Nikolai Kapustin: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 5, Op. 72

by Karl Nehring

Also includes: Concerto for 2 Pianos and Percussion, Op. 104; Sinfonietta for Piano Four Hands, Op. 49. Frank Dupree, piano; Dominik Beykirch, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin;  Adrian Brendle, piano; Meinhard “Obi” Jenne, drumset; Franz Bach, percussion. Capriccio C5495

Those who have followed Classical Candor for any length of time will recall that we have occasionally slipped in a review of a jazz album (most recently here), generally with the justification that some forms of jazz can be viewed as a kind of chamber music, and thus not that completely different in kind from then forms of music that we have come to lump together under the term “classical.” There are of course accepted “classical” compositions that have an undeniable connection to jazz, the most notable being Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. But recently the music of the Ukrainian-born, Russian-trained composer and pianist Nikolai Kapustin (1937-2020) has begun to command attention primarily because of its masterly fusion of jazz and classical styles. Kapustin was an accomplished pianist who was classically trained in both performance and composition, but his real musical passion was jazz. As a result, he poured his energy into composing music that is classical in form but has much the same feel as improvised jazz – not an easy feat. 

This new release featuring the young German pianist Frank Dupree (b. 1991), who focused some his musical education on learning jazz percussion, features three highly entertaining works that truly do demonstrate how Kapustin was able to deftly weave his love of jazz into classical patterns. In the exuberant single-movement Piano Concerto No. 5, for example, there are passages where the piano and orchestra engage in call-and-response patterns similar to jazz ensembles; elsewhere, there are times when the percussion section of the orchestra sounds like the trap set of a jazz drummer, while at other times you can hear passages from the orchestra that echo the sound of a string bass in a piano trio. The piece never sounds entirely like a jazz composition, but it is surely a thoroughly jazz-infused yet completely serious concerto for piano and orchestra. Dupree is then joined at the keyboard by another young German pianist, Adrian Brendle (b. 1990), for the final two compositions on the program. For the first of these, the energetic three-movement Concerto for 2 Pianos and Percussion, the pair of pianists are joined by drummer Meinhard “Obi” Jenne (b. 1970) and percussionist Franz Bach (b. 1965), who add some tasty rhythmic and coloristic seasoning. 

The final piece finds both Dupree and Brendle together at the same keyboard in the Sinfonietta for Piano Four Hands, which is in four movements that vary considerably in mood and expression, starting with an opening movement that begins like an overture for a Broadway musical, a second movement one could imagine forming part of the soundtrack of an old black-and-white murder mystery, a third movement hinting of Gershwin with echoes of Rhapsody in Blue, and then it is on to the final movement, which brings more hints of Gershwin, this time with subtle echoes of I Got Rhythm. Bear in mind, though, these are hints and allusions, homages perhaps, tips of the cap. Or, as the liner notes say of Kapustin: “Most of his works are stylistically related to jazz and skillfully combine its elements with the classical music tradition from Bach to Prokofiev and Stravinsky. To paraphrase one of the most prominent representatives of symphonic jazz: one can speak of Kapustin as a ‘Russian in the footsteps of Gershwin’.” 

The liner notes, although relatively brief, are informative about both the music and the musicians; furthermore, the engineering is impeccable. By the way, Capriccio has previously released several other Kapustin CDs, two of them featuring Dupree: one of classical works, the other of music for jazz trio. Judging from the quality of this release, they too are no doubt well worth seeking out by classical and jazz lovers alike.