Feb 9th 2016

A perfect pairing: Rachmaninov with his friend Medtner

by Michael Johnson

Michael Johnson is a music critic with particular interest in piano. 

Johnson worked as a reporter and editor in New York, Moscow, Paris and London over his journalism career. He covered European technology for Business Week for five years, and served nine years as chief editor of International Management magazine and was chief editor of the French technology weekly 01 Informatique. He also spent four years as Moscow correspondent of The Associated Press. He is the author of five books.

Michael Johnson is based in Bordeaux. Besides English and French he is also fluent in Russian.

You can order Michael Johnson's most recent book, a bilingual book, French and English, with drawings by Johnson:

“Portraitures and caricatures:  Conductors, Pianist, Composers”

 here.

Pianist Alexander Paley brings together some rarely heard and nicely coherent pieces by Sergei Rachmaninov and Nikolai Medtner, close friends from their Moscow student days, in a new CD (La Musica LMU005). The 14 selections call for a wide range of moods and styles and the Moldavia-born Paley seems to relish the challenge. Towering technical feats aside, there is no sign of effort on his part.

Paley’s choice of this repertoire is a sign of his dedication to some of the rich but neglected Russian repertoire. His impeccable, sensitive playing deserves far more attention than he has attracted thus far.

All tracks from the album are sampled here.

The two composers studied together at Moscow Conservatory, opting to focus on piano writing. The CD booklet in three languages rightly calls them “brothers in art”. Buffeted by the Russian Revolution, however, Rachmaninov emigrated first to France, then to the United States. Medtner’s intellectual-philosophical foundations found less favor in France or Germany, and he settled in London in 1935. 

Paley, a reserved but strong personality, has led a life equally mouvementée, defecting to the United States in 1988 and taking U.S. citizenship. He now divides his time between New York and Paris.

In this recording, Medtner’s A-minor sonata Op. 38, the “Sonata Reminisczenza”, opens with Paley’s light touch on a Schumannesque figure that gradually grows on itself and becomes alternately lyrical and grandiose. The single-movement sonata was written after the Bolshevik revolution and serves as a look back to lost times, when Medtner led a more comfortable, predictable life.

Paley follows the piece with the even more daunting, not to say inaccessible, Sonata No. 5 in G-minor Op. 22. Liszt can be heard in the subthemes and late Beethoven is not far away. Again, the technical challenges seem to pose no problem for Paley.

Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme by Chopin Op. 28 offer a fascinating look into the composer’s free-roaming mind, taking the very simple C-minor Prelude (every schoolgirl’s first taste of Chopin) and spinning it into a carnival of twists and turns. Composers from Bach to Schubert, to Beethoven, Liszt and up to Webern and Copland, have turned to the variation as a creative exercise. Rachmaninov’s fall somewhere in mid-field – on the cusp of modernity.

Paley introduces the theme with an ethereal feel, then goes on to 12 effusive and raucous versions. The ornamentation takes great liberties, dancing away from the melody and returning home, only to dance away once more. Paley never loses control of these flights, some of which are definitely “out there”.

Paley’s career trajectory has taken him around the world with his broad repertoire of solo, chamber and concerto works and his widely admired artistic and technical prowess. Also an active promoter of great music, his “Music at the Moulin” festival in Normandy is celebrating its 25th year. And the Alexander Paley Music Festival in Richmond, Virginia, stages its 19th edition in September.


Related article:

Alexander Paley interview: ‘Classical music is not foreverybody’

by Michael Johnson




TO FOLLOW WHAT'S NEW ON FACTS & ARTS, PLEASE CLICK HERE!

 


This article is brought to you by the author who owns the copyright to the text.

Should you want to support the author’s creative work you can use the PayPal “Donate” button below.

Your donation is a transaction between you and the author. The proceeds go directly to the author’s PayPal account in full less PayPal’s commission.

Facts & Arts neither receives information about you, nor of your donation, nor does Facts & Arts receive a commission.

Facts & Arts does not pay the author, nor takes paid by the author, for the posting of the author's material on Facts & Arts. Facts & Arts finances its operations by selling advertising space.

