Search - Ronald Stevenson, Raymond Clarke :: Ronald Stevenson: Passacaglia On DSCH

This is your only way to hear Stevenson's music! Get it!!

Darin Tysdal | Bloomington, MN 55420 | 07/22/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is hard nowadays to find recordings of Ronald Stevenson's music, but fortunately this cd gives us his most important work. John Ogdon recorded this work (I bet it never made it to the states!) which should also be restored to the catalog as well as Stevenson's other recording of this plus other pieces which he and other artist has recorded. This is Marc-Andre Hamelin type stuff, a 80 minute single movement piece (not as long as Maw's Odyssey for orchestra, but close). However, Raymond Clarke proves to be a formidable talent. I hope that there will be more recordings to come of his playing, but this disc is now 5 years old (I really am sorry I missed it back then) and as far as I know, he has not issued any other recordings. If you are a Shostakovich fan, you probably would think that the composer himself used the theme in all its permutations. However, Stevenson goes farther in assuming the themes many moods by many transformations. Much virtuosity is needed as well as extreme sensitivity and Clarke succeeds with aplomb. The only reservation is the clausterphobic sound quality. I got used to it and what is more important, the music carried me away which is really what a recording is about."

Monument-like to the struggle and hope of this century

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 05/12/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a fascinating work monumental in design and content, within the Mahlerian universe of storming the heavens,where music should represent the complexity of the world, and one way of proceeding is a work exclaiming itself in sheer durational length.Mahler of course was speaking of the Symphonie, and duration was a problematic for the late Romantic aesthetic,but here Stevenson makes the creative situation forever more complex by summoning the services of the piano. The piano by comparison has not the timbral dimension nor colour of the orchestra. Ronald Stevenson was born in Blackburn,Lancanshire in 1928, England of Scottish and Welsh descent. And his music reflects a lifelong affinity for the tradition of folk or a melos that remains close to the voice,close to the basic elements of culture.He was somewhat Left leaning with a streak of Scottish nationalism in his blood. However in no way is that a facile perspective,in fact it is a creative situation frought with a new set of problematics. England recall was somewhat insolated from the twin revolutionary musics on the continent, the glorious ballet scores of Stravinsky and the dodecaphonic innovations of Schoenberg. Stevenson music's never involved itself with this language, however he was involved with the set of problematics of composition, was the first to instigate for instance, interest in the music of Ferruccio Busoni, an innovator in his own right. Stevenson was himself, as Busoni, a marvelous pianist. He had always complained of the "product-line" pianism that was an integral part of the concert world, the builiding of repertoire for the moment,rather than a life's devotion toward a particular creative agenda. The Passacaglia is a time attenuated and honed genre, in which the creator either triumphs or are left in diminution of what was.There are precedents here, I recall Stephan Wolpe's piano Passacaglia comes to mine as a profound work,but no where near as long as the Stevenson.By comparison Stevenson sets an oratorio-like gesture for the piano,whereas Wolpe was a mere intervallic display,as fascinating as that is. The DSCH motive is a dedication to Dmitri Shostakovich and the derivation of the tones comes from the German spelling S is E-flat, H is B-natural, B refers to B-flat, it is a motive that appears frequently in the music of Shostakovich, the Eighth String Quartet for instance. Stevenson at 32 years of age, began work in West Linton, the village south of Edinburgh in December,1960 and was completed in May,1962.A bound copy was presented to Shostakovich during the Edinburgh Festival. The work progresses sometimes,mysteriously sometimes arduously,lumbered,brooding, you feel the rhythmic weight of this motive many times. But then there are variations which reach for the heavens, with mists of scales and arpeggios, ascending, or other comments as afterbeats, after the primary motive. The work is tonal based yet extended wherever possible it seems as means of contextual escape.Stevenson finds his voice within toanlity in this work as no other. The piece's content is that it progresses over an agenda of continuous development, this long a structural concern of this century. Recall,that developmental variations was like the end point of structure, the late and post-romantics engaged in, in particular the music of Johannes Brahms proceeding up to Schoenberg reaching culmination with the diamond-cut private gestures of Anton Webern,his Variations for Piano, is seemingly the endpoint of this tradition. Stevenson brings an encyclopedic-like compendium of musical forms,an affinity for traditional form here dividing the work into Episodes, each episode progressing quite differently with its own array of these forms.The First functions much like a Sonata Allegro. We also have prelude,sarabande,polonaise,gavotte,and the strum of the inside piano strings is an arresting gesture here,given Stevenson's relative conservative musical language. The Second Episode for instance engages in "arabesque variations" dispensing with the Baroque procedures,then a "drumming" section framed in an Etude-like form which identifies the center of the work.There is then a "Dies irae and is marked "in memoriam the six million" Toward the final pages Stevenson reamrkable how he can restrain himself for the ending pages, where Variations on the Russian "Peace,Bread and The Land"occurs which is an ostinato rhythm implied by the Russian slogan of 1917 Mir Khleb i Zemlya. This implies a point of reconstruction and renewal.So points of lament and points of hope and triumph compliment each other profoundly. Stevenson (dissimilar to many Western scholars), shares the view that Shostakovich believed in the socialist system. He may have not honored its opportunist leaders,yet he harbored this belief all his life,the belief in freedom from exploitation. There are other rich contextual associations here as well, the song "To Emergent Africa" included in the final pages here,this a controversial passage indeed when performed by Stevenson himself at the premiere in 1963 in Cape Town South Africa. Raymond Clarke the remarkable pianist here, Herculean actually in his efforts also provides his own comprehensive jacket notes.I found his playing reserved and less than impassioned at times,claiming the works control and clarity prior to passionate display. There is only one reference to Stevenson's Scottish ancestry here it was actually written last in 1963 a seventeenth century lament "Cumha na Cloinne (Lament of the Children). This is the fifth of the 17 sections."

A remarkable work

G.D. | Norway | 11/21/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ronald Stevenson's (b.1928) gargantuan Passacaglia on DSCH has obtained almost legendary status and, in fact, quite a few recordings (I have not heard any alternative ones and the reader should perhaps bear that in mind), partly, of course, for its extraordinary time-span alone and technical demands. But as this recording amply shows, it deserves its status - it is a truly remarkable work which is not easily forgotten, possibly a masterpiece. It was written between 1960 and 1962 and based, as the title suggests, on the four-note motif associated with Dmitry Shostakovich (his monogram as a musical theme appearing in many of his most famous works), although later in the work it is also contrasted with the B-A-C-H theme. I am not here going to analyze the complex structure of the work, but I should mention that it is not an easily digestible work, but one that is composed with a remarkable strong sense of direction and a welter of imaginative elements (ranging from Scottish folkmusic to plainchant) - enough so, in fact, to support the ambitious structure. The overall effect can perhaps be described as a transcendental journey (I don't quite know what that means, but it sounds like a correct description). This is heaven-storming music of gritty turbulence and kaleidoscopic atmospheres and touching, innocent-sounding movements developing into existential turmoil and staring into the abyss.



The performance by Raymond Clarke is extremely satisfying; he tackles the enormous technical demands with no problem or hesitation, although he doesn't make them sound effortless (which, to emphasize, I think is the correct way of doing it here; it is supposed to sound like a challenging journey). The sound quality, on the other hand, is not quite what it should be, sounding boxy and slightly distorted. In any case, this is a remarkable work in really satisfying performances, and is as such firmly recommended - lovers of Busoni's piano music or of Shostakovich should definitely hear it, but the music is rewarding enough to warrant a strong general recommendation."