Complete Scriabin Sonatas
It is now only three days from my first performance of the ten sonatas of Alexander Scriabin. This is a project that has occupied me for some time: I first played the fifth sonata in 1984, in the intervening years I learned eight more, and this year I studied the final one. I am not including the two early sonatas (without opus number) in performance; the concert will be long enough without them.
I am playing them in a single concert for a number of reasons: I think it would be a particularly interesting journey for the audience to hear these pieces in a single stretch; there is not quite enough music for two normal-length (about 90 minute) concerts, even if it makes one quite long one (two hours and about 15 minutes); and I’m not sure if someone has done this in the UK before (I’m sure someone must have in Russia, though).
I hope to repeat the performance next year in a few places including Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia and the US; details will follow once dates are confirmed.
For those interested, the forthcoming performance will take place at the Schott Recital Room, 48 Gt Marlborough St, London W1, and will start at 6pm.
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Pushkin House review
The May-June issue of International Piano carries this review:
Concert – Jonathan Powell at Pushkin House, London
Rachmaninoff Études tableaux op.33. Lyadov Barcarolle. Eiges Sonata no.2. Scriabin Sonata no.2. Conus Song without Words op.17. Mood Picture op.19 no.2. Regrets op.31 no.8. Blumenfeld Sonate-Fantaisie.
5 March 2009
Jonathan Powell turns up unknown composers as pigs dig up truffles, exposing unusual delicacies for the rest of us. His Russian recital in Pushkin House, a cosy, under-used chamber venue perched on the corner of a square in Bloomsbury, boasted a typically adventurous programme: Rachmaninoff’s Études tableaux op.33, works by Lyadov and Taneyev, the Second Sonatas of Eiges and Scriabin, three pieces by Conus and the Sonate-Fantaisie by Blumenfeld.
Before playing eight Études tableaux, not the published six, Powell explained that Rachmaninoff originally composed nine pieces, one of which was withdrawn and published as the sixth Étude of op.39; these were the others. With Powell punching out the bass and the piano offering rather a weak treble, they came across as particularly dark and stormy, making Lyadov’s Chopinesque Barcarolle an effective contrast, the delicacy of the cascading notes recalling the Musical Snuffbox that is all that one ever hears of Lyadov’s substantial piano output.
The Prelude in F major is not the only piece of Taneyev’s that has something of the pop-song about it; and all his piano music is so wonderfully crafted that one wonders why this supreme pianist did not write more for his instrument. Konstantin Eiges (1875–1950) was a Taneyev student and friend of Rachmaninoff and Medtner; the second of his two Sonate-Poemi, both single-movement works, opened in Rachmanoffian brooding, clouded with chromatic uncertainty, before ramping up a gear into a flowing, dramatic allegro moderato, the full textures growing more and more passionate, spinning off some of its energy in Scriabinesque trills – plainly an oeuvre to explore.
The Song without Words op.17, Mood Picture op.19 no.2, and Regrets op.31 no.8, of Georgy Conus (1862–1933), sitting halfway between Tchaikovsky and Scriabin, have an improvisatory freshness that evoke the composer at the keyboard, busily decorating his basic ideas. And the storming Sonate-Fantaisie, a three-movement, 15-minute span, made it plain that there’s much more to Felix Blumenfeld (1863–1931) than the left-hand study Simon Barere made famous: it offers a striking range of moods – from the heroic opening via the autumnal, folky lyricism of the slow movement to exhilarating roar of the finale, all delivered with sweep and panache in Powell’s seemingly effortless pianism.
MARTIN ANDERSON
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Reviews of Goldenweiser CD
My recording of Alexander Goldenweiser’s piano music has received some reviews.
When a Westerner thinks of Alexander Goldenweiser, it is usually as one of the revered figures of the Russian piano tradition. Born three years after the Franco-Prussian War, Goldenweiser lived to see the Berlin Wall put up. He studied piano with Pabst and Siloti and composition with Arensky, Tanayev, and Ippolitov-Ivanov. Twice director of the Moscow Conservatory, Goldenweiser enjoyed tremendous prestige as a teacher, mentoring such talents as Feinberg, Nikolayeva, Bashkirov, Ginzburg, Kabalevsky, Paperno, and Berman. Goldenweiser’s own refined piano-playing may be heard in Tchaikovsky and Grieg miniatures (APR 5661) and in the Scriabin concerto with Nicholai Golovanov (Boheme 908087). Unfortunately a larger, more representative collection in the BMG/Melodiya “Russian Piano School” compendium (74321251732) is no longer in print. It included the Second Rachmaninoff Suite for Two Pianos (dedicated to Goldenweiser) with Ginzburg, along with pieces by Tchaikovsky, Arensky, Borodin, Medtner, and one of Goldenweiser’s own pieces.
