200 Years' Worth

Preludes, Fugues and Variations
Music of Bach, Beethoven, Franck and Rachmaninov
Frederick Moyer, Piano
JRI Records, J101

• Bach/David Moyer: "Herr Christ, der ein'ge Gottes-Sohn"
• Beethoven: Twelve Variations on a Russian Dance
• Franck/Bauer: Prelude, Fugue et Variation in b minor
• Rachmaninoff: Three Preludes from Op. 23: No. 2 in B-flat Major, No. 4 in D Major, No. 5 in g minor
• Bach/Busoni: Prelude and Fugue in D Major, BWV 532

***

Here's a fun recording from concert pianist Frederick Moyer. He has collected a recital of various pieces which conform to the basic forms of Franck's triptych: preludes, fugues or variations. For the preludes, we get three piano preludes from Rachmaninov's Opus 23 set, a transcription of Bach's organ chorale prelude Herr Christ, der ein'ge Gottes-Sohn, BWV 601, and Busoni's transcription of Bach's Prelude and Fugue in D Major, BWV 532; that piece gives us our fugue, along with Franck's Prelude, fugue et variation in b minor, which latter piece gives us a variation planform; this is followed by Beethoven's substantial Twelve Variations On a Russian Dance, WoO 71.

I confess I have too many recordings of both Ferrucio Busoni's transcriptions of Bach's organ works and of Rachmaninov's preludes as well. But there are relatively few transcriptions of Cesar Franck's organ works for piano, and this is the first I'm aware of that transcribes this particular piece. In any case this collection of pieces in a single recital makes an intriguing grouping, and a welcome addition to my collection.

The CD issues from the small, new-to-me label JRI Recordings, whose catalog exists almost entirely of recordings by this pianist. Regardless, the recording is excellent, quiet and fairly closely-miked. Mr. Moyer plays with a deft touch and a very deliberate manner. I did find a few of his phrasings a bit distracting, especially when the organ transcriptions essentially gave him more notes to play than he had fingers; his idiomatic interruption of melodic line to surmount these difficulties is expertly handled (that is, with the same confident deliberateness of the rest of the performances), but nonetheless seems always to catch me a bit off-guard.

Small potatoes. It's a fine performance of an interesting collection of pieces, well-recorded and played.

More Russian Winter

The Rachmaninov Vespers and All-Night Vigil, Op. 37
Tenebrae
Signum Classics, SIG CD045


***

I love the idea of a music blog as an avenue for discussions with other people about music. Because the web is so large, a substantial market can congeal for almost any niche thing, including perhaps not-quite-mainstream classical music. One of the great fringe benefits of this site for me has been some wonderful input from new friends who have found their way here. A month or so ago I was introduced to the baroque lutenist and composer Sylvius Leopold Weiss, and now I've been pointed toward a great English choral group of whom I'd not previously heard, Tenebrae.

Formed in 2001 by former King's Singer member Nigel Short, Tenebrae seeks to bring an intimate Renaissance sensibility to choral performance, even of more modern works. They are known for performing by candlelight, and they specialize in optimizing their performances for the acoustics in which they sing. As we've noted before, England generally, and London specifically, is practically overrun by top-shelf vocal groups, all fed and nourished by a collection of fantastic school and church choirs, making for a culture which seems to have reached a critical, self-sustaining mass. True to form, Tenebrae's members have come from some very impressive places: the Monteverdi Choir, the choirs of Westminster Abbey and Cathedral and King’s College, Cambridge, I Fagiolini, The Tallis Scholars, The Swingle Singers, The King’s Singers, Covent Garden and English National Opera.

I picked their recording of Rachmaninov's Vespers, both because I'm in a Rachmaninov mood lately and because I recently reviewed The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir's version of the same piece, so a contrast seemed inevitable. (The EPCC in that recording was led by yet another Londoner, the brilliant Paul Hillier.) And boy, it's a tough task to choose among them. Interpretively, the two choirs are coming from a similar sensibility, so that no identifiable slant of vision distinguishes one performance from the other. Tempos are similarly middling, and both choirs are fairly relaxed in their projection, not resorting to extreme dynamics to make their case; fortissimos are reserved for key moments. The Tenebrae recording is in a smaller acoustic, and there is a bit more closeness and intimacy here; I think the reverberation on Hillier's recording serves the piece very well, giving blend and mystery, though this is purely a personal preference (and not a consistent one: I generally like to hear as much detail as possible). I also find just a wee bit more polish in the Estonian solo voices, plus I fancy there is some indefinable Slavic resonance. But the Tenebrae recording is really excellent, and I'm eager to explore their catalog further.

