godowsky Passacaglia 4 Poems Transcriptions Paraphrases
Emanuele Delucchi, Steinway 1906
A L S O AVA I L A B L E A selection of Piano Classics titles For the full listing please visit www.piano-classics.com
LISZT Sonata
SCHUBERT
Wanderer Fantasy
JANÁCˇEK
BRAHMS
Handel Variations 2 Rhapsodies Fantasien Op. 116
Sonata 1.X.1905
Sofya Gulyak
Philipp Kopachevsky
PCL0084
PCL0085
PCL0086
DEBUSSY Early piano works
HUBERT RUTKOWSKI, ÉRARD 1880
PCL0087
PCLM0088
PCL0091
The sound of the Golden Age The present recording has been made using the Steinway D 274 of 1906 belonging to the collection of Marco Barletta, piano restorer from Chiavari (Genoa, Italy). The instrument is completely original and has not undergone technical alterations over time, thus preserving the sound of the socalled “Golden Age” of the piano, with its unavoidable imperfections. Despite the inlaid wood and the carved legs that point to the Art Nouveau, the 1906 Steinway is morphologically identical to the present; nevertheless, it is impossible to avoid noticing the warm sound, especially in the tenor register, and the enveloping and “wooden” sound that characterised the historical records of those years. Thanks to the light mechanic and the slightly shorter key run, the keyboard allows a more direct sound control and a more natural timbric research. The date of construction of this instrument corresponds to Godowsky’s pianistic floruit, when he established his fame in the old continent, in Berlin and then in Vienna; in 1906 the original works and the most important transcriptions are yet to come, but the main characteristics of Godowskyan pianistic writing are already visible in some works (the
2
Chopin Valse op. 18 transcription and some “Chopin-Studien” – the transcription of op.25 n. 6, which is the first, was made in 1899 and dedicated to his teacher and mentor Saint-Saens): late-romantic melodies and harmonies blooming from a polyphonic and extremely dense writing, a horror vacui that recalls the decorativism of some paintings by Klimt. Godowsky was a man of his time and was a supporter of the technological progress he assisted to (he was the first pianist who travelled by plane and thus had an international career); he can be deservedly described as a positivist and this definition can be applied to his vision of the pianistic technique too (concerning this, it would not be useless to read the preface he wrote for the “Studien”). The indissoluble bond of Godowsky’s pianistic style with the modern Steinway and its technical and expressive potential is attested also by his “re-writing” of pieces created for a radically different piano, such as the Pleyel or the Erard of Chopin’s time; thus, we cannot fail to notice that not only the transcriptions (or re-writings), but also Godowsky’s original works, in a way ingenuous and naive (cfr. Millan Sachania, Introduction to Leopold
Godowsky Piano Works, Fisher Edition), are inevitably connected to his time and to the pianistic culture of that age and that it is not inappropriate to take them back to the sound on the base of which they were conceived. Passacaglia: 44 variations, epilogue, cadenza and Fugue on the opening theme of Schubert’s Unfinished. Written in 1927 for the centenary of F. Schubert’s death (in 1928), it is Godowsky’s piano masterpiece. In a letter to Maurice Aronson, the composer himself states about this work: “It is my most important work since the Sonata (17 years ago!), is considerably more mature (no wonder!) and touches depths which only intense suffering can produce – but there is emancipation and defiance in it. The Passacaglia gave me new strength and a feeling of aloofness. I hope you will not interpret this as a gesture of conceit or bravado. I simply believe that my latest work is a great expression of human loftiness. While composing it I felt that I was purifying my soul and looking closer in to eternity” (Nicholas, Godowsky, The Pianists Pianist, p. 132). The ground of the Passacaglia is from the first measures of the eighth Symphony by Franz Schubert (Unfinished) with the addition of a
dominant upbeat (which endows the variations with a cyclic continuity) and a perfect cadence, in order to reach the eight canonical measures of the musical phrase. The first part consists of 44 variations, variously connected to each other, and is divided into two large sections, the first ending with a majestic B major. As highlighted by Sachania (p. XI), some variations show citations from other works by Schubert (Erlkönig, Fantasia for piano four-hands). Especially in the first part, Godowsky makes extensive use of chromatism and makes some brief incursions in the modality (precisely in the Dorir mode). The very short Epilogue leads directly to the Cadenza built on the last three notes of the theme (D - C sharp - F sharp). The final four-parts Fugue is built with every contrapuntal artifice (except for the cancrizans and per diminutionem) by using an almost organistic and, in the last pages, orchestral writing. The piece, which is extremely complex from a technical and polyphonic point of view, presents the greatest problems in the interpretation: the characterisation of every variation causes difficulties in following a broader musical discourse, whereas on the other hand the
3
constant highlighting of the theme fails to give unity to the narration and makes the piece heavy and boring. While the theme of the Passacaglia is, by definition, a pretext for building a new and completely original musical piece, it is in the secondary voices that Ariadne’s thread should be searched for, in order to navigate this musical labyrinth. This is how we discover that Godowsky often forms groups of three variations bound to each other, creating connections between the first and the last and the first and the second of each group: a process which resembles the “variation of the variation” used by Brahms, who can be regarded as one of the models of the Passacaglia together with Bach and Reger. It is worth recalling the anecdote about Horowitz (Nichols, p. 133), who was two steps away from performing it in a concert, but then gave up the idea saying to Dagmar Godowsky (Leopold’s daughter): “Hopeless, it needed six hands to play it!”. The piece did not have an immediate circulation, primarily because no one performed it after the death of the composer; still at the time of the publication of Nicholas’ fundamental book about Godowsky, the Author laments: “The Passacaglia will remain on the shelf until a new breed of
