Search - Walter Piston, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, David Amos :: Gould: Dance Variations / Piston: Concerto for Two Pianos / Copland: Music for Two Pianos

A Few notes on this recording

Slobberer | Astoria, NY United States | 02/08/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Since there is a paucity of information on this recording, I will try and help fill in the blanks.
This is an album of performances recorded in 1989, issued in 1990 featuring American works by the duo-pianists Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas.
Track listings are as follows:
Morton Gould: Dance Variations for Two Pianos & Orchestra (1953)
1. Chaconne
2. Arabesques; Gavotte,; Pavane; Polka; Quadrille; Minuet; Waltz; Can-Can
3. Pas de Deux (Tango)
4. TarantellaWalter Piston: Concerto for Two Pianos & Orchestra (1958)
(World Premiere Recording)
5. Allegro
6. Adagio
7. Con SpiritoThe above feature the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, with David Amos conducting.Aaron Copland:
8. Danzon Cubana
From Rodeo (arr by Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale)
9. Hoedown
10. Saturday Night Waltz
11. El Salon Mexico (arr. by Leonard Bernstein)This is a Digital recording."

Enjoyable if unsubstantial Gould, fine work by Piston despit

Discophage | France | 12/10/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I'd been listening recently to some American Piano Concertos written between the early 1950s and early `60s, among which Kirchner's (1953 Leon Kirchner Historic Recordings), Sessions' (1956 Sessions: Concerto for piano; Thorne: Concerto for piano No3), Mennin's (1958 Mennin: Symphony No.3/Piano Concerto/Symphony No.7) and Persichetti's (1962 Persichetti: Symphony No. 5 / Piano Concerto) and wanted to assess if there was, beyond all the stylistic differences, a distinctly American approach to composing for the medium, at least in those years. Well, maybe so, but I'm not over yet with that research. Anyway, I thought of pulling out of my shelves this CD, published in 1990, which hadn't left a big mark in my memory; I mainly wanted to give a new try to Piston's 2-piano Concerto from 1958 (there's an early Concertino, but Piston never wrote a Piano Concerto proper). I'd also recently heard, enjoyed and reviewed a number of Symphonies by this composer (see Walter Piston: Symphony No. 5; Symphony No. 7; Symphony No. 8 and Kurka/Mennin/Piston: Orchestral Works), so that was an additional incentive. To Piston the disc pairs Morton Gould's Dance Variations for Two Pianos (from 1953) - and I've also recently heard, enjoyed and reviewed a nice Louisville survey of the composer, see The Louisville Orchestra First Edition Series: Morton Gould (2-CD set) - and versions for two pianos of some of Aaron Copland's most famous popular warhorses.



With no sneering intention, I'd say that Piston's Concerto for Two Pianos (1958) presents us with the best of Stravinsky. The indebtness to the Concerto for Two Solo Pianos and Piano Concerto is, to my ears, obvious, at least in the first two movements. There is the same kind of muscularity, rhythmic vigor, snap, interplay between two pianos, as well as the typical trills. The music attains genuine grandeur in the middle Adagio, in which, although the music remains tonal, I even hear whiffs of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, especially in the passage starting at 2:26, with long, stern lyrical lines on the violins, underpinning whimsical and snappy interplay between the two pianos. The motoric and muscular dynamism of the finale faintly brings Bartok's Piano Concertos to mind (a pairing with Bartok's own Concerto for two Pianos would be a nice idea). It is an enjoyable work in the medium. This was apparently the world premiere recording, and it is incredible that this piece, possibly not an essential masterpiece but a fine wok nonetheless by a composer recognized as one of America's foremost should have waited so long.



Morton Gould's Dance Variations for Two Pianos (1953) is a substantial piece in length, clocking nearly 25 minutes, if not in character, but it has all the hallmarks of its composer at his most brilliant and humoresque: the colorful orchestration, the syncopated cool Jazzy rhythms turning to Latin-American dance then into a take-off of a Bach chorale-prelude (in the first movement, "Chaconne"), the tongue-in-cheek humor in the second movement, with what I hear as brash take-offs from Ravel's Valse (3:25), then Offenbach's famous Can-Can (4:03) (which incidentally wasn't a Can-Can when first composed, for Orpheus in the Underworld, as that dance form did not yet exist). I also hear traces of Prokofiev (3rd Piano Concerto, Romeo & Juliet) both in the Gavotte from the second movement and in the colors of the sweet and soft Pas de Deux (Tango), and there is a boisterous and foot-lifting finale (Tarantella) starting like Ravel's Concerto in G but with a more sardonic, scherzo orchestration and march tunes. Nothing essential here but lots of fun.



I don't warm up very much to Copland's more "popular" style, which I find goes too much for the easy clap, and likewise I find the 2 piano arrangements of excerpts of Rodeo (by the famous duet Gold & Fizdale) and of El Salon Mexico (by no less than the young Leonard Bernstein) so unsubstantial as to be wearisome. Only in the simplicity and obsessive reiterations of Danzon Cubana - almost a harbinger of minimalism - did I find rather more enjoyment in this 2-piano version than in its orchestral guise; incidentally, it is the only one that was originally written for these instruments. The sound of the Copland pieces is more recessed than in the concertos.



The Gould and Piston works pieces been reissued paired with Quincy Porter's Concerto Concertante for 2 pianos by the same artists - a Pulitzer Prize winner and a much better coupling, even if it entails the loss of Copland's Danzon Cubana (American Music for Two Pianos and Orchestra).



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