Morton Gould: Dance Variations for Two Pianos & Orchestra (1953), Walter Piston: Concerto for Two Pianos & Orchestra (1958), Aaron Copland: Danzón Cubana, Rodeo: Hoedown, Saturday Night Waltz (arrt. Gold & Fizdale), El Salon Mexico (arrt. Bernstein). Joshua Pierce & Dorothy Jonas, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, David Amos. Koch International Classics 3-7002-2 or 3-7002-2 H1 (1990) barcode 099923700227
Gould and Piston (“World Premiere Recording”) recorded 24-25 July 1989 at The Soundstage, CBS Studios, London
Copland recorded 28 September 1989 at Pro Piano Studios
Enjoyable if unsubstantial Gould, fine work by Piston despite its indebtness to Stravinsky and Bartok. There’s a preferable edition.
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 10 December 2007
I’d been listening recently to some American Piano Concertos written between the early 1950s and early `60s, among which Kirchner’s (1953, on Music & Arts CD-1045 “Leon Kirchner Historical Recordings“, link will open new tab to my review on Amazon.com pending repost here), Sessions’ (1956, New World Records 80443-2, link to my review on Discophage.com), Mennin’s (1958, CRI CD 741) and Persichetti’s (1962, New World Records NW 370-2 barcode 093228037026, link to my review on Amazon.com pending repost) and wanted to assess if there was, beyond all the stylistic differences, a distinctly American approach to composing for the medium, at least in those years. Well, maybe so, but I’m not over yet with that research. Anyway, I thought of pulling out of my shelves this CD, published in 1990, which hadn’t left a big mark in my memory; I mainly wanted to give a new try to Piston’s Two-Piano Concerto from 1958 (there’s an early Concertino, but Piston never wrote a Piano Concerto proper). I’d also recently heard, enjoyed and reviewed a number of Symphonies by this composer (see my reviews of First Edition Encores Albany TROY044 with the First Symphony and works of Robert Kurka and Peter Mennin, and Albany First Edition Series AR011 featuring Symphonies Nos. 5, 7 and 8), so that was an additional incentive. To Piston the disc pairs Morton Gould’s Dance Variations for Two Pianos (from 1953) – and I’ve also recently heard, enjoyed and reviewed a nice Louisville survey of the composer, on 2 CDs Albany First Edition Series TROY 013-14 – and versions for two pianos of some of Aaron Copland’s most popular warhorses.
With no sneering intention, I’d say that Piston’s Concerto for Two Pianos presents us with the best of Stravinsky. The indebtness to the Concerto for Two Solo Pianos and Piano Concerto is, to my ears, obvious, at least in the first two movements. There is the same kind of muscularity, rhythmic vigor, snap, interplay between two pianos, as well as the typical trills. The music attains genuine grandeur in the middle Adagio, in which, although the music remains tonal, I even hear whiffs of Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, especially in the passage starting at 2:26, with long, stern lyrical lines on the violins, underpinning whimsical and snappy interplay between the two pianos. The motoric and muscular dynamism of the finale faintly brings Bartok’s Piano Concertos to mind (a pairing with Bartok’s own Concerto for two Pianos would be a nice idea). It is an enjoyable work in the medium. This was apparently the world premiere recording, and it is incredible that this piece, possibly not an essential masterpiece but a fine wok nonetheless by a composer recognized as one of America’s foremost should have waited so long.
Morton Gould’s Dance Variations for Two Pianos (1953) is a substantial piece in length, clocking nearly 25 minutes, if not in character, but it has all the hallmarks of its composer at his most brilliant and humoresque: the colorful orchestration, the syncopated cool Jazzy rhythms turning to Latin-American dance then into a take-off of a Bach chorale-prelude (in the first movement, “Chaconne”), the tongue-in-cheek humor in the second movement, with what I hear as brash take-offs from Ravel’s La Valse (3:25), then Offenbach’s famous Can-Can (4:03) (which incidentally wasn’t a Can-Can when first composed, for Orpheus in the Underworld, as that dance form did not yet exist). I also hear traces of Prokofiev (3rd Piano Concerto, Romeo & Juliet) both in the Gavotte from the second movement and in the colors of the sweet and soft Pas de Deux (Tango), and there is a boisterous and foot-lifting finale (Tarantella) starting like Ravel’s Concerto in G but with a more sardonic, scherzo orchestration and march tunes. Nothing essential here but lots of fun.
I don’t warm up very much to Copland’s more “popular” style, which I find goes too much for the easy clap, and likewise I find the 2 piano arrangements of excerpts of Rodeo (by the famous duet Arthur Gold & Robert Fizdale) and of El Salon Mexico (by no less than the young Leonard Bernstein) so unsubstantial as to be wearisome. Only in the simplicity and obsessive reiterations of Danzón Cubana – almost a harbinger of minimalism – did I find rather more enjoyment in this 2-piano version than in its orchestral guise; incidentally, it is the only one that was originally written for these instruments. The sound of the Copland pieces is more recessed than in the concertos.
The Gould and Piston works pieces been reissued in 1999 on Helicon Records HE 1044, paired with Quincy Porter’s Concerto Concertante for 2 pianos by the same artists – a Pulitzer Prize winner and a much better coupling, even if it entails the loss of Copland’s Danzón Cubana.