Veiled Virtuosity AMIR FARID Liszt | Brahms | Prokofiev | Beethoven Greenbaum | Vine | Maroufi ianists have Franz Liszt to thank The accusation that Liszt was interested in his later years and, aside from a tight formal for the fact that they now have to exploiting glib virtuosity solely for the sake of structure, there is little emotional or technical practise several hours a day. Of course getting women to throw their underwear on restraint to be found. A jarring dissonance there were pianist/composers before stage has certainly been levelled at him more opens the work which then proceeds on its him who incorporated their own than once… virtuosic and stormy way, with chains of block idiosyncratic technical tricks into their Part of the reason that this ‘empty vessel’ chords and runs traversing the length of the worksP (Clementi’s runs of parallel thirds and image of Liszt still persists is that it was keyboard. This rage returns at the work’s Hummel’s quicksilver staccato octaves come to so strongly entrenched and disseminated close as well, however the B-major oasis in the mind), but it was Liszt who insisted – through by an opposing camp of composers in his middle of the work, with its delicate chains multiple compositions and performances own lifetime – Brahms, of course, being its of ever-rising double suspensions, is one of – that the minimum standard for technical chief propagandist. To talk of two teams of Brahms’ most unashamed moments of poetic competence on the instrument be raised, and composers (‘if you are not for us, you are sweetness. after him piano playing could never be the against us’, etc.) is not such an extreme Liszt’s set of Consolations show an eloquent same. image for this very deep schism existing in and intimate side to the composer that is Liszt’s utter prodigiousness at the piano and mid nineteenth-century Germanic music. In conveniently ignored by those who decry his his almost super-human ability to sight-read one corner, Liszt and Wagner – innovators, ‘empty virtuosity’. The Db consolation owes far has been widely documented (he sight-read musical prophets, insistent on music’s more to Chopin than it does to Paganini, being – to performance standard – Grieg’s Piano programmatic nature and its integration for the most part a beautiful and unpredictable Concerto and Brahms’ Piano Sonatas in front with other art forms; in the other, Brahms cantilena for the pianist’s right hand set against of their respective composers, shouting excited and Schumann – guardians against musical a rippling and curvaceous accompaniment. The commentary above the din as he played). What philistinism, upholders of the noble arts of piece is not without its difficulties, but it’s the is less reported (perhaps because it is all too form and counterpoint, musical purists. Any virtuosity of delicacy and taste that’s explored human) is that he also practised fanatically, crossover or mutual admiration was minimal, rather than anything gladiatorial. determined to master technical feats hitherto and vehemence was never particularly censored What these two works require, deemed impossible, such as single-handed – Clara Schumann noted that Liszt’s music unequivocally, is that the technical demands legato chromatic sixths or scales in broken made her physically ill, while Tchaikovsky is on – while considerable – must be rendered tenths. Additionally (and perhaps more record as calling Brahms a ‘giftless scoundrel’. invisible so that the musical message of the importantly), he used his ever more attuned The perceived division and personal piece can shine through. They require a sort of sense of keyboard geography to constantly animosity between Brahms and Liszt was ‘veiled virtuosity’, and once these two giants revise his own keyboard works so that the most absolutely real. What has become ‘less real’ had completed their legacy of music for the virtuosic effects could be accomplished in the over time is the notion that their respective instrument, great piano music could never be most economical way – of all composers for music really expressed such divergent paths at otherwise. piano, Liszt manages to most consistently make all. Certainly, as they are represented on this Sergei Prokofiev’s Toccata, Op.11 carries his works sound harder to play than they are CD, the traditional stereotypes don’t really on this tradition. While there’s no denying the (notwithstanding the fact that they are often hold up. Liszt’s Consolation in Db may have fireworks on display, there is an underlying dementedly hard!). the more programmatic title, but it’s Brahms’ menace and pessimism about the piece in its In light of this hard work and innovation, we Rhapsody in Bm, Op.79 No.1 that tells the insistence on returning to a ‘screen-saver’ of can view Liszt as a sincere and creative artist greater story. The work is