Edvard Grieg: Piano Music Vol. 2

The prolific piano works of the master composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) have been issued by the Naxos label in many volumes recorded by Einar Steen-Nøkleberg at the Norwegian State Academy of Music in Oslo with this August 1993 session yielding 70 minutes of works based on folk music traditions in the composer's home country.

There was great interest among many European composers in utilizing these resources, with Antonin Dvokrak and Bedrich Smetana particularly coming to mind with their work with Czech folk music, just as one prominent example, and this is a reflection of a growing nationalism arising in that part of the world, including the unification of such countries as Germany and Italy, not to mention the increasing desire of the Polish people to reestablish their nation.

Grieg tended to be best known for his "small form" work as opposed to larger-scale piano sonatas and concertos or orchestral works and the liner notes intriguingly quote from his letters regarding his popularity with audiences, but also the difficult reviews from critics.  The notes also point out the melodic bases for Norwegian folk music and the emphasis on harmony and rhythm which makes the composer's music particularly distinctive and appealing.  

In fact, it is remarked that Grieg was especially insistent regarding the importance of rhythm in works that were influenced by his country's dance traditions, while it was also noted that "harmony is at the heart of his work" with the master writing "the realm of harmony, has always been my dream world" and that there was a mystery to the tie between his sense of harmony and the folk songs that inspired him.  There are more than 45 such pieces and dances on this record, including two improvisations based on them nd two shorter works, as well.

It is said that his work was not particularly technically challenging, but that his compositions were very widely played and enjoyed, despite the lack of critical acclaim.  It is easy to hear why with this album, which is beautifully played and recorded, and is especially enjoyable in these challenging and difficult times.

Alexander Scriabin: Mazurkas (Complete)

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) was one of the many remarkable Russian musicians and composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, creating, as the empire was in rapid decline and revolution in the near future, some of the greatest music of the era.  He was the son of a pianist and became a virtuoso on the instrument receiving, just barely past his teens, the Gold Medal, the highest honor of the famed Moscow Conservatory.

Later, he taught at the institution for several years before leaving to focus solely on writing and performing, including spending six years in western Europe and touring America in 1906.  He became fascinated by mystic teachings and abandoned religion to delve deeply into esoteric philosophy.  While Scriabin wrote a few symphonies, a pair of tone poems and some other pieces, he is best know for composing more than 200 works for the piano.

He wrote 23 mazurkas, the name coming from a fast-tempo Polish folk dance genre, and these date from 1888 to 1903 and these are redolent with beautiful melodies, strong emotion and, even as the liner notes that the young composer was under the spell of Frederic Chopin and Robert Schumann, it adds that there is a distinctive characteristic of "poetic improvisation, full of magic and charm" and that, as the pieces became more complex and with greater feeling and atmosphere, Scriabin demonstrated the marks of a mature creator.

The pianist for this 1995 recording issued four years later by Naxos is Beatrice Long, a Taiwanese artist who teaches at the Brooklyn Conservatory for the campus there of the City University of New York, and her excellent playing is beautifully recorded.  Her rendering of these amazing short pieces has lately been a tonic for tense and troubled times and anyone seeking such a balm could benefit from listening to this excellent recording.

Frederic Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated!

This Hyperion Records recording of three dozen variations by Frederic Rzewski, who died this past June at 83 years, based on Chilean composer Sergio Ortega's 1969 piece, ¡El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido! is a fascinating excursion into what Rzewski wrote came from a realization that "there was no reason why the most difficult and complex formal structures" in so-called classical piano music "could not be expressed in a form which could be understood by a wide variety of listeners."  Also motivated by what he referred to as "a crisis in theory, not only of music but in many different fields, including science and politics," Rzewski wanted, in "the absence of a general theory to explain phenomena and guide behavior," to develop his work so that "I explored form in which existing musical languages could be brought together."

Ortega's work was a merging of classical and popular forms, including the use of traditional Chilean folk instruments, in service of a left-wing movement under the Unidad Popular banner and Rzewski developed his version six years later.  It contains a theme with 36 measures followed by that number of variations, with the latter divided into six groups, so that there are six cycles consisting of six stagees involving what the composer called "simple events," as well as rhythms, melodies, counterpoints, harmonies and combinations of those five.

As formal as the structure is, and there is a place or the performer to improvise after the sixth cycle, which performer Marc-André Hamelin does wonderfully, the untutored listener only has to appreciate the variety of melodic content, other musical material, and, especially, the dramatic differences in dynamics rather than understand the form.  The last 16 minutes is comprised the last two of Rzewski's quartet of North American Ballads, which built on Bach's chorale preludes and American spiritual and blues influences and the results are fascinating and beautiful.

Felix Mendelssohn: Complete Piano Music

Why the great Felix Mendelssohn has not been featured here before is an unfortunate oversight because, despite his tragically brief life, he amassed an incredible body of work, so we'll make up for lost time by highlighting this amazing six-disc box set issued by the remarkable Nimbus Records comprising all of the music written for piano by this sublime composer.

Performed by the brilliant Martin Jones, who has recorded an enormous amount for the label, the recordings entail over six hours and it has never been a problem to sit down for a work day at the computer and listen to this uniformly excellent music all the way through or over a couple of days.  Especially during these troubled times, when a respite is often needed to refresh the mind, listening to Mendelssohn's diverse array of piano works is a necessary and appreciated balm.

More impressive is that much of this work was done while the composer was a teen, including his sonatas, which as the liners note, hardly sound like they were juvenile works.  The beautiful preludes and fugues were produced during his late teens through late twenties.  At twenty, Mendelssohn visited Wales and three fantasies came out of that, including a remarkble one in F-sharp minor.

His best known piano pieces include the Rondo Capriccioso, the Variations Sérieuses, and the Songs Without Words, the latter intended for those to play at home in their parlor and often thought of as "piano fodder for the multitude," but highly popular when performing music was common in many households long before, of course, the phonograph, radio and television.  "Sweet Remembrance," the first of those songs without words, has great personal meaning as it was the march used for my own wedding nearly a quarter century ago.