Search - John Corigliano, Frederic Rzewski, David Jalbert :: Corigliano & Rzewski: Ballads & Fantasies

Two forever glowing Americana creators

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 12/07/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Curious how pitting these two composers together makes one listen differently. Corigliano seems to have the Midas Touch,he goes directly for whatever is the point of least resistance,his music draws you in immediately like passing a bakery and the smell of fresh bread just baked,or in Chicago here just north of the Loop Downtown is a chocolate factory, the aromas permeate miles and miles.Corigliano in many respects has inherited Bernstein's position as composer. Although the seductive vigours of Broadway seem not part of his sensibility yet. "Fantasia" for my money is his best piano solo work, deeply Romantic,extroverted within the best the deepest realm of the repertoire,post-Listz Much texture here and virtuosic flourish exhibited,almost like an overture gone bad.



The genre of the piano etude is questionable it seems endless in that there are literally 50 primary composers at last count who have written "etudes" for the piano even borrowing titles as Ivan Fedele's "Etudes Borealis, and Australes" after Cage's wonderful sets for the piano the various "Books" under "Etudes Australes.Also Bolcom,Crumb,Rorem,Rakowsky,Roche have sets to varying success of etudes. Perhaps it was Gyorgy Ligeti who really kicked things off here in the Eighties(new music genres move with greater speeds,Virilio-an intensity,genre need about 20 years however to exhaust itself). Corigliano's 'etudes'it seems does all the right things exploits the timbre of intervallic content as fifths and thirds,and Chopin-esque patterns. It is deeply engaging music without really saying anything, thunderous and explosive at times, also deeply lyrical that has resonance only within this context of music we have already heard. In fact the lyricism never stops with quicksilver gestures. I tend to think there is a strain of East Coast lyricism the New England School almost, Copland, Hansen,Schuman, Bernstein,Diamond, Mennin,Harris and Carter.



The Rzewski by contrast seems to have an agenda at work here to portray. He began playing his own music exclusively. He does so as unpretentiously as no one else can and imparts a vision and can actually step back from his own creations, and give another subjectivity to his Leftist subjects. I still prefer him playing his own music, there is always a raw,brutal electricity to his playing incredibly bright and focused timbre,a clarity I hardly find elsewhere. His music is another matter. He is very post-modern,with an eye for whatever has been innovative, always searching for materials already existing in the real world very Jasper John-ish following his own creativity toward manipulating processes, and genres and "working at" things folk songs and revolutionary tunes. He can turn the most banal tune into a compelling ride even lowering it into the depths of serious anguish through his fascinating improvisations(( as his Cardew CD on New Albion.) (Cardew's "We Sing for the Future", a tune recalling a naive Eton boating song))



Here the plainful soulful chant of Florence Reese "Which side are you on"is here one of those eternals callings,few refuse to committ to, "are you for war or against it" would be a subtext to this tune. It unfolds rather nicely,dovetailing of the song's intervals very straightforward and memorable. Likewise "Down by the Riverside" is a tough tune to really play,let alone set it in variation-like gestures for most classical pianists I've heard play much it like a robot, it has to have a more soulful playful pulse,syncopated with accents which is impossible to really notate. The "Winnsboro Cottenmill Blues" is like a minimalist tone=poem,with incessant repetitions of the rhythms in a minor key.The piece kind of inhabits the original tune rather than providing commentary to it,more like an amoeba surrounding a morsel of nutrition. It is quite effective,never outlasting its stay. Rzewski makes it long enough knowing that he really wasn't writing hardcore minimalist excursions a la Phil Glass.



Mr.Jalbert does a fine job in interpretations here more convincing in the Corigliano than the Rzewski. Rzewski can render itself as too pure sometimes,too correct, when in fact it does have alternative senses of unfinished like timbre and gesture."

Great additions to the piano repertoire !

Dianne Rahbee | 04/10/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These are piano works by GREAT composers of today that deserve recognition and exposure to the public and all serious pianists. They are performed extremely well by a sensitive young artist who understands todays musical language in a special way."