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In 2000, Hyperion Records Released a Recording of Solo Piano Music of Kapustin

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In 2000, Hyperion Records Released a Recording of Solo Piano Music of Kapustin UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:___________________ I, _________________________________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in: It is entitled: This work and its defense approved by: Chair: _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ Red, White, and Blue Notes: The Symbiotic Music of Nikolai Kapustin Submitted to the Graduate Division of the University of Cincinnati In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance By Jonathan Edward Mann B.M., Indiana University, 1999 M.M., Indiana University, 2001 May 19, 2007 1301 E. 5th St. #13 Moscow, ID 83843 Advisor: Professor James Tocco Abstract Nikolai Kapustin’s solo piano music synthesizes classical form and jazz texture. He uses the language of jazz improvisation, but does not improvise. Instead, a jazz vernacular is presented in a contrapuntally dense framework of thematic organization, development, and restatement. Kapustin’s output is enormous, consisting of over 120 opus numbers for nearly all instrumental combinations in the codified Baroque, Classical, and Romantic forms including concertos, sonatas,, and etudes. No matter how vivid the incorporation of jazz may be, whether it be blues licks, symphonic stride, or propelling bebop syncopations, the level of workmanship and compositional technique are qualities that inescapably link Kapustin’s music to the classical world. This document posits whether Kapustin’s music is classical or jazz, investigates Kapustin’s musical background and education, and establishes his place in the history of jazz in Russia. It concludes with analyses of three solo piano works, Sonatina, Op. 100, Prelude No. 9 in E Major, Op. 53, and Fugue No. 1 in C Major, Op. 82. iii iv Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to thank Nikolai Kapustin for graciously agreeing to share details about his life and music amidst a busy recording schedule. Heartfelt thanks to Professor James Tocco for serving as advisor and musical mentor since 2002. Additional thanks to Professor Robert Zierolf, Ph.D. and Professor Michael Chertock for their patience and critical feedback. Special thanks go to Cyril Moshkow, journalist and editor of www.jazz.ru for shedding invaluable light on the history of jazz in the Soviet Union, and Malcom Henbury-Ballan for help compiling the works list. This project could not have been possible without the generous support of Brendan Kinsella, Dr. Robert Auler, Gregory Martin, Todd-Davis Germaine, Dr. Steven Spooner, Dr. Leonard Garrison, and all of those who believe in the notion that “we has a several meaning.” Finally, thanks to my family and colleagues and students at the University of Idaho Lionel Hampton School of Music for their patience and understanding. This document is dedicated to the memory of musician, musicologist, and grandfather extraordinaire, Dr. Alfred Mann (1917-2006). v Table of Contents I. Abstract II. Acknowledgments III. Chapter One: Classical or Jazz? The Symbiotic Music of Nikolai Kapustin……….1 IV. Chapter Two: Nikolai Kapustin’s Musical Development and Place in the History of Jazz in the Soviet Union…………………………………………………………23 V. Chapter Three: Reconciling Classical Form and Jazz Harmony in Sonatina, Op. 100………………………………………………………………………………..37 VI. Chapter Four: Harmonic Analysis of Prelude No. 9 in E Major, Op. 53………….66 VII. Chapter Five: Formal Analysis of Fugue No. 1 in C Major, Op. 82……………...87 VIII. Bibliography………………………………………………………...………..…117 IX. Appendix………………………………………………………………….……….121 vi Chapter One Classical or Jazz? The Symbiotic Music of Nikolai Kapustin “to be famous isn’t important. I don’t want to become famous.”1 Nikolai Girshevich Kapustin (b.1937) In 2006, a video appeared on the Internet in which composer-pianist Nikolai Kapustin plays his Impromptu, Op. 83, for solo piano.2 Motionless, emotionless, and clad in an impeccably tailored grey suit, Kapustin executes a rigidly structured work one might expect from a classically trained composer-pianist. The music is intricate, virtuosic, and rooted in the tradition of late Romantic European piano playing. This comes as no surprise: Kapustin obtained a diploma in piano performance from the Moscow Conservatory, studying under Alexander Goldenweiser, a classmate of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin. What does come as a surprise, however, is that Kapustin’s musical language does not evoke the sounds of the great classical masters. Incredibly, Kapustin’s sound-world is jazz. And it is not merely a superficial appropriation of jazz, as in Dmitri Shostakovich’s two suites for jazz orchestra, or the coopting of blue notes, as in Maurice Ravel’s two piano concerti and Igor Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto. Unlike other classical composers who have used jazz elements in their compositions, Kapustin has years of experience performing in high-profile jazz combos and big bands, including those led by Russians Juri Saulsky and Oleg Lundström. 