Now, a remarkable new Toccata disc offers an opportunity to hear something more substantial from Goldenweiser the composer. Jonathan Powell, a sensitive and enormously gifted British pianist, selected a varied program of works dating roughly from the early 1930s to the late 1950s. I confess to my share of skepticism when it comes to late-date discoveries of neglected composers. However, on the basis of the works recorded here, Goldenweiser seems to have had a highly developed creative identity, a great deal to say, and the technical wherewithal to say it extraordinarily well. Unmistakably Russian and occasionally reminiscent of Scriabin, these pieces nevertheless exhibit great variety of artistic expression and speak with a voice like no one else’s. Powell, an expert on fin-de-siècle and early-20th-century Russian piano music, suggests in his absorbing liner notes that Goldenweiser’s neglect may stem from anomalies in his creative career. First, he was extraordinarily modest and seldom spoke of his creative activity, even to his closest students. He began composing early and was all of 12 when his first piece was published. But around 1912 he abruptly broke off composing, only to resume after a 20-year hiatus. Though he continued to write until a few weeks before his death in 1961, most of his “second period” music wasn’t published until shortly before and immediately after his death.
Skazka (“tale” or “fairy tale”) is a gem of varied color and texture, lasting a little over seven minutes. It is reminiscent of the character genre favored by Medtner, though Goldenweiser’s Skazka is bracingly a 20th-century creation, without the nostalgia so often characteristic of Medtner and Rachmaninoff (both of whom, incidentally, were Goldenweiser’s classmates at conservatory.) The Sonata-Fantasia unfolds in a single anguished movement of formidable difficulty. Subtitled “Song of Sorrow,” it was written in the late 1950s as a memorial to Goldenweiser’s composer-pianist friend, Alexander Goedicke. Powell is more than equal to its virtuosic demands in a performance that is both heart-felt and compelling. To me the most interesting of the compositions recorded here is the huge cycle, Contrapuntal Sketches. Sketch is too modest a descriptor. The set consists of 24 fully developed, exquisitely crafted pieces in each of the major and minor keys. Unlike either the paired pieces of The Well-Tempered Clavier or Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues (which the Goldenweiser set pre-dates by 20 years), this cycle consists of one piece per key, in a repeating pattern of prelude, fugue, and canon. Goldenweiser’s imagination seems to catch fire within the confines of these polyphonic miniatures. In Powell’s sympathetic performance they emerge as a kaleidoscope of moods and affects, as concise in their imagery as they are lavishly idiomatic for the piano. Warmly recommended.
Patrick Rucker, Fanfare
This is from the All Music Guide.
Pianist Jonathan Powell, a former student of Goldenweiser’s student Sulamita Aronovsky, has decided to pick up Goldenweiser’s cudgel for him in recording Toccata Classics’ Alexander Goldenweiser: Piano Music, Vol. 1.
What is striking at the outset is that all of this music is first-rate from the first note. One might expect Goldenweiser, a student of Taneyev and close friend to Medtner, Rachmaninoff, and Scriabin who lived until 1961, to compose with success in a style decidedly already passé, in keeping with the tradition represented by his associates. In stark contrast to such expectation, there is nothing nostalgic or reactionary about Goldenweiser’s music; it represents a unique and individual line of development from the established tradition to which he belonged and sounds totally fresh and new within such context. [...]
Most striking is the Contrapuntal Studies, Op. 12 (1932), a collection of very short pieces in all the major and minor keys and thought to be the first such set produced by a Russian composer. These demonstrate Goldenweiser’s canonic mastery and pianistic brilliance, and yet they share some common ground with Busoni and the work of another Goldenweiser pupil, Samuel Feinberg. [...]