 

 

Browse articles by author

More Music Reviews

Mar 15th 2018

The Brahms Scherzo Op. 4 opens with a delicate and playful theme, then carries us along on waves of emotion swinging from the filigree, to the lyrical, the thunderous, and back to the delicate.

Mar 9th 2018

Perhaps enough time has passed since the death of the famous French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger to step back and question her musical sainthood. After all, she was only human. 

Feb 21st 2018

A new “electronic opera” from Ireland, “Heresy”, broke new ground in contemporary opera a couple of years ago, bringing together Irish vocal talent and the synthesized music of much-decorated composer Roger Doyle.

Feb 4th 2018

Elegant, poised and deeply musical Ran Jia has brought a new freshness to the Franz Schubert piano sonatas, a phenomenal achievement considering how often they have been performed by the greatest pianists of the past 75 years.

Jan 31st 2018

American expat pianist David Lively found happiness in Paris as a teen-aged piano prodigy and got so busy performing and studying  -- with an Alfred  Cortot associate -- that he ended up making his life in France, a “different planet” culturally, he says, compared to that of his native land. 

Jan 26th 2018

When young French pianist François Dumont appeared at the Salle Gaveau in Paris recently, the critics embraced him without reserve. One wrote that his recital “confirmed his place in the family of the best musicians in France”.

Jan 13th 2018

Nearly two hours of Debussy’s solo piano music at one sitting can be, for some, too much impressionistic color to digest. And indeed a woman beside me fell asleep during the twelve Préludes, Book One.

Nov 29th 2017

In the world of classical music trios, there are few combinations as natural as the cello, guitar and piano. Operating mostly in the same register, attacking and retreating equally, the instruments can blend beautifully if played with discipline and heart. 

Nov 3rd 2017

A California polymath has electrified the music world with his images of classical music in visual form, capturing more than 165 million hits on his Internet postings in just a few years.  Only pop singers or weird videos do better. 

Oct 30th 2017

Ukrainian-born Evgeny Ukhanov, based in Australia for the past 20 years, is an established performer of new music originating in his adopted homeland. Now he has teamed up with friend and Melbourne composer Alan Griffiths on a new CD of selections regrouped under the title “Introspection”. 

Sep 9th 2017
 

If music makes you happy or sad, you are probably an average listener. If it leaves you indifferent, you might be considered insensitive. But if it gives you goosebumps you are in a very special group with connections in your brain anatomy that others may never feel.

Aug 31st 2017

Lake Como, known as the “magic lake” of Italy, has inspired writers and composers for centuries with natural surroundings so conducive to creative expression.

Aug 16th 2017
File 20170815 15219 g8geue

Much of the mythology that surrounds Elvis Presley, who died 40 yea

Aug 2nd 2017

Katia and Marielle Labèque -- the glamorous French keyboard siblings -- have achieved a solid legacy of exuberant performances in the two-piano repertoire, ranging from experimental contemporary works to traditional classical-romantic composers.

Jun 24th 2017

I was flipping through my copy of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 6 recently and spotted his two “col pugno” markings. My memory took me back many years to the day I first encountered these violent directions. At the time, I didn’t know what to think.

Jun 21st 2017

One of the world’s greatest living violinists, Maxim Vengerov, accompanied by an equally accomplished pianist Roustem Saïtkoulov, dazzled a full house at the 18th century Grand Théâtre of Bordeaux Sunday night (18 June) with a faultless concert.

Jun 17th 2017

A classical-trained German pianist working in a range of musical disciplines has just launched his most audacious experiment yet – an original piano sonata consisting almost entirely of creations from his unconscious mind.

Jun 5th 2017

The Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine added another feather to its cap last week (June 1-2) with the engagement of a leading international guest conductor, Michail Jurowski, who led the ONBA in two demanding orchestral pieces, the Shostakovich Symphony No.

May 24th 2017

Taking a break in gaps between a Mozart piano concerto in Izmir, Turkey, (No. 9, “Jeunehomme”), a recording session of three Mozart concertos in Rennes, France (Nos.