Schubert: The Complete Impromptus (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Four Impromptus, D 899 - Impromptu No. 1 in C minor; Impromptu No. 2 in E flat major; Impromptu No. 3 in G flat major; Impromptu No. 4 in A flat major; Four Impromptus, D 935 - Impromptu No. 1 in F minor; Impromptu No. 2 in A flat major; Impromptu No. 3 in B flat major; Impromptu No. 4 in F minor. Gerardo Teissonniére, piano. Steinway & Sons 30220. 

The last time we encountered the American pianist Gerardo Teissonniére (b.1962), it was in his recording debut for Steinway & Sons (you can read our review here). Teissonniére, who was born in Puerto Rico and now resides in Cleveland, where he has long served on the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music, certainly made a bold move in leading out with such monumental repertoire. However, he delivered a memorable performance that the label captured in audiophile-worthy sound. When I saw what Teissonniére had chosen to record for his next release, I could hardly contain my excitement, because Schubert’s piano music is right up there in the same exalted atmosphere as Beethoven’s. Once again, Teissonniére is clearly showcasing his desire to record music of the very highest quality.

 

As the American composer Evan Fein so aptly describes this music, “the elements of dance, song and storytelling permeate the entire oeuvre of the early Romantic Austrian composer Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828). They are combined and uniquely represented in each of Schubert’s eight individual yet intrinsically connected works for the piano known as the Impromptus, D 899 and D 935, two sets of four pieces each written in the last year and a half of the composer’s short life.” Teissonniére artfully projects that feeling of dance, song, and story as he weaves his way through these fascinating pieces. He plays with a sense of confidence, with a big tone – not in a loud, brash way; rather, in a confident, assured way. As it was in the Beethoven release, his Steinway is captured in sound of lifelike clarity and power (it was engineered by Daniel Shores at Sono Luminus Studios – they do great work there). Great music, great music, great sound – Great Caesar’s ghost, it’s a good one!

A Jazz Musician on Classical Music and Jazz

by Karl Nehring

In a recent review of a CD that paired the Duruflé Requiem with Four Lenten Motets by Poulenc (review to be found here), I appended an interview with the late jazz saxophone player Jackie McLean in which he spoke of borrowing chords from Poulenc and then going on to discuss the influence of classical composers on other jazz musicians. Those who have followed Classical Candor for any length of time may recall that we have offered occasional reviews of jazz releases, justifying those reviews with the argument that there is a sense in which some forms of jazz can reasonably be regarded as examples of chamber music.  One jazz musician who holds strong views about the relationship between jazz and classical music is the pianist Ethan Iverson (see photo), two of whose albums we have reviewed previously: Every Note Is True (see review) and his latest, which includes a formal piano sonata of his own composition, Technically Acceptable (reviewed here). 

 Iverson, who like many jazz pianists has classical training, recently caused quite a kerfuffle with a recent New York Times column about Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the provocative title, “The Worst Masterpiece,” which, as you might imagine, raised a few eyebrows.  Perhaps even yours?

While in Oslo on a European tour earlier this year, Iverson sat down for an interview with Norwegian journalist Filip Roshauw. Among other things the pair discussed the Gershwin controversy and delved into the relationship between classical music and jazz. With Iverson’s kind permission, I have included some key portions from that interview below. You can find the full interview at Iverson’s substack website, Transitional Technology (see TT 373 here). By the way, Transitional Technology is a treasure trove of musical knowledge of value to anyone with an interest in music – and not just jazz, but classical as well. Iverson is a delightful writer s well as a gifted musician; Transisitional Technology is well worth checking out by classical and jazz fans alike.

***********************************************************************************

Filip Roshauw: I thought I'd ask you about the title of the new album, Technically Acceptable. You’ve mentioned that it’s a quote from a book, but I wondered if it has more meaning than that?

Ethan Iverson: It's not a serious title. I want to make people smile! But if you want me to becomparatively serious for a moment, between the trio and the sonata, this is the set of tools that I’m going to be using from now on: Playing open and loose trio music on one hand, and writing serious formal music on the other. I am confident in my abilities in these fields. I’m technically acceptable.

FR: Does the idea of letting those two aspects live within the same album feel new to you this time around?

EI: Yeah, I think so. Of course, nothing's truly new. There's always a precedent. But as far as I know, no jazz pianist has put a sonata on a record on a jazz label like Blue Note.

FR: When I read the title, I was also reminded of something you mentioned somewhere. You wrote an article about Billie Holiday, and you considered the title “Billie Holiday: Technician.” And it seems that a lot of stuff that you've written is about assessing jazz from, I guess, a technical standpoint in some way. That it is music that can be explained in those terms. And the piece that you've chosen for this title is a deceptively simple, Count Basie-ish tune..

. 