Powell makes an excellent case for it; his playing is clean and respectful, generously expressive in the more romantically styled pieces, yet lithe, tart, and succinct in the Contrapuntal Sketches. Hopefully, this series will go far beyond the Vol. 1 indicated here; with the appetite whipped up with the highly engaging and illuminating statement made by Goldenweiser’s music, it makes one hungry for the full course.
While this can be found in Sound Stage
Few of us had any idea this giant of keyboard pedagogy was also a composer, though late in his life he recorded a piano trio of his own with the violinist Leonid Kogan and the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. With its customary resourcefulness, Toccata Classics has given us a stunning revelation of Goldenweiser’s creative side, which is marked by high levels of imaginativeness and individuality. [...]
Jonathan Powell, who studied with Goldenweiser’s pupil Sulamita Aronovsky, plays this music with deep understanding and obvious commitment, and has provided exceptional annotation which amounts to a concise history of Russian piano music, and then some. As the lifelike sound is another decided plus, this Volume One should create a ready market for the implied follow-ups.
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Footage from Slovakia
I was recently invited, at the last minute, to participate in the BabieLeto Festival in Levoca, Slovakia. I replaced the South African pianist Petronel Malan. Levoca itself is a fascinating walled mediaeval town, for more history and photos see here. The festival director David Conway made some films from the concerts (that also included the brilliant young Polish Tomasz Kamieniak) that can be found on YouTube by clicking here. Included are movements from Alkan’s Symphonie, and three sonatas by John White. All the usual caveats surrounding live footage apply!
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New CD and concerts
CONCERT AND CD LAUNCH
15 July: Bauer & Hieber (ex Schott-UE)
48 Gt Marlborough St, London W1F 7BB, 6.30pm
Jonathan Powell, piano
Tickets on door £8/5 concessions
Scriabin: Sonata No. 10
Medtner: Prologue, Op.1, No.1; Skazka, Op. 9, No. 2; Canzona serenata, Op. 38, No. 5; Skazka Op. 35, No. 4
Tournemire: Cloches de Châteauneuf-du-Faou, Op. 62
Fauré: Nocturne No. 13
Alkan: Symphonie pour piano seul
Jonathan Powell will present this programme at the Festival Radio France Montpellier on 17 July ‒ so this concert gives London audiences an excellent chance to hear these pieces. After the concert, which will last a little over an hour, Toccata Classics will launch a CD, Alexander Goldenweiser: Piano Music Volume One, the first collaboration between the label and Powell, who will be happy to sign copies.
Goldenweiser was a founder of the Russian pianistic tradition, a friend of Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Tolstoy and Gorky as well as a prolific composer. The CD features the first recordings of three of his most substantial solo piano works: the Sonata Fantasia (written in memory of Alexander Goedicke), the Skazka, and the 24 Contrapuntal Sketches, perhaps the first Russian polyphonic cycle for piano containing pieces in all major and minor keys. Powell will perform a small selection of the sketches after the main concert. Wine will be served.
Copies of the CD will be on sale at the special price of £10 (usually £13.50) so don’t miss the opportunity to pick up a bargain! Toccata Classics will have other Russian rarities available for sale, also at the special price of £10.
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Concert on Saturday
Just to draw attention to the concert on Saturday:
21 June: Bauer & Hieber (ex Schott-UE), 48 Gt Marlborough St, London W1F 7BB, 6.30pm
with Jørgen Hald Nielsen
Rachmaninoff: Suite no.2, Symphonic Dances
Gnattali: Brasiliana no.8
Bentzon: Propostae novae
More news soon on a CD release!
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One more report from Vienna …
Von Daniel Wagner
Wer war Joseph Marx? Komponist, Pianist, Musikgelehrter, potenzieller Präsidentschaftskandidat und Rezensent der “Wiener Zeitung”. Es bräuchte viele Definitionen zur Darstellung dieser Integrationsfigur der österreichischen usikgeschichte. Nüchtern betrachtet, muss man ihn anders beschreiben: Marx, der beinahe Vergessene. Damit es nicht so weit kommt, gründete eine Truppe engagierter Musikliebhaber 2006 die Joseph-Marx-Gesellschaft. Einige erfolgreiche CD-Projekte später fand nun der erste konzertante Gesellschaftsabend in Wien statt. Der britische Pianist Jonathan Powell, Verfechter vergangener Größen, präsentierte im alten Rathaus einen Strauß Marx’scher Klavierstücke, umgeben von Zeitgenossen wie Marx-Freund Franz Schmidt und Schreker-Schüler Felix Petyrek. Beherzt kämpfte sich Powell durch den tonalen, weit mehr als spätromantischen Dschungel aus lyrischen “Schmetterlingsgeschichten”, brillanten “Arabesken” oder modern-jazzigen “Albumblättern”. Mit Johannes Maria Staud und einer Richard-Strauss-Bearbeitung gelang zwar ein wenig harmonisches Finale. Doch es bleibt die Freude auf die Veröffentlichung der Marx’schen Zuckerln.