Each new reading of a piece illuminates something not emphasized by others, giving us a fuller and deeper understanding of the score, and the Tenebrae recording is careful and thoughtful and a happy addition to my collection.

Spring Grass Under the Snow

Rachmaninov: Vespers (All-Night Vigil)
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Paul Hillier
Harmonia Mundi HMU807384
2005

***


Rachmaninov wrote his Vespers and All-Night Vigil in 1915. Scored for a cappella choir, it is a lodestone of lush, aching Russian music, musically accessible but harmonically rich and mystically profound. I have a very interesting recording of these settings from some years ago by the English all-male Choir of King's College, Cambridge under Stephen Cleobury, which is one of those old-recipe-made-with-new-ingredients kinda things. Very nice, but different. This present Harmonia Mundi recording sticks with the regular formula, using a mature mixed choir in an appropriately reverberant acoustic.

It's a cliché, I know, but either from weather or vastness or oppressive government or whatever, there is a sense in much Russian music of artistic expression coming from a place of great pain and difficulty, a pall that's almost despair but not quite. Rachmaninov is firmly, undeniably Russian in his bone marrow. He is sometimes criticized for being too musically conservative for his time, or too easily sentimental; I don't know that I buy those criticisms, but in any case there's almost no artifice to this setting. It would be hard to write simpler, more direct music for these resources than this. I too easily picture the remote, snow-swept steppes of Siberia when I listen to Rachmaninov (or maybe Stalingrad during the siege), and this choral setting gives us that ache in its most unadorned form. This is all the ache with the orchestration and almost all structure removed, like a Bodyworks exhibit where the flesh is jesused away and only the nerves remain.

(Rachmaninov requested that the Vespers' fifth movement be played at his funeral. It's not hard to see why. Like his piano Prelude in b minor Op. 32, No 10, this movement seems to tell us in mystical terms about the end of something in a way which brooks no rebuttal.)

Like other Russian choral music, this extended setting places great demands on the choir's bass section, and a choir's low-frequency performance has quite a bearing on how the piece comes off. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir from this recording, while not Russian, is close enough to pass as the real thing. I have a recording of the Vespers by the St. Petersburg Chamber Choir which makes quick work of these low tones; it sounds like either an anomaly in the vocal cords or a third testicle were required to get into the bass section of that choir. But barring these super-human feats, the EPCC pulls this score off as well as any non-Russian choir I've heard.

The recording is excellent. If you're not familiar with this piece, I urge you to make acquaintance. I know of no recording I would recommend as highly as this one.

Rachmaninov Preludes: Eldar Nebolsin

Rachmaninov: Preludes for Piano (complete)
Eldar Nebolsin, piano
Naxos 8.570327

This is Naxos's second release of Rachmaninov preludes, the first coming some years ago as part of a full survey of Rachmaninov's piano works by the splendid Turkish pianist, Idil Biret. This recent issue features young Uzbek pianist Eldar Nebolsin, a First Prize winner at the Sviatoslav Richter International Piano Composition in 2005.

In spite of rather pointedly looking backward in his compositional outlook, Rachmaninov's piano works--the concertos especially, but the Etudes-tableaux and Preludes as well--have become entrenched near the top of the standard repertoire, music which is engaging and feeling while being quite accessible to the listening public. These pieces range from darkly ebullient to quintessential Russian despondency. He is criticized at times for being overly sentimental, but he sets his tone splendidly and I always find his emotional content convincing. (The Prelude Op. 32, No. 10 in b minor sounds like somebody's tragic whole life's story in five minutes.)

His writing shows his almost savant-like command of the keyboard, with the full resources of the modern concert grand piano confidently brought into play. I find I can lose several hours on YouTube watching pianists trying to come to grips with the technical demands of this music (it doesn't help that Rachmaninov had the hands of a giant). (An aside: Telarc put out a couple releases a decade or so ago where Rachmaninov's own piano rolls were processed by Wayne Stahnke to play on a modern Bosendorfer reproducing piano. And the results are damn-near the very resurrection of Rachmaninov's corpse. In addition to being known as one of the greatest technical pianists who ever lived, these recordings give us a definitive interpretation.)

Mr. Nebolsin has the full measure of this music, well able to cope with the technical difficulties without drawing attention to his mastery thereof. Naxos has given him first rate natural sound, making for a recording of these pieces which will stand next to Ashkenazy's, one I will listen to repeatedly. I look forward to (presumably) upcoming further releases from this pianist.