4
pianists emerges of the calibre of Cherkassky or a Bolet and who dares to risk playing the unusual and the unknown.”. Since then, three important recordings have been made by specialists of the Author (Grante, Scherbakov and Hamelin), followed by some other interesting ones (De Waal, Siirala). Hopefully, this extraordinary work will be given the importance it deserves in the concert programmes. The present recording aims to underline the non-virtuosity of Godowsky’s writing and to bring a clear and natural musical discourse out of the polyphonic webs, drawing inspiration from the words written by Chasins about the very first performance of the piece, made by the Author in his flat in New York: “It had the cool, colourful clarity of a stained-glass window. Although I was greatly moved and impressed by what I heard, Godowsky’s effortless mastery made me unaware of the vastness of his pianistic feat that night” (Nicholas, p. 133). 5 Lieder from 12 Schubert’s songs Transcriptions. Written in 1926, the transcriptions from Schubert’s Lieder have at least one important pianistic precedent in the works by Franz Liszt. Godowsky himself was conscious of this fact, and wrote with a hint of pride about Wohin: “[...] that song I used to
play in Liszt’s transcription. Well, my version is a thousand times better and more effective” (Nicholas, p. 126). Compared to Liszt, he makes less use of instrumental virtuosism, whereas he is more faithful to the original melodic lines, which remain always in the foreground despite the polyphonic texture being, as usual, considerably dense (but not intricate). Generally speaking, Godowsky remains faithful also to the number of the verses and takes thus the chance, one verse after another, of creating new pianistic inventions. Wohin. Through a constant flow of sixteenths, Godowsky gives substance to the sound of the brook evoked in the text of the Lied and succeeds through little alterations of the original harmonies in giving coherence to the perpetual motion and to the melodic line emerging from it. Apart from Liszt, also Rachmaninov wrote (and recorded!) a piano version of this piece, and this is the reason why Godowsky dedicated the transcription to him: “I dedicated it to Rachmaninov because he transcribed the same piece [...] which shows very clearly my influence. I thought it a good joke to dedicate my version to him” (Nicholas, p. 127). Gute Nacht. This Lied and also Morgengruss were recorded by Godowsky
himself. There is an atmosphere of profound sadness, underlined by a writing that employs, especially at the beginning, the baritone register of the piano. Also in this case, the precedent is Liszt, who does not reject, unlike Godowsky, virtuosistic devices reading the original in a far less intimate way. Heidenröslein. Written to be performed with the sparkling and at the same time delicate sound of the recordings of the beginning of the 20th century, it is a purely pianistic jewel, whilst Wiegenlied has oppositely a purely melodic nature (the present recording strives to imitate the miraculous voice of Gundula Janowitz, who gave an incomparable interpretation of this Lied). Godowsky gives complexity to this simple melody of Schubert by adding a canon entrusted to an inner voice: it must sound simple and natural not to ruin the magic of the piece. Morgengruss. As has already been said, a recording of this Lied was made by Godowsky, who succeeds in getting out of the piano a miraculous sound; one is impressed by his scrupulousness in trying to follow all the articulation, dynamic and pedal indications, with an almost obsessive attitude that has often caused him to be accused of coldness. A more careful listening reveals that
5
the melodic line is supported in a way that seems impossible for an instrument with beaten strings and avoids completely the rhetoric of the declamato. It is one of the most beautiful and moving transcriptions from Schubert. Ständchen (R. Strauss). Written in 1922, it displays an extraordinary pianistic writing: with a brilliant artifice Godowsky succeeds in placing the melody and the accompaniment on the same pianistic register, giving to each of the two its own well-defined timbre and conveying thus the clear impression of two sonorities. This transcription is extremely faithful to the original, with the addition of a short coda to end the piece. It is worth recalling that, in Godowsky’s view, Richard Strauss represented the limit of the musical language beyond which he has never gone, remaining foreign to every atonal avant-garde (he defined Berg’s Wozzeck “a crime upon civilisation”). Adagetto from the Arlésienne (Bizet). “An absolute gem”, as Nicholas writes (p. 132). This piece is very simple from a technical point of view, but very complex for the conduction of the sound; every note has an indication of touch and every phrase has its own direction suggested by accents. It is one of the few transcriptions from
6
orchestral repertoire: Godowsky clearly preferred adding rather than subtracting, and inventing new counterpoints rather than organising the already existing ones in a pianistic logic; it is no coincidence that, for instance, the transcriptions from Bach are never from the organ, but only from solo string instruments (violin, cello). Canzonetta from Concerto Romantique (Godard). It is a work written in 1927, together with the previous and with a series of other transcriptions (among which the renowned piano version of the Swan by Saint-Saëns and three arrangements from Chopin’s waltzes). Despite the lightness of the piece, the writing is nonetheless densely contrapuntal and the pianism is sparkling and has a similar style to that of the transcription of Heidenröslein. This transcription, too, follows faithfully the original, in which the melody is entrusted to the solo violin and a simple accompaniment to the strings. In the recapitulation a solo cello duets with the violin and Godowsky uses the same expedient adding an inner voice; then he enriches the original with the addition of a short coda at the end of the piece. Tango (Albeniz). Probably the most famous transcription by Godowsky, which has replaced for some time the original