EI: Well, that's right. A lot of the time, something simple on the surface is full of complexity underneath.  Many people think they've got Billie Holiday's number, but, actually, they don't have her number. The same goes for all great jazz. The composed melodies of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue can be scratched out on a paper napkin, but there are so many other elements that make the album very sophisticated. Often there hasn't been enough of the proper terminology to describe those sophisticated elements, and as a writer and critic, I am trying to move that discussion forward. The song “Technically Acceptable” is a medium tempo rhythm changes tune in the Count Basie idiom. You're correct, that does not seem very hard. But I was talking to the great bass player Ben Street, and I mentioned I was taking that piece on the road to play with local rhythm sections. And Ben said to me,  "There's nothing harder than medium tempo rhythm changes.” 

FR: Let's talk about the idea for the Piano Sonata. Obviously you've composed stuff before, but what was the idea behind this specific piece?

EI: Longer formal composition started happening about a decade ago. I have worked a lot with the choreographer Mark Morris and his wonderful Dance Group, and Mark asked me to arrange a set of Beatles themes for Pepperland, the evening-length celebration of the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. We could only get rights to a certain number of songs, only six pieces, and we needed an hour show. So to fill up the time, I wrote some original compositions that were related to The Beatles or the idea of the swinging ‘60s.  Paul McCartney liked classical music, when they worked on “Penny Lane,” he told George Martin to put in the piccolo trumpet from Bach's Brandenburg Concerto. In fact, there's obviously a lot of European classical music references in the Beatles. So…well…even though I never did this before, I realized I should write a sonata allegro for Mark Morris’s dance. The composition went very quickly, and I really liked the result. After that, I thought, “What am I, a sonata composer now?” Apparently I was! During the pandemic I wrote six sonatas for diverse instruments plus piano. In fact, there were seven because one didn't go well and I withdrew it. So the Piano Sonata was actually the eighth full-length sonata, which meant I’d already done a certain amount of groundwork in terms of refining the aesthetic and learning how to shape a longer narrative. What I like about the Piano Sonata is that it sounds like me, meaning it doesn't sound that different than when I'm playing jazz. The frame is new, but the actual chords and melodies are kind of the same. When I've shown the Sonata to other people I trust, they all say, yeah, this is what you do. So it's not a big stretch. I don't have to suddenly think, what do I do now that I'm writing formal music? It's like I am just doing what I always do, and it just happens to be notated — which may make it more valid than it might be otherwise. 

FR: It’s hard not to think about the article you recently wrote in The New York Times about Rhapsody in Blue, “The Worst Masterpiece,” which in a sense is about how Gershwin’s piece became the road not taken in American classical music.

 

EI: Exactly! With my sonata, I am trying to say this is the road we could take. It's the 21st century, and we should all know all these idioms. 

FR: There’s been a lot of debate about decolonizing classical music or music education in the last years, and it seems like your point has been that jazz deserves a different place in all of this, that it needs to be defined and analyzed on its own merits.   

EI: My mentor Billy Hart says jazz is America's classical music. Billy gets that phrase from John Coltrane, who said that every culture has its classical music. And I know what they mean, and I respect that opinion. Still, at this point, for better or for worse, when we talk about classical music in casual conversation, we're talking about the European tradition. I love the European tradition. I'm a piano player, after all – all piano players love the European tradition. I don’t like the word “decolonizing” because that sounds like you want to shame people who love Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin — meaning, you want to shame me! Get out of here! Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin are truly great! But when you get to the establishment and the academy in America, someone like John Coltrane is definitely not considered to be as serious as someone like Gershwin or Aaron Copland. But honestly, Coltrane was bigger and better than either. I like Gershwin, I like Copland – I'm not against those guys. But in terms of some sort of absolute peak of an aesthetic, Coltrane was much, much greater. Coltrane is actually like Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin. My dream is that classical musicians, especially in America, could learn to be a little more humble and take John Coltrane more seriously. That goes for all of us: let’s take Duke Ellington seriously. Let's take Count Basie, Thelonious Monk, and Billie Holiday seriously. Let's use their techniques for our American music, regardless of what genre we call it. The specific issue of swing and blues is still not too well understood in classical circles. And that was part of my argument about Rhapsody in Blue, for I feel like it has obscured the issue of how hard black rhythm really is. Since it's a flashy, virtuoso number with a few big beautiful tunes, no one has to swing or even really play in steady tempo. It's got this sort of quick-change musical theater “bluesiness” to it. While it's good for what it is, at this point — a hundred years later! — I’m ready for the people on those classical concert stages to be able to dig in and really swing and really play some blues. It's about time. 

FR: But do you see any movement there? 

EI: There is some movement, but there could be a lot more. Look at all those people who were so upset about my piece! It just shows how I'm right. While foaming at the mouth, my critics don't see the obvious piece that's missing with rhythm, blues and frankly, black music. 

