BALAKIREV: Piano Sonata in B-flat Major; Nocturne No. 2 in B Minor; 2 Mazurkas; Valse-Caprice No. 2 in D-flat Major; Waltz No. 4 in B-flat Major; The Lark; Scherzo No. 1 in B Minor; Polka in F-sharp Minor – Danny Driver, piano – Hyperion CDA67806, 69:09 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] ****:
British pianist Danny Driver (rec. Henry Wood Hall, London 2-4 March 2010) has chosen selected keyboard music by Mili Balakirev (1837-1910), the founding father of the Russian nationalist school, “The Mighty Handful.” Though Balakirev completed his B-flat Major Piano Sonata in 1905, it waited until Louis Kentner recorded it in 1951 for EMI so it could receive anything like international note.
Determined to resist German models of composition, Balakirev structured his large sonata as a suite in an adjusted Baroque manner: a fugal opening in the style of Russified Bach that becomes a Chopin rhapsody or light ballade; a Mazurka with decided Slavic impulses; an Intermezzo utilizing fragments and melodic sequences that employs a chromatic palette in the bass worthy of Scriabin; and a bravura finale in the best Liszt tradition with touches of Schumann’s color. Driver can certainly make colors, and this large work by the “orientalist” of the Mighty Five allows him light upper-register ostinati and suave blends in the bass line that anticipate future developments by more erotic imaginations, specifically Scriabin. The larger sections of canvas–as in the strenuous finale–bow to Anton Rubinstein, at least for the lyrical song that emerges in the midst of spread chords and double octaves. The bold kinship to the more famous Islamey makes itself known at various points of fast figuration and modal melody. Driver’s Steinway has a brilliant, often silky tone, and he uses the pedal wisely to soften the blows.
Balakirev’s expansive B Minor Nocturne (1901) takes a page or two from Chopin, especially that composer’s Op. 48, No. 1, while itself indulging in strummed arpeggios marked quasi organo that achieve some decided weight. Balakirev has an equally broad concept for his mazurkas, the first of which in A-flat (c. 1857) swaggers in embellished folk style. The C-sharp Minor (c. 1860) treads a middle ground between Chopin and Scriabin, the second beat flexible and the pulse steady among shifting meters. For his Valse-Caprice No. 2 in D-flat Major, Balakirev took an idea from Alexander Taneyev and arranged it according to lights established by Glinka and elaborated by Liszt. The right hand occasionally breaks into pseudo-cadenzas of glittery virtuosity. Waltz No. 4 in B-flat Major (1903) enjoys flourishes that anticipate Rachmaninov, especially that composer’s own transcriptions of say, Kreisler’s Liebesfreud. The Lark (by Glinka) receives the diaphanous and ornamental “three-handed” treatment by way of Liszt, though its soul remains Russian.
No mere coincidence, Balakirev’s Scherzo No. 1 in B Minor (c. 1857) projects the same aggression and bravura as the Chopin Scherzo No. 1 in the same key. Hands in double octaves point to Liszt as well, but the heaving motion alternating with daredevil runs and roulades nod to the Polish master. Some dramatic shifts in register add to the color spectra, along with periods of dividing the motifs between the hands percussively, in imitation of Paganini’s insistence on bariolage in the violin. The coda quite takes off in Lisztian waves of sound, with a touch of the operatic. The spirited Polka in F-sharp Minor (1859) marks an early period in Balakirev’s output, the writing tiptoeing a line between Smetana and Gottschsalk.
–Gary Lemco
1933 Les chefs proscrits – Ernst Viebig, Conductor – Forgotten Records
A fine conductor, unfortunately suppressed by the vicious political climate of the ’30s