by Albeniz. It has been performed, generally as an encore, by many great pianists (unexpectedly, also by Backhaus), but really unforgettable is the interpretation of Shura Cherkassky, who had the chance, in his younger years, to play the piece in the presence of the Author himself during the celebrations for his 65th birthday (Nicholas, p. 157). Four Poems. The first three were written in 1927, while the last in 1932. According to Nicholas, in this work appears “some of Godowsky’s most heartfelt self-expression” and their melodic genuineness and sincerity is truly impressive. They are dedicated as a sign of gratitude to Paul Howard, founder of the “Godowsky society”, friend and sponsor of Godowsky during the last and difficult period of his life. The first Poem, Devotion, in the peaceful E major key, is written in the pianistic style of the Gardens of Buitenzorg from the Java Suite: a melody sprouting from a continuous flow of sixteenths. Avowal, the second one, is a heartfelt melody in the warm D flat major key, followed by a melancholic and chromatic central section and by a recapitulation of the first part according to the traditional ternary form. Adoration is the most complex of the Poems from a compositional
and pianistic point of view; extremely chromatic and harmonically complicated, it combines with the densely polyphonic writing typical of Godowsky a passionate spontaneity. This piece follows the ternary form with the addition of a final coda that gradually eases tension coming to an end with a pianissimo. Yearning is the fourth and last of the poems. In spite of the tender atmosphere of the F-sharp major key, the piece conveys a deep melancholy. To fully understand its meaning, one should consider the time when it was composed, the year 1932: Godowsky had just had a heart attack that paralysed his right hand causing the end of his career and of the hopes of regaining what he had lost in the crisis of 1929. To the right hand is entrusted a simple melody, revealingly marked with a piangendo, while the left hand has a more elaborate writing and represents the motive force of the piece. Godowsky tellingly wrote at the top of it: “Who can fathom the indefinable, tearful, longings off a passionate soul?”. This was the last original work written by Godowsky. Wein, Weib und Gesang (J. Strauss). It is the third of the four transcriptions from Strauss’ Waltzes, perhaps the most famous and most recorded works of
7
Godowsky, unanimously acknowledged as pieces that have a brilliant pianistic writing. Someone has rightly spoken of “Johann Strauss dancing with Bach” and of “the last word in terpsichorean counterpoint” (Nicholas, pp. 69, 71). Wein, Weib und Gesang, the date of composition of which is unknown, was published in 1912 together with the transcriptions from Kuenstlerleben and Fledermaus, in the Viennese period of the Author (1908-1912). Godowsky does not spare any pianistic artifice and his polyphonic inventiveness seems unlimited, although in this transcription a more loose and free virtuosism receives more space in comparison to the first two symphonic metamorphoses (this is precisely their title), which overlay up to four themes at one time. Among the reference recordings there are Cherkassky’s one (of which we follow the shorter version of the D-flat major part), characterised by great rhythmic freedom and charm, and Hamelin’s one, “cartesian” and elegant. Formally, Godowsky builds a clever architecture putting, before the waltz itself, an introduction that runs through all the following themes, like in a kaleidoscope (Ravel does something similar in the epilogue of the Valses nobles et
8
sentimentales); each episode of the piece is connected and counterpointed seamlessly with the following. A real horror vacui (horror silentii) that leads in one breath to the grand final coda. Alt Wien. It is number 11 of the collection of triple meter pieces Triakontameron, published in 1920, at the pinnacle of the Author’s career; it is the most renowned piece by Godowsky thanks to the successful version for violin and piano often performed (and recorded) by Heifetz. At the top of it we can read “Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile through tears”: Godowsky was forced to leave Vienna hastily and without notice, because of the outbreak of the First World War, and a considerable part of his property remained there (including a certain number of manuscripts, amongst which, as Nicholas says, also a transcription from the Beautiful Blue Danube!); years later, when he had definitively settled in America, he recalled imperial Vienna’s atmosphere in this exquisite page steeped in melancholy and sweetness. Millan Sachania quotes the following statement from the music journals of that time: “It was a fatal omission on the part of Godowsky and Busoni to give us no Consolation in E, no Minuet in G, no Prelude in C
sharp minor”. And yet, Alt Wien proves the contrary; Godowsky’s non-success lasted only until the Eighties, when there was an important rebirth and rediscovery of his music. Godowsky is an important composer for the piano, and Rachmaninov himself remarked that “Godowsky is the only musician of this age who has given a lasting, a real contribution to the development of piano music” (Nicholas, p. XXIII). We can speak about pianistic “Positivism”, which represents the surpassing of Lisztian technique and thus the new frontier from which modern virtuosism has started.
