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Mayer's Octagon a fine Piano Concerto - Rudhyar's piano work

Discophage | France | 10/19/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Though William Mayer is far from little represented on disc (better than Dane Rudhyar for instance) and despite the fact that his Agee-based opera "A Death in the Family" has attained a significant succes, being named the best new work of its time for 1983, he doesn't seem to have established a position of great visibility among the American composers of his generation; this is the first time I encounter his name and music. Nonetheless, I've enjoyed this well-filled disc (47' of Mayer + 19' of Rudhyar = 65+ minutes) enough to make me want to explore more of his works. Octagon (recorded shortly after its premiere and first published on LP by Turnabout, then paired with Barber's First Symphony) is an 8-movement Piano Concerto composed in 1971. In many ways it evokes Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, but with more of a sense of humor. It starts with a pastoral phrase played by the flute, immediately interrupted by a brutal piano onslaught, followed by a brass theme sounding a little like the forbidding, Godly utterances in Messiaen's Turangalila-Symphony, and this very much establishes the principle on which the movement, and to a certain extent the whole work is built: interruptions. Except for fugitive attempts of the pastoral theme to return, and a delicate, almost dance-like passage of Schoenbergian contour around 5:00, the first movement is dynamic and muscular. The kinetic energy of the Scherzo and Toccata (3rd and 4th movements), parts of the Fantasia (5th movement) and the finale also brings Prokofiev or Ravel (finale of the Concerto in G-major) to mind, and even Peter Mennin (see Mennin: Symphony No.3/Piano Concerto/Symphony No.7). The sense of humor is particularly in evidence in the 6th movement, "Clangor", a kind of clownesque scherzo with sounds sounding like a symphony of kazoos. The orchestration contributes much to one's enjoyment: it is always colorful, witty and ear-catching, with great aetheral subtlety in the 7th movement "Points and Lights", making it sound like "music of the spheres". But Mayer is also an eclectic: witness the surprisingly Romantic 2nd movement, integral with the wailing violin against pensive horn countermelody (track 2, 3:15), and the appeased and pastoral pages at 2:30 into the finale. Maybe that's why, despite the great appeal of his music, Mayer didn't really attain a position of prominence among American composers active in the sixties and seventies: too much eclecticism, too much appeal.



The Sonata is an earlier work (1960), and I find it less distinctive. The two first movements start in an almost improvisatory fashion and in a dreamy and pensive mood, soon becoming more agitated, then (in the 1st movement) receding back to or (in the second) alternating with the initial, wandering atmosphere. The finale starts with a very Ruggles-like series of solemn block chords increasing in harmonic density, then develops as a light-footed, hop-scotching scherzo (the composer describes it as a jig), and ends in a more muscular coda. The composition is at times somewhat reminiscent of Copland's or Berg's Sonatas or of Ruggles' piano music, but more whimsically mercurial. Despite its intricate counterpoint, it breaks no grounds in contemporary piano writing and is hardly indispensable, but it makes a fine complement to Octagon. This recording was first published, somewhere before 1970, on CRI 198 with Sessions' 1st Sonata played by Robert Helps (now on Sessions: Piano Sonatas/From My Diary).



Somehow, given the paucity of CDs of his music, I had thought that the music of Dane Rudhyar was a recent, and somewhat fringe rediscovery. Rudhyar - born Daniel Chennevière in France in 1895, but established in the United States since 1916 - was one of the early American ultra-modernists, part of a circle of influences that included Cowell and Ruggles. But no, a check on old Schwann catalogs shows that his piano music was already represented by various LPs, including this 1969 recording by William Masselos (originally paired on CRI 247 with Ruth Crawford's Preludes and Study in Mixed Accents by Jozsef Bloch) and another on the CRI catalog by Marcia Mikulak (part of which is now conveniently paired with the Kronos Quartet's recording of Rudhyar's two late String Quartets "Advent" and "Crisis and Overcoming" on Dane Rudhyar: Advent; Crisis and Overcoming; Transmutation). In fact Masselos was instrumental in the rediscovery of Rudhyar in the late 40s and 1950s, making an early recording of Granites for the MGM label. Still, Rudhyar remains far better represented on this site by his numerous books on astrology and mysticism than by his music.



Indeed, Rudhyar's music cannot be dissociated from his mysticism (see chapter 6 of Carol Oja's Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s), but one doesn't need to be a mystic to appreciate it. His piano compositions are massive, granitic works, a Scriabin with less mystery and more granitic power. One hears where Ruggles comes from and one can also hear similitudes with the piano music of Ernest Bloch (there are even some oriental-sounding melismatas in the first Paean). Unfortunately the sound of Masselos' piano is somewhat distant (and the piano not perfectly tuned), robbing the pieces of some of their impact (the Mayer recordings are fine). The disc's presentation is also wanting: you will not know that there are actually Three Peans (and Masselos doesn't help, as he plays them without break) and Five Granites - and the titles of the individual movements are quite telling: "With condensed strength and majesty", "With vibrant serenity", "With triumphan exultation", "Epic and resonant"... The recent collection by Stephen Schleiermacher on Hat Art (not yet available in the US, but you can find it on this site's sister companies in Europe) is a preferable introduction to Rudhyar's piano music: it is more complete, the sound has much more presence and Schleiermacher's more deliberate, massive and grandiose approach suits the music well - and still, Schleiermacher's "sharp and light" 3rd Granite is far sharper than Masselos'.



So this is mainly for William Mayer. And for a fine tribute to William Masselos, try and find Tribute to Ives, Satie, Brahms, Schumann.



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