An American in Berlin

Simone Dinnerstein
The Berlin Concert
Telarc, 80715
2008

Simone Dinnerstein is an American pianist who shot to prominence with a 2007 release of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Born and raised in New York (where she still resides), she studied under Peter Serkin at Julliard. With her first-release home run at age 35, it is not surprising to find a poised and mature artist tackling substantial pieces.

This present release is the follow up to that debut, a live recording from 11/22/07 at the Philharmonie in Berlin. In addition to her undisputed mastery of Bach, we are treated to a late Beethoven sonata, and the 12 Variations on a Bach Chorale by American composer Philip Lasser.

I discovered her on iTunes, and found a couple videos (from Telarc) on YouTube. I have to say that her manner at the keyboard (from video) is a bit off-putting to me, seeming a touch affected and theatrical in contrast to a pretty down-to-earth manner when speaking. But the proof is in the sound, and this recording shows Ms. Dinnerstein in a most flattering light.

Glenn Gould casts a long shadow, and it's difficult for me to listen to anyone's piano Bach and not compare their work with his. Gould was notorious for seeming to give equal treatment to each of Bach's contrapuntal lines, which makes for a challenge even for the listener. But there are a lot of ways to accomplish the task, and the great Bach pianists to follow Gould--András Schiff and Angela Hewitt come to mind--have found their own ways to do the works justice. Dinnerstein more readily invites comparisons to these latter two artists than to Gould. Her playing is pianistic; she does not attempt to imitate a harpsichord. But her technique is clean and confident, and one cannot but look forward to how she might tackle the Well-Tempered Clavier, say.

Philip Lasser's work is new to me, but it has the most auspicious foundation, Bach's haunting harmonisation of the Lutheran hymn Nimm von uns, Herr, du Treuer Gott, BWV 101, (a chorale tune also used by Mendelssohn in his Sixth Organ Sonata). It's clearly a contemporary work, but it stays comfortably tethered to the original tonality in a successful blend of the old and new. Dinnerstein plays it as though she wrote it herself.

The recording is fantastic. There is nary an audience sound, and the piano's image and the minute shadings and harmonic minglings are perfectly captured. Some of my favorite organ recordings are from Telarc, though they have been quiet for a while. It's great to see them back in the saddle so impressively.

The Left Hand Zig-Zags

American Beauty: A Ragtime Boquet
Gary Smart, piano
Albany Records, TROY 1029

***

Gary Smart is the Yessin Professor of Music at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, a broadly-trained musician, a versatile composer and an improviser across a stylistic range from American jazz to classical music to world music. This Albany Records release features Smart playing a number of his own piano rags interspersed with works by the classic ragtime composers of a century ago.

I've always been a wee bit frustrated at the selection of piano ragtime available in the CD era. The wonderful Dick Hyman released an authoritative full set of Scott Joplin's piano works three decades ago on a 5-LP set on RCA (I believe), but so far only a single disc of "favorites" from that effort has made its way to CD. Most every other recording I've come across since either has amateur playing or a disappointing instrument or recording, or the artist insists to some degree on treating Joplin's score as a rough template, a kind of jazz fake book for how the artists thinks the piece ought to sound. I suppose this is not nonsensical, given Joplin's position as one of the bedrocks of jazz, a genre which has a fundamental element of improvisation. Maybe my classical music background has tainted me--people don't "interpret" Chopin in this way--but I just prefer to hear what Joplin wrote rather than what each pianist has to say about what Joplin wrote.



I have no such reservations about this CD. Dr. Smart devotes about half the recording to classic rag composers--Joplin, Joseph Lamb, James Scott, Robert Hampton and Clarence Woods--and the other half to his own compositions. He does the genre great justice, demonstrating a deep sympathy and understanding. Tempi are ambling (everybody seems to want to play rags too fast, and it's a delight to hear someone slow down and find the groove), the rubato restrained, and the performances get us right inside the pieces, in the process capturing (and revisiting) a rich moment in history.

Having said that, most of Smart's own works here sound right out of that classic rag period of a hundred-plus years ago. His Two Flowers Rag takes us right back to the turn of the last century (reminding me of the soundtrack for one of my favorite movies, Robert Altman's Gosford Park) and the Peanut Butter and Laramie Rags are quite traditional. By way of contrast, his Harlequin Rag offers a more modern variation on the theme, departing from the template a bit in both structure and tonality. And the delightfully jaunty Bell Rag also sounds smartly updated (sorry).

The classic works on the album make lovely additions to one's music library. James Scott and Joseph Lamb sit with Joplin at the top of the ragtime family tree, and it takes a devotee to realize these composers' works are not from Joplin's pen. Scott's Grace and Beauty especially sounds absolutely like a Joplin rag (and is in any event a delightful composition). And we get two Joplin rags, including my single favorite of the genre, Solace: a Mexican serenade.

The piano chosen for the recording sounds a touch tired, though not to the recording's detriment. The record is not particularly sharp, but clean enough to make out detail.

Church Without Talking

Bach: Epiphany Mass
Gabrieli Consort & Players
Deutsche Grammophon ARCHIV Produktion, 457 631-2
1998

***

Looking back on the short tenure of this music blog, I find that the previously-reviewed recording by Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort & Players, The Road to Paradise, stands out as my favorite recording of the year (at least so far). The more I listen to it, the more deeply impressed I am: profoundly conceived, flawlessly executed, stunningly captured; this disc is a rare, rare treat.

Well, the ensemble have been together for quite a while--since 1982, to be exact--and I'm the one showing up late to the party. So there's quite a catalog of recordings to explore. I've chosen next the group's 1998 recreation of the musical portions of a Mass at the St. Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where Bach was employed for the last half of his life. The intent here, it appears (there are no notes with the iTunes download), is to show Bach's purpose-made music in as close to the exact context as possible to what people would have experienced at the time. And as such, we find his composed mass included among some of his organ works, a cantata and a number of other pieces by other composers. All these disparate elements would have been skilfully integrated and managed to achieve the appropriate ecclesiastical experience (as it was judged at the time).

I am, I've often said, a stickler for precision and intonation, attributes present to the point of conspicuity in their Road to Paradise CD. Not surprisingly, the current disc proves that Dr. McCreesh and company did not suddenly stumble upon their skills just prior to that most recent recording. This one reminds me of the axiom that our elders were pounding into our heads when we were kids: through discipline comes freedom. By choosing ensemble members carefully and holding everyone to very exacting standards, the work produced blossoms before us as something more than the sum of its parts. This particular setting places our Bach and his work among that of other composers, most notably Johann Pachelbel, which, with the chants and other service-related details, gives us a sense of his modernity and his perfection of craft. It's a glorious and elevating experience.

I'm less disposed to respond to the efforts at replicating the church service per se, doubtless because the ecclesiastical functions and origin of this music are lost on me. So in that sense, this effort as a concept album doesn't hit its mark for me. That element of Bach's music, his piety, has never played a role in my love of his work. I'm taken with his miraculous mind, his singular genius for purely musical logic. There is all the mystery of the human experience right there.

Still, I would not grudge the believer their synergy with Bach's religious message, and McCreesh et al. have given us the best possible chance to find the wonder of this music, however we define it.