dedicated to Elisabet repeated Ds, regardless of how wide-ranging of the highest order. Unfortunately, his gift for von Herzagenberg, a talented former student the traversals in between may be. The pianist is pushing the boundaries of pyrotechnics has of Brahms whom he came to rely on (via an only able to escape the incessant looping in the meant that history has treated him unkindly. unrequited crush) as a muse and critic in coda by way of a super-charged tempo increase and a glissando traversing the length of the and also to the work of the same name by Isaac Beethoven’s grandest in the genre up to this keyboard. Albéniz – with the idea that Daniel might have point. The first movement is unbridled in its Widely acknowledged as two of the great his own ‘Evocation’. The premiere perform- virtuosity with an irresistible forward drive miniaturists for piano, both Brahms and ance was given by Amir Farid on 29th October built up from a motif of, unbelievably, nothing Prokofiev would likely have found much to 2006. more than pulsating C-major chords. The admire in Carl Vine’s 5 Bagatelles. These There is something elegiac about the works harmonic territory traversed in the first few exquisitely crafted miniatures focus almost of Javad Maroufi too. Maroufi emerged last moments is astonishing – by bar 5 we are in obsessively on one idea each. The germs century as perhaps Iran’s most high-profile Bb major, however the second subject of the of the first four pieces are reminiscent of art-music composer. Like Alberto Ginastera exposition is in E major (a key about as far motifs and textures found in Vine’s earlier in Argentina, Toru Takemitsu in Japan and removed from Bb as is possible). As quavers First Piano Sonata, although in the Bagatelles Australia’s own Peter Sculthorpe, he made it give way to triplets give way to semiquavers, there is the feeling that these ideas have his mission to create a musical language that and extremes of register are further explored, been newly curated – carefully excised from mirrored his country’s landscape, lifestyle and the overall feeling is of a buoyant, unstoppable their surrounding environment and spot-lit culture. Golden Dreams is his most famous force of nature – perhaps a larger metaphor to perfection. A stunning array of scenarios piano work – a soulful aria which opens with that can be applied to Beethoven himself. are depicted here: a disquieting nocturne; a dramatic tremolandos imitative of Persian The second movement has the curious skittish moto perpetuo; a muted love song; a zithers and then settles into something more title ‘Introduzione’. It turns out this enigmatic lop-sided jam session. The final piece – the timeless and strangely hypnotic. His Prelude and fragmented shadow of a movement is all starkest and longest of the set – was actually No.5, while shorter, is a dramatic, darker work upbeat to the final movement. This closing the first written. Entitled ‘Threnody: For all the with familiar harmonies tending to resolve Rondo is also illustrative of the forces of innocent victims’, it was premiered with Vine in unfamiliar ways, and a strong exploitation nature, but in an ambling and pastoral vein playing piano at the 1994 Australian National of the augmented 2nd – so recognisable as (the analogy of the 6th Symphony comes to AIDS Trust annual fund-raising dinner. the interval that gives the harmonic minor mind). There is a literal veiling at the opening Its aura of introspective grief tinged with a scale its piquant flavour. In Maroufi’s hands here, with Beethoven asking for the sustain glimmer of hope provides a suitable gravid it lends the work a peculiar poignancy as the pedal to be depressed continuously for several ending for what, in toto, is a major masterwork interval constantly pulls the harmonic direction bars at a time, through all manner of harmonic for piano. downwards even as the piece climbs up to the and articulation changes, while keeping the Threnody is also the impetus for Stuart highest, sparsest registers of the keyboard. sound sempre pianissimo. The beautiful effect Greenbaum’s Evocation, commissioned by There is no mistaking the heavy heart behind here is of a slow blooming as, out of the haze, Marjorie Dunlop to commemorate the life of these works, reflecting a culture that is grand, a pianistic tour-de-force gradually makes itself Daniel James McCluskey, who died suddenly turbulent and rich with nostalgia. apparent. By the movement’s end, scalic runs, in January 2006. He was an accomplished law The last word in veiled virtuosity though, moto perpetuo triplets, octave glissandi and and music student at the University of Mel- has to go to Beethoven. Before any of the other melodies embedded in chains of trills will bourne, and an orchestration student of Green- works on this CD had even been conceived, have all made an appearance.