Wiener Zeitung, Dienstag, 29. Jänner 2008
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Recent concerts
Here is a review from my concert in Vienna (28 January):
British pianist Jonathan Powell shines with late Romantic piano music
Vienna – it needed an English pianist to come to teach the Austrians a lesson in their own recent music history. Jonathan Powell is known for his recordings of rare piano music. He discovered, for example, the piano music of Sorabji (1892–1988), a British pianist of Parsi origin, whose four-hour-long work Opus Clavicembalisticum is almost forgotten today. Since Sorabji was an ardent admirer of Joseph Marx (1882–1964) and Richard Strauss, the programme played by Powell in the Baroque Hall of the Altes Rathaus consisted primarily of works by these three composers.
Emotions
Of particular interest were the piano works by Joseph Marx, which remain partly unpublished and were re-discovered by Powell. Marx’s rich late-Romanticism is still impressive. The great formal freedom and harmonies streaked with colours mark the swelling and waning of his emotions in pieces with lyrical titles such as Albumblatt (Album Leaf), Von alter Sehnsucht (About an Old Longing), Nachtstück (Nocturne) or Herbstlegende (Autumn Legend). And this music is especially impressive when its emotional qualities were realised with so much empathy and great technical bravura by Jonathan Powell. These qualities were also in evidence in the Romance by Franz Schmidt, Ernst Ludwig Uray’s Melodisch-harmonischer Studie and Felix Petyrek’s Variations and Fugue.
A Hothouse of Sensations
And it was with astonishment one realised that Powell’s bravura could even be increased in the Schlußszene of Richard Strauss’ Salome, reworked into a pianistic bonfire by Sorabji. And with respect one noticed that Johannes Maria Staud, with whom Powell has established artistic contact, could also thrive in this steam bath of emotions with his Peras: Musik für Klavier, with its subtle becoming and decaying of single tones.
Peter Vujica, Der Standard (Vienna), 31 January 2008 (Peter Vujica is a respected writer and composer, and actually studied with Joseph Marx). I am indebted to Gijs van der Meijden and Vasilios Tsokis for their great help in providing this translation.
A review of my concert in London (25 January) can be found here – it also mentions the rumours that Kissin was present.
In Moscow (3 February) I played in a small private hall situated in the Palace where the Jurgenson publishing house worked in the pre-Revolutionary era. The concert took place in a room in a part of the building where the Jurgenson family lived, and where Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Scriabin (all of whose music was published by Jurgenson). I believe the Jurgenson family bought back this part of the building and established a music society there, and so I met many of the current members of the family. Also in the audience were composer Igor Rekhin, opera director Neil McGowan (both of whom helped organise the event), pianist Victor Bunin (one of Feinberg’s last pupils), conductor Vladislav Bulakhov, composer, writer and professor of the Moscow Conservatoire Fyodor Sofronov, and photographer Sveta Grekova, among others. It was also a delight to meet and work with mezzo-soprano Ksenia Vyaznikova who took part in the concert – we performed Grusha the Gypsy, an explosive excerpt from a recent opera by Rodion Shchedrin.
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Another recording available
I have just made available a concert recording of my own Sonata VI; it can be found on the Recordings page. I played this piece in London on November 1st last year. A score will soon be available from the Bmic.
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More changes of date
My concert in London (Bauer & Hieber) is now on the 25th January, due to the recital on the 24th in Durham. Many thanks for your understanding. Tickets will be on sale on the door for the London concert which starts at 6.30pm.
I have recently returned from the south of France where I recorded Granados’ Goyescas, and several of the so-called piezas goyescas, many of which are unrecorded to my knowledge.
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