Caroline Weichert (b. 1961) is a German pianist, a protégé of her own father, Gregor Weichert, as well as famed pedagogues Vitaly Margolis, Yvonne Lefebure, and Conrad Hansen. Ms. Weichert has decided to explore the entire opera of Dimitri Shostakovich, presumably for their intrinsic value as well as their inspirational motives for Weichet’s own compositions. The recordings appear to traverse the years 1988-2006, and the sound quality throughout the set is exemplary, considering Shostakovich’s penchant for percussive chords at the high end of the piano’s registers. The piano sound is bright and without percussive shatter: I found the tone of the A-flat and B-flat Preludes, Op. 87 to be models of tempered piano sonority.
Her playing of the Prelude (Nocturne) in C-sharp, Op. 34, No. 10 mesmerized me. Weichert opens with two discs devoted to the Op. 87 Preludes and Fugues (1950), the composer’s most extended piano piece in all keys of the chromatic scale, conceived in homage for the bi-centennial celebrating the death of J.S. Bach. Shostakovich wanted the 24 Preludes and Fugues to be seen as two sets of twelve conceived through the circle of fifths, as in Chopin. Although some of the preludes and fugues had been composed earlier, Shostakovich set to work in earnest 1950-1951, and Tatiana Nikoleyeva premiered them in December, 1951 and made a career in championing these severe works. They display the breadth of Shostakovich’s musical culture and harmonic syntax, considering that he grouped them in two-part, three-part, and four-part harmony and those in E Minor and D minor are double fugues. Some of the pieces are abbreviated sonata movements, such as the B-flat Major, which often sounds like a ballet transcription, and Weichert’s handling of the knotty fugue rivets one to the wall. The fugue in F-sharp Major–after a Prelude that synthesizes Bach and Rachmaninov– is in five parts in the manner of a somber, slow, organ transcription.
The E Minor seems to be Weichert’s specialty, and she imbues it with an alluring, haunting pathos. The ensuing D Major in three parts has a tender, nocturnal quality. The fugue has a playful, Haydnesque character, made of repeated notes and snippets of scales. The B Minor alternately wears the masks of comedy and tragedy. The A Major Prelude comes as a serene relief after the dark chromatics of the B Minor, and we can hear figures that apply to the Second Piano Concerto. The two-part Fugue of the E Major Weichert plays as an homage to the Bach partitas. More Bach stylization in the C-sharp Minor Prelude, running figures against a chorale. The Fugue in C-sharp Minor and the Prelude in G-sharp Minor are modally introspective. The Fugue of the G-sharp Minor is both contrapuntally and harmonically challenging to our ears, polyphony after Alban Berg. Moussorgskian tragedy in E-flat Minor; Scriabinesque tragedy in B-flat Minor. The A Major Fugue enjoys a bright, carillon sonority–a sound we hear at the opening of the E Major–showpieces for Weichert. The F-sharp Minor Prelude is a grotesquerie in light touches; its elongated Fugue is a weird syncope, something out of Egon Schiele’s paintings. The skittish B Major Prelude evolves directly in its three-part fugue with a parodic sound close to Ibert and Poulenc.
Rare in any traversal of the Shostakovich oeuvre is his First Piano Sonata, Op. 12 in one movement (1926), a boldly assertive composition in the Prokofiev pattern of an original enfant terrible. Somewhat reminiscent of Mossolov’s Iron Foundry and Bartok’s Allegro barbaro, the ferocious opening in 12/8 moves to a series of runs not far from Beethoven’s Fantasia in G Minor, then comes a sarcastic march, chromatic, bitonal, dissolving into a brew close to Webern. Weichert presents this original work as grimly resolute, even shatteringly obsessive. When Weichert takes the sound clusters out of the extensive mist into the fierce toccata, she might be suggesting the disabuse Shostakovich’s revolutionary thoughts would suffer at the hands of the political “realists.”
The Op. 34 Preludes (1932-1933) represent something special in Shostakovich: they derive from a period before political repression struck Shostakovich hard, and he could express his unfettered spirit, both ironically classical and iconoclastically nostalgic, in bold terms. There is a sense of romance in these works, even opening with what sounds like Chopin’s D-flat Nocturne. The G Major and E Minor are cases in point, alternately a night-piece and short fugue in three parts. The most famous is the lugubrious E-flat Minor, since Leopold Stokowski orchestrated it with grandiose effect. No. 6 is witty polka in homage to Prokofiev’s The Love for 3 Oranges. The A-flat is a melancholic waltz in the manner of Ravel and a touch of Schumann’s Prophet Bird. The last Prelude, in D Minor, is a playful gavotte, a sly wink at Chopin’s grandly tragic eruption in the same key. Weichert adds 5 preludes that date 1920-1921, products of a teenaged Shostakovich. Even here, we witness a gifted and deftly expressive musician, at home in etudes, marches, and expansive nocturnes, syncopated, strident and tender.
The Op. 5 Three Fantastic Dances (1922) still resonate with the precociously light, breezy thoughts of a 16-year-old under the spell of Prokofiev’s Fugitive Visions. Heifetz made a dazzling transcription of the waltz like No. 2, Andantino–Allegro. The little Polka at the end offers some passing dissonances of note, and Weichert turns it into a mischievous music-box. Dances of the Puppets (1952-1962) is a compendium of seven tunes from his ballets The Bolt, the Age of Gold, and Bright Stream. Lyrical and often diatonic, they proceed with a directness of expression of immediate appeal. The Gavotte could be a cousin of Schubert’s little F Minor Moment Musical. The Chaplinesque Polka is followed by a delicate Valse burlesque that hints of Saint-Saens and Glazounov. Deft syncopations for the Orgue de Barbarie, and the last Danse mocks an Alberti bass. The familiar Polka from The Age of Gold puts forth Weichert’s pert staccati and their capacity to project gentle, dance-hall sardonicism. Who knew an audience was listening until they begin to clap?
In response to Prokofiev’s Sarcasms, Op. 17, Shostakovich has his ten Aphorisms, Op. 13 (1927), ironically laconic pieces that urge rhythmic impulses rather than melody. The Nocturne might be about night, but nightmare is closer to the truth. If someone told me that the 8-bar Elegie was by John Cage, I’d believe it. The Etude mocks Czerny and all pedagogues. The Canon summarizes the Second Viennese School briefly, on three staves. Legend plays like a soft Debussy etude, moving from two parts to four. The set ends with a delicate passacaglia called Berceuse, modal and antique, and it suggests what Weichert’s Bach might be like. A massive, thoughtful and variegated collection of music is this Weichert Shostakovich, to be ingested slowly and affectionately. Certainly a fine tribute on behalf of the Shostakovich centenary.
— Gary Lemco