FR: It’s surprising that people became that upset. I mean, the title is well chosen, it’s a bit provocative, but I didn’t read the article as a diss on Rhapsody in Blue. Rather, it felt representative of how many people have perceived that piece, from Leonard Bernstein and onwards.  

EI: I had thought of that phrase, “the worst masterpiece,” when practicing Rhapsody in Blue in order to perform it in concert. One day I said to myself, somewhat in despair, “God, this is the worst masterpiece.”  Aha! That’s a good title, I've got to use it…Unfortunately, many read the title and did not consider the essay. If I had the chance to publish again, would I change the title? I don't know. 

FR: How did your jazz interest start?

EI: My parents weren't musicians or music fans. Music came in through the TV set. Early things I liked weren’t really jazz, but they were jazz-adjacent. The James Bond movies, what was that music by John Barry? The Pink Panther cartoon, what was that music by Henry Mancini? Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas music. Stuff on Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. When I was ten years old or so, I started on a journey to find my first jazz records.

FR: Are you able to pinpoint what you liked? Was it the chords, the texture of the music, the rhythms?

EI: I don’t know exactly, but I can say this: Jazz is equally dependent on harmony and rhythm. Probably a lot of folk and pop music is rhythm first, and probably all European classical music is harmony first. But jazz is right in the middle. At a subliminal level, that reliance on both sides must have been part of my attraction in the beginning  — and it's still part of my attraction now.

Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini; Respighi: Toccata for Piano and Orchestra; Casella: Partita for Piano and Orchestra (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

Joshua Pierce, piano; Anton Nanüt, conductor; RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra. MSR 1839                  

This disc’s program notes by Eric Salzman state that all the works on it are “modernist pieces with strong connections to tradition,” and “can be regarded as neo-classical.” While he qualifies the latter label for each in turn, these claims seem variably strained to me. Despite the fact that two of the pieces are by Italian contemporaries, it would be truer to acknowledge the heterogeneity of the music here and gladly stick to that. (As an aside, I am thoroughly exasperated by the looseness with which the term “modernism” is thrown around these days.) What really strikes me about this offering is not only how much each work should be considered on its own terms, but also how easily the familiarity and accessibility of the Rachmaninoff Paganini Rhapsody can impede fair hearings of its disc-mates here; what these other works need are fair hearings, regardless of the conclusions the listener may reach about them. 

I tried with the Respighi, I really did. But little do I see myself returning to the Toccata for Piano and Orchestra very often for the purpose of listening pleasure. That said, I cannot fault Pierce and company; they do as fine a job as one could ask. I just find the composition itself to be clunky and aimless. True, the title “Toccata” promises nothing in terms of strict form or consistency. But this 21-minute clump of undigested manners and influences is not the composer’s top-drawer product. That is not to say there aren’t beautiful moments and passages of exciting virtuosity – there definitely are both. But these elements do not make a strong impression in total. Still, I encourage listeners to give this piece a try and see for yourselves. Your experience may differ, and the music at least deserves a chance. I remain grateful to these performers and their recording for mine. 

 

I admit that my exposure to Alfredo Casella’s music has been patchy; this was my first encounter with his Partita for Piano and Orchestra. I did not think much of the piece at first, but I stuck with it for many hearings. I’m glad I did – this is music that needed time and exposure to grow on me. I could sense the composer’s distinctive voice from the start, but my affection was a bit slower to follow. What I hear now when I listen to it is refulgent, tuneful music that beams amiably. I also took the time to listen to a competing recording from Naxos (8.573005), and find the present rendering by Joshua Pierce and company to be more convincing. This Partita being the most squarely “neoclassical” work on the disc, I appreciated the latter’s crisp, brisk approach (excepting the finale, where the Naxos performance’s tempo is actually a bit quicker). 

Speaking of brisk, try out this Paganini Rhapsody! At 21:43 it is definitely one of the fastest performances I have ever heard (perhaps the fastest). Not even Yuja Wang (whose own recently recorded performance of this work I reviewed here some months ago) blazes through at such a pace. Technically, Pierce acquits himself very well. I also like his tone and articulation. While there are more soulful, more glowing performanes out there, his expressiveness is acceptable. But, not all that dissimilar to my feelings about Wang’s performance, there are just too many fine interpretations available for me to enthusiastically push this one. Even if it did not feel too breathless, which it does, this Paganini Rhapsody would be middling. I’m afraid my recommendation here is for collectors only. 

 

If the Rachmaninoff is the hook for customers to also sample the less-familiar repertoire, and the lesser-familiar repertoire lures the explorer to buy yet another recording of the Rachmaninoff, this disc was shrewdly calculated. There is likely something here for most classical listeners, and for me there is plenty: the wholly satisfying Casella Partita, the well performed but disappointing Respighi Toccata (which I’m nonetheless glad to have in my collection), and a fast Paganini Rhapsody. On balance, the price of the disc is worth what it offers. Maybe barely worth it, but worth it all the same.