1 Martin Anderson, “Nikolai Kapustin, Russian Composer of Classical Jazz,” Fanfare 24, no. 1 (September/October 2000): 98. 2 Nikolai Kapustin, “Impromptu, Op. 66 no. 2,” Nikolaikapustin.net, Real Media video file, http://gmlile.brinkster.net/kapustin/kapustinvideo.html (accessed October 19, 2006). 1 In his compositions, Kapustin uses the language of jazz improvisation, but does not improvise. Instead, a jazz vernacular is presented in a contrapuntally dense framework of thematic organization, development, and restatement. The overall effect can be summarized in a hypothetical scenario: Art Tatum and Herbie Hancock, having studied counterpoint with Simon Sechter and composition with Sergei Prokofiev, adopted a son, named him Nikolai, and raised him in a musically bilingual household.3 What results is a symbiotic compositional technique in which two genres are fused but kept genetically distinct: classical structure hosts jazz texture. The music is never eclectic, nor does it rely on allusion; it consistently sounds like jazz but can never escape its overall atmosphere of diligent pre-meditation. Over the course of the four-minute Impromptu video, the listener is forced to reconcile many dichotomies, most importantly, whether this music is classical or jazz. In 2000, Hyperion Records released a recording of solo piano music of Kapustin, played by Stephen Osborne.4 Interest in the recording sparked two interviews for Fanfare and International Piano Quarterly magazines, and since then, with the help of concert pianist Marc-André Hamelin, who, in 2001 and 2005, also recorded Kapustin’s piano music, the music has officially entered the international spotlight.5 Kapustin’s greatest fear has now been realized: he is famous. Helping to seal Kapustin’s fame, publishers in Russia and Japan are now issuing his scores, which, up until the early 2000s, were practically impossible to find without 3 Simon Sechter (1788-1867), an Austrian teacher, theorist, organist, and professor of composition at the Vienna Conservatorium, taught counterpoint to Franz Schubert, Anton Bruckner, and Eduard Marxsen, who later taught Johannes Brahms. 4 Kapustin, Nikolai Kapustin Piano Music, Steven Osborne, Hyperion, CDA67159, 2000. 5 Kaleidoscope, Marc-André Hamelin, Hyperion, CDA67275, 2001; Kapustin, Nikolai Kapustin Piano Music, Marc-André Hamelin, Hyperion, CDA67433, 2004. 2 resorting to clandestine trading of blurry manuscripts.6 Kapustin’s music has even found its way to the piano competition circuit, which speaks to the confidence musicians have in his work.7 More and more performers, pianophiles, and other music lovers are clamoring to experience his ingeniously riveting music. As Kapustin’s music enters the international musical lexicon, public and critical reaction has struggled to categorize it. Confusion abounds as terms such as “crossover,” “fusion,” and Third Stream are tossed around. One aficionado, after listening to the Osborne disc, was unable to reconcile Kapustin’s sound. I wonder how the recording label, Hyperion, decided to put this in the ‘classical’ category. Probably they did so because Kapustin himself called these pieces ‘Sonata’ or ‘Prelude.’ But, truth to tell, I’m hard pressed to find very much in the way of easily identifiable classical music procedures here.8 Easily identifiable, no, but if this skeptic had the good fortune to read from the printed score he would come to the conclusion that the procedures found in Kapustin’s sonatas and those found in the sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven, for example, are quite similar. Leslie De’Ath, in his Musicweb International article “Nikolai Kapustin, A Performers Perspective” writes that Kapustin’s style is “crossover, in the best sense of the term, and belongs to the ‘third stream’ trend of the later twentieth century.”9 Third Stream pioneer Gunther Schuller might take umbrage with this statement. While Kapustin’s music may sound like jazz, it never incorporates improvisation, crucial to some Third Stream music. Regarding his own compositions, Kapustin explains: 6 The Russian edition is A-Ram (Moscow) and the Japanese edition is Zen-on Music Co., Ltd. (Tokyo). 7 In 1999, Vasily Primakov, a prize winner in the Cleveland International Piano Competition, played two movements of Kapustin’s Sonata No. 2, Op. 54. 8 J. Scott Morrison, “It Doesn’t Matter What You Call It,” Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Kapustin-Piano-Music-Nikolai/dp/B00004TARX (accessed
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