Search - Macdowell, James Tocco :: MacDowell & Griffes, Vol. 1

Admirers of Rachmaninoff to Scriabin should enjoy this

Discophage | France | 10/17/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Don't be mislead by the puzzling list of music samples given under the present entry by Amazon, as they do not correspond to the contents of the disc at hand, volume 1 of James Tocco/Gasparo's MacDowell & Griffes series. This has 8 tracks and includes MacDowell's Sonata No. 4, Op. 59 "Keltic" (in three movements) and Griffes Four Roman Sketches, Op. 7 plus Three Preludes . The music samples are those of Mozart Unknown Arias for Soprano. The listings for the other three volumes of the Gasparo series being accurate, I assume this is a wrong attribution of music samples rather than the wrong disc.



Anyway, it was a nice and appropriate idea to pair the piano compositions of Edward MacDowell and Charles Tomlinson Griffes on this 4-volume collection published by Gasparo back in the early days of the CD, in 1984. The two composers have much in common, and not only some anecdotal details of biography. Of these, worth mentioning are the fact that they both were born in the State of New York, at a distance of 23 years (1861 and 1884), that both made a living mainly through teaching positions, and finally that both suffered an early death, MacDowell at 46 and Griffes at 35. One is left to imagine how they would have developped compositionally, had they lived, say, twice as old as they did. Griffes, for instance, is of the same generation as Wallingford Riegger, the introducer of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique in the United States and one of the most original voices in American early 20th Century music (try his orchestral collections, Riegger: Symphony No3, Romanza, Dance Rhythms, Music for Orchestra, Concerto for Piano and Woodwind Quintet, Music for Brass Choir, Movement for Two Trumpets Trombone and Piano, Nonet for Brass and Wallingford Riegger: Variations / Sym No.4).



But more fundamentally, both went to Europe to complete their formal musical training, and more specifically to Germany (MacDowell had first enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire but was dissatisfied with the teaching there and moved on), so that both were steeped into the model of German Romanticism. And finally and consequently, they are part of a kind of "lost" compositional generation, the last one to be still under the influence of these 19th Century European models. The First World War changed it all; it is not so much, as the notes put it, that "in the 20th Century (...) American composers (...) evolved an idiom - or, more correctly, several idioms - that are clearly rooted here". This is only partly true, as there is a trend of 20th Century US composers who embraced the European-born 12-tone system. But after 1918 the word of the day seems to have been: American, or more or less "modern", or even both. Clearly, neither MacDowell nor Griffes were part of that, although Griffes is a little more advanced (that is, away from 19th Century Romanticism) in his musical language than MacDowell.



According to the notes, MacDowell's 4th Sonata, "Keltic", written in 1901, is the greatest of his four. Though it is dedicated to Grieg and supposedly inspired, re: the notes, by "the ancient Gaelic legends that can be found in a series of epics know as the Cycle of the Red Branch", the main similitude (I would not speak of influence) I hear in it is Rachmaninoff. It has the same kind of heroic, even grandiloquent statements as in the Russian composer's Sonatas (but not the same mercurial variety of moods and wealth of pianistic counterpoint). It may seem ironic, but it is in fact hardly surprising that the "Russian soul" should sound so similar to the Gaelic legends: their expression relies on the same heart-on-sleeve and grand Romantic gestures. I don't mean any of this dismissively: MacDowell' language is certainly more cliché than Rachmaninoff's (the motoric finale sounds like all those Romantic virtuosic Encores that you can find in collections such as Alan Feinberg's American Virtuoso or Stephen Hough's Piano Album 1), but those who enjoy Rachmaninoff should like MacDowell.



It is still the Rachmaninoff similitude that I hear in the compositions of Griffes - but the more subtle and evocative Rachmaninoff of the Preludes - with forays into the harmonic language of Scriabin (the beginning of "The White Peacock", the first of the Four Roman Sketches, sounds strikingly like a Scriabin poem, and likewise the third Prelude from 1919 seems to reminisce on the beginning of Scriabin's 10th Sonata), Debussy/Ravel (with its left-hand ostinato, "Nightfall", the second Roman Sketch, begins in the same sonic world as "Le Gibet" from "Gaspard de la Nuit", rises to a rippling, shimmering climax evocative of "Scarbo" and goes on with a delicacy often found in Debussy's preludes) or even Bloch (the first of three Preludes). The Four Roman Sketches are highly evocative and atmostpheric tone poems. Among them, "The White Peacock" and "The Fountain of Acqua Paola" - an etude in rippling runs evocative of Liszt and again Rachmaninoff - seem to be singled out and recorded more often - I have them in recordings by Roger Shields (Piano Music In America 1900-1945) and Alan Feinberg (The American Innovator). I see no reason for this preference, though. The two others are equally beautiful and evocative (the last, "Clouds", a wonderfully dreamy and mysterious nocturne). As for the "Three Preludes", composed in 1919, they are Griffes' last work. The last two in particular are quite striking in their harmonic ambiguity and dreamy bareness. While I sometimes get the impression that MacDowell remains on the map, however remotely, only BECAUSE he is American, I feel that Griffes may be excessively neglected only for the same reason. He should have been a Russian émigré.



Interpretively, Tocco strikes a good balance between the uninvolved objectivity of Denver Oldham (Griffes: Collected Works for Piano), the impressive virtuosity but sometimes lack of atmosphere of Shields and the languid dreaminess of Feinberg. But the recording is a little dry and the piano not in perfect tune in its upper registers - nothing detrimental. Good and informative liner notes, except that Allan Kozinn attributes "Le Gibet" to Debussy - it is Ravel, of course. The disc's only drawback is that, with less than 45 minutes, it is not up to CD standards. Find it cheap!

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