Rochberg's Piano Music on Naxos -- 3
The budget-priced Naxos label is performing a service by this ongoing series of the piano music of George Rochberg (1918 -- 2005). This CD, the third of the series, was recorded in 1996-1997. It was first released on the small Gasparo label before this Naxos reissue. The CD includes three Rochberg compositions from three different decades, 1956, 1966, and 1976, performed by the Israeli-born pianist Sally Pinkas. Pinkas and her husband, Evan Hirsch, perform alternately in the 5 Naxos CDs of Rochberg's piano works. In the initial CD of the series, which features Rochberg's massive composition, "Circles of Fire" for two pianos, Pinkas and Hirsch perform together.
The late George Rochberg began as a serial composer but abandoned serialism in favor of a late romantic style following the death of his son in the late 1960s. Rochberg came to the conclusion that atonality limited the expressive power of his music. But a hearing of Rochberg's music suggests that he was unduly harsh on the compositions of his atonal years. The piano music spans the length of Rochberg's compositional career and shows a high degree of passion and expressiveness, both in Rochberg's serial and romantic periods. Throughout has career, Rochberg borrowed heavily from earlier composers and compositional styles. This aspect of Rochberg's music also is shown clearly in this CD and in the two earlier CDs of his piano compositions. Sally Pinkas's notes to this CD help trace the quotations and influences from earlier composers in Rochberg's music.
The most impressive work on this CD is the earliest composition, the Sonata-Fantasia of 1956. This is an early work composed in the atonal style of Rochberg's Second Symphony. The Sonata-Fantasia is a work of about 24 minutes in a style which is both improvisatory and tightly organized. The work is contrapuntal and reminded me of Bach, but the most heavy influence is that of Schoenberg. The work is serial in character and its primary theme derives from the first of Schoenberg's set of Five Little Piano Pieces, opus 23. Listening to Schoenberg's short piece helped me put this work in context. Rochberg's composition is dark, serious and brooding. It is essentially in three interrelated movements, each of which flows into subsections. The work opens with a tumultuous Prologue and closes with an Epilogue which recalls it. In between are sections expanding upon the Schoenberg piece in a romantic, expansive way, a short, astringent scherzo-like movement, and a slow, contemplative Lento, which develops into a canon between two themes. This is a difficult, passionate score that rewards hearing. It shows that, in spite of the composer's own later doubts, serialism can result in music of great force and expression. As Pinkas observes in her notes, the Sonata-Fantasia "affirms beyond any doubt the artistic validity and coherence of this much-maligned compositional system".
The second work on this CD, "Nach Bach" dates from 1966, at about the time Rochberg abandoned serialism. This short piece of about nine minutes, however, remains in the composer's earlier atonal manner. The work also shows Rochberg's continued tendency to utilize the works of his predecessors. Rochberg composed this piece for the harpsichordist Igor Kipnis and may be played on either the piano or the harpsichord. "Nach Bach" is an improvisation upon Bach's Partita No. 6 in e minor. The work intertwines brief direct quotations from the Bach partita with Rochberg's expansions and variations of its material. Several different movements from the Partita are recalled. The portions of the piece in which Rochberg expands and varies the Bach, by far the larger part of the work, are atonal and unmetered. The piece is a mixture of modernism and Baroque but it achieves coherence as music. It would be good to hear this composition on the harpsichord as well as on the piano.
The final composition in this CD is the Partita-Variations, an extensive work of 35 minutes composed in 1976. In its style, its length, and the breadth of its musical references, this work is representative of much of Rochberg's later music. The work is an interrelated set of 13 movements which flow into each other and which constitute a set of variations on a shared theme. The theme itself is not given until the seventh movement. It is a beautiful, short, and accessible lyrical ballade in a romantic style. The twelve variation movements which surround the theme are in a variety of styles and moods. Thus the piece opens and closes with bravura, energetic sections marked Praeludium and Fuga a tre voce which, as their markings suggest, are both improvisatory and contrapuntal in the manner of Bach's Preludes and Fugues. The work includes some difficult modernistic writing, including serialist sections, in movements such as "Cortege", (no. 4) and "Canon" (no. 10). There are some humorous sections such as "Burlesca" (no 3) juxtaposed against movements such as "The Deepest Carillon", (no. 6) The "Minuetto" (no 9) recalls several movements of that name from the Haydn piano sonatas. In "Arabesque", (no. 12), Rochberg quotes from himself, as this movement derives from some of the material of "Nach Bach." The work includes several romantic movements such as the Chopinesque "Nocturne" (no. 11), the "Intermezzo" (no 2) and "Impromptu" ( no. 5). Each of the movements flow into one another without pause. The overall feel is one of unity and energy within a diversity of musical styles.
Adventurous listeners who want to explore American art music will enjoy hearing the piano music of George Rochberg, on this CD and on the companion CDs by Pinkas and Hirsch. Rochberg will be remembered as one of the major American composers of the Twentieth Century.
Robin Friedman
