Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, January Y9, 1971 Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, January ~9, 197 I 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. 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