ANTON ARENSKY: Piano Concerto in F Minor, Op. 2; Fantasia on Russian Folksongs, OP. 48; To the Memory of Suvorov; Symphonic Scherzo – Konstantin Scherbakov, piano/Russian Philharmonic Orchestra/Dmitry Yablonsky – Naxos 8.570526, 49:39 **** :
Anton Arensky (1861-1906) survives as a composer on the basis of two works, notably his Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky and his Piano Trio in D Minor. His Op. 2 Piano Concerto (1882) is a product of his final year at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, in which a steady diet of Chopin and Liszt obviously fed his musical imagination. The allusions to Chopin’s own F Minor Concerto, here cross-fertilized by Lisztian rhetoric in the manner of nocturnes and polonaise rhythms, produces a curious amalgam of styles whose sheer nervous energy carries us through the first movement. In the more romantic flourishes we can hear the kernels of a style that connects Anton Rubinstein and Serge Rachmaninov.
Pianist Scherbakov (6-17 March 2008) relishes the block chords and mighty syncopations that infiltrate the score, intimate and bombastic at once. The Andante in D-flat Major continues the Chopin runs and salon-nocturne sensibility, combined with a theme possibly lifted from a Liszt symphonic poem. An Energico section becomes quite declamatory, again in the style of the Chopin F Minor Concerto and its string tremolos under a theme literally taken from the Polish master. The Scherzo-Finale last movement in F Minor utilizes a jaunty tune in 5/4 time and colorful scoring–such as the keyboard against a triangle a la Liszt–though the melodic contour suggests the Grieg Concerto or a halling that modulates into an assertive F Major. The constant use of trickling motifs and high register runs might point to the popular Scherzo by Henri Litolff. Conductor Yablonsky draws much color from the exuberant and youthful score, a compendium of musical styles with a decidedly Russian cast.
The 1899 Fantasia on Russian Themes takes its opening flourishes from Chopin’s last etude from Op. 10 but builds upon tunes collected by Ryabinin from the north Russian coast. The E Minor melody conveys the nostalgia of Rachmaninov though the pomp belongs to Liszt. A second tune carries a more militant hue, a march in strong rhythmic accents through which Scherbakov can weave runs, trills, and non-legato riffs against the ubiquitous triangle. The more angry declamations with tympani and glissando strings soon devolve into the rhapsodic style that Hollywood employs when it demands a parody of the Romantic grand gesture.
The brief ode to heroism, To the Memory of Suvorov (1900), celebrates the eighteenth century general who helped defeat the Turks in the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-1792. The theme bears a faint outline of Rimsky-Korsakov’s marches and processions of boyars. The simpler texture of the middle section looks to Glinka and unadorned folk music. An exotic sense of color adds an orientalism that Balakirev brought to Russian music.
The Symphonic Scherzo appears to be a youthful labor in colors that hearken to Borodin and Liszt. The experimental quality of the piece as an exercise in string and woodwind textures does not prevent us from relishing the fervent charm of the piece, which could easily be mistaken for a composition by an elder from the Mighty Five. As a truncated excerpt from some forgotten symphony, the movement promises fairer hopes from a gifted lyricist for the orchestra.
–Gary Lemco
