to the original work of 1948 with modest edits. As he left it, the Sonata Seria, is a tough, granitic work of modernism which moves somewhere between a tonal and an atonal musical language. The sonata opens with a virtuosic difficult movement which contrasts a rapid, percussive main theme with a more lyrical response, in the manner of a classical sonata. The second movement is a sad and lyrical two-part canon while the third movement combines the counterpoint of the middle movement with the emotional character of the opening. It consists of a three-part fugue which begins and ends severely while surrounding a gentler middle section. This is a tough-minded challenging modern sonata.
This CD is well-recorded. Hirsch obviously knows and understands Rochberg's music. Congratulations to Hirsch and to Naxos for making Rochberg's piano music accessible. I am looking forward to the further releases in the series.
Robin Friedman"
Track Listings (18) - Disc #1