Page Two
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Tuesday, January Y9, 1971
Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, January ~9, 197
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records-s ndy
Bee thoren's 200th: YNoreities in mediocrity
I
ftwwftim
...
By JOHN HARVITH
Last year's Beethoven Bicen-
tennial observance offered a
prime example of (and concom-
mitant reason for) the recent
malaise which has set in on
U.S.. concert life: with rare ex-
ceptionseall majortorchestras
and music festivals concentrated
on Beethoven's music alone, and
the most popular and overplay-
ed of it. at that. The net result
was a musical season notable
for its exploitation of sure-fire
warhorses, using Beethoven's
birthday as an excuse for imag-.
inative programming, thus neat-
ly avoiding the intellectual ef-
fort needed to gain a more wide-
spread, musically involved and
committed audience, which must
be done eventually if concert life
as we know it is to continue.
The only U.S. 1970 concert
series or music festivals which
made any novel, intelligent de-
mands on programmers and lis-
teners alike were the Washing-
ton D.C. National Gallery sea-
son, and last summer's Asepn
Music Festival (If any readers
are aware of others, they are re-
quested to write in and let me
know.) Both the Washington
and Aspen lineups concentrat-
ed heavily on seldom-if-ever
played music of Beethoven's
contemporaries, and on less-oft
heard compositions of the Bonn
master himself.
The Aspen Festival, for in-
stance, constructed each con-
cert about one year in Beethov-
en's life. selecting one Beethoven
opus of that year, and juxtapos-
ing it with works of Beethoven's'
contemporaries composed in the
same year. Perhaps the m o s t
revolutionary aspect of the As-
pen presentations, however, was
their refusal to limit concerts to
one musical medium. Thus an
orchestral work, a group of art
songs. a solo piano work and a
string quartet could pop up on
any one given concert. There-
fore, the August 1 afternoon
concert, devoted entirely to
works of 1826. included the
Mendelssohn Piano Sonata,
Opus 6 (composed at age 17). a
group of Schubert songs for ten-
or and male chorus, the Chopin
Variations on "La ci darem la
mano" for piano and orchestra
(written at age 16), and finally
the Beethoven String Quartet,
Opus 135.
These mixed media experienc-
es of unfamiliar, but immediate-
ly accessible music proved a
most stimulating aural happen-
ing for the concertgoer.,The
informal' atmosphere of in-resi-
dence musician-teachers explor-
ing neglected manuscripts of a
bygone era communicated a
feeling of involvement and ur-
gency to the listener a 1m o s t
totally absent from the r i g i d
formality and stuffiness en-
countered at Carnegie Hall or
the Philharmonic and, yes, even
at Hill Auditorium.
The Mendelssohn sonata re-
vealed this Uunderkind's stag-
gering mastery of large-scale
forms while incorporating to fine
effect Beethovenian cliches such
as, in the first movement, the
hushed cascading pianissimo
from the "Ghost" Triv. Ma r y
Norris, the accomplished pianist-
wife of flutist Albert Tipton,
performed with great sensitivity
and taste from the musical
score, with page turner. This
probably would have put "so-
phisticated" New York concert
patrons up in arms with cries
of "Incompetence!", "What's
wrong, hasn't she learned the
notes yet?", etc.
Actually, musicians a w a y s
used scores in live public per-
formances up to the time of
Liszt. It will be recalled that
Beethoven himself used them
in his appearances as pianist,
and so did Mendelssohn at his
1829 resurrection of B a c h ' s
St. Matthew Passion, though
by this time the practice had
become ritual. Tradition forced
the young genius to conspicuo-
usly turn the pages of an open-
ed orchestral score, despite the
fact that he was conducting
from memory.
Norris' employment of a
musical score was more than a
nod to historical practice, it
was an ingenious device to
create further intimacy between
the artist and her audience.
Brilliant pianist William Mas-
selos followed her example in
his absolutely electrifying ex-
position of the Chopin Varia-
tions. The cheering audience.
including 90-year old Rosina
Lhevinne, leapt to its feet. The
Aspen programming psychology
had succeeded in communicat-
ing the performer's exhilaration
in the music to the assembled
auditors.