Nowadays, every virtuoso demonstrates his ability in creating counterpoints or particular polyphonic effects with the material he uses (e.g. Volodos, Hamelin) and this derives clearly from Godowsky’s lesson. The language of the original compositions does not go further than Strauss or echoes from Debussy and this is, of course, his limit. The publication in 1989 of the often cited book by Nicholas, Godowsky, the pianists’ pianist, and the recordings of the most part of his works by Grante, Scherbakov, and Hamelin have sensitised the public and the performers, although, before them, pianists like Cherkassky and Bolet had spread Godowsky’s name with their performances. © Emanuele Delucchi Translation Dr. Francesca Manfrin
9
EMA NUELE DELUCCHI, PIA N O The cursus studiorum of the pianist and composer Emanuele Delucchi (b. 1987) was completed in 2009 with the Postgraduate Diploma level achieved at the “N. Paganini” Conservatory (110/110 Summa cum laude), and in 2011 with the three-year diploma at the Academy “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola (where he could follow the masterclass of the Maestros Zoltan Kocsis, Cedric Pescia, Robert Levin and Vovka Ashkenazy). He studied with Maestros Canzio Bucciarelli, Riccardo Risaliti, and currently he is studying with Maestro Davide Cabassi at the “C. Monteverdi” Conservatory in Bolzano. First prize in several national and international competitions, in 2008 he won the “Stefano Marizza Piano Competition” in Trieste, «for the intelligence and the balance shown in reading and producing the works presented», and in April 2012 he won the golden medal in the first “Alkan - Zimmerman International Piano Competition” in Athens. He is one of the 27 finalists of the 60th Busoni International Piano Cometition in Bozen. Defined by some critics as “fearless virtuoso” (Klaus Ross), “pianist endowed with a remarkable ability to interpret and an
10
excellent technique” (Eleanor Brezovecˇki), “one of the most versatile and eclectic virtuosos Genoa has grown in recent years” (Giorgio De Martino), “a true lion of the keyboard, a discovery” (Matthias Ross), he has performed as soloist in Italy, Germany, France, England, Greece, Slovenia and Croatia, and in chamber ensambles in collaboration with the composers Sylvano Bussotti (Lecce 2007), Carlo Boccadoro and Fabio Vacchi (Genoa 2013), with the violinist Giulio Plotino, with the cellist Nicola Paoli, the pianists Francesco Libetta and Vincenzo Maltempo, in trio with Eva Zahn and Antonio Plotino (trio “Weber”), with the flutists Stefania Carrara and Fabio De Rosa and the soprano Barbara Costa. He played with the orchestra “J. Sibelius” (conductor Filippo Torre), the “City of Chiavari Symphony Orchestra” (Paolo Ferrara) and collaborated with the orchestra of the “Tiroler Festspiele Erl” (Gustav Kuhn). He is the first Italian who has performed in public (at the “Paisiello” theatre in Lecce, invited by Maestro Francesco Libetta for the 4th edition of the “Miami Piano Festival in Lecce”) and recorded in CD (live, produced by the “N. Paganini” Conservatory) the
monumental “Concerto for piano solo” by Ch. Valentin Alkan. In May 2011, he recorded in studio for the label “Prometheus” the CD “Suite Antique”, which includes recent works by Martin Münch, and in December 2013 with Vincenzo Maltempo for the label “Toccata Classic” a CD including music by Alkan/Da Motta (1st recording). Some of his most recent compositions are
published by “Musicisti Associati Produzioni - MAP” in Milan. He is an appreciated piano accompanist since 2003: he has accompanied on the piano fifteen operas, and has collaborated since its beginning (2010) with the International Opera Competition “City of Deiva Marina”. He is a voracious reader and a classical culture lover.
11