But for few exceptions. t h e
pioneering spirit of Aspen did
not extend to record compan-
ies during 1970. Nonetheless, one
such happy exception has
reached this reviewer's t u r n-
table: first recordings of Carl
Czerny's Variations for Piano
and Orchestra on a Haydn
Theme. Opus 73, and Ferdinand
Ries' Piano Concerto No. 3 in
c-sharp minor, Opus 55, featur-
ing pianist Felicja Blumenthal,
on RCA's budget Victrola label
(VICS-1501).
Czerny and Ries were t w o
significant students of Beethov-
en,. Ries gaining subsequent no-
tariety as a piano virtuoso of
the first rank, and Czerny ac-
quiring fame as the foremost
piano pedagogue of his time
who, incidentally, taught both
Liszt and Leschetizky.
Czerny has, the unlucky dis-
tinction of being uniformly de-
spised by aspiring pianists as
the composer of dinky piano ex..-
ercises exploring the limitless
boredom of evenly articulated
scales, trills, and arpeggios.
These indelibly etched, bitter
memories of pianists and form-
er piano students had pretty
much killed all previous ad-
venturous urges to delve into
the untapped treasure trove of
over 1000 Czerny works.
As the Variations (based on
the Austrian National Anthem)
prove, however, Czerny's non-
etude oeuvres display superb
wit, elan and craftsmanship.
From the festival tutti intro-
duction with its filigreed piano
writing a la Chopin and Liszt
serving as much-ado-about-
nothing preliminaries to the
simple solo piano statement of
the theme and the ensuing im-
provisatory variations, Czerny
delights the ear and mind with
his thoroughly idiomatic vir-
tuoso pianism, lucid, skillful or-
chestration, and borrowed
phrases from Beethoven and
Mozart woven cunningly into
the musical fabric.
Indeed, tonal detectives will
have a field day uncovering all
the merchandise lifted from
Ludwig and Wolfgang: e.g. the
tympani-stroke motive from the
Beethoven Violin Concerto in
the opening tutti, quotes from
the Mozart K.467 and K.491
Piano Concerti. Most conspic-
uous of all the transplants,
though, are whole sections of
the "Emperor" Concerto, with
which the Variations can claim
closest stylistic kinship. It is
as if Czerny doesn't want us to
forget that he performed the
Vienna premiere of this work,
Joyously appropriating the con-
clusion to the first movement of
the Emperor to serve double
duty as the crowning glory of
his Variations.
Although Blumenthal lacks
the fluidity and limpidity in
trills and fluttering passage-
work which .one could expect
of a Rubinstein, her playing is
still solid and unruffled through
all the gymnastic pyrotechnics
required by the score with suf-
ficient ,,sensitivity left over for
the subtler moments. The Yien-
na Chamber Orchestra under
Froeschauer is splendidly trans-
parent and vibrant, perfectly
within the spirit of the music.
Whereas the Czerny work is
good-naturedly lighthearted in
its pomposity, Ries' concerto is
pretentiously serious, almost
gothic in its romanticisms.
Granting its occasionally strik-
ing harmonic twists, this pur-
portedly weighty composition
never gets off the ground due to
a lack of any genuine creative
spark. The listener is frequent-
ly left at sea while pianist and
orchestra seem lost in a rhetor-
ical quagmire. Moreover, it has
not sustained this auditor's in-
terest upon repeated hearing,
despite its reputed Nineteenth
Century popularity. The per-
formers and engineers contri-
bute to the Concerto's overall
murky impression by providing
a rather leadenfooted reading,
put into high relief by muddy
orchestral execution and dull re-
cording.
Nevertheless, I cannot endorse
At State & Liberty Sts,
DIALr
662-
6264.
this disc highly enough for the
new lease on life it has given to
Czerny and his sparkling Var-
iations. I hope additional re-
cording firms will now follow
RCA's lead and issue more discs
devoted to Czerny and . t h e r
neglected Beethoven students
such as Moscheles. Who knows,
some enterprising company may
eclipse DGG's Beethoven Edi-
tion of some 150 works on 75
records by releasing perform-
ances of all 1000 Czerny opera.
Now there's a project ..
4.- -
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