Bridge 9203, 53:22 (Distrib. Albany) ***:
The most immediate of these historical performances is the collaboration between Paula Robison and legendary Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991) from 3 August 1968, a performance that had appeared on Marlboro’s own label on LP. Serkin and John Wummer had also worked together on these marvelous variations by Schubert (1824), based on Mueller’s Trock’ne Blumen (Faded Flowers). The basic shape of the melodic line corresponds to the Death and the Maiden slow movement and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony Allegretto. Taking all the repeats, the veteran pianist and youthful flute player manage a beguiling renditon, as searching as it is fraught with pathos. Prokofiev composed his Duo for 2 Violins (1932) for members of the Beethoven String Quartet. Lyrical, playful, violent, and fantastic in turn are the composer’s son, Svyatoslav’s epithets for this disarmingly compelling piece. The slow (Commodo) movement has a definite sweetness of mood, a spiritual quiet that the composer had avoided in his Scythian period. Recorded in 1978, the two principals, Phillips and Zazofsky, had been colleagues as early as age fourteen. Most of the time, they had to play the music from memory, in order to avoid ungainly page turnings.
Leon Kirchner came to prominence to record collectors when the composer and Dimitri Mitropoulos recorded his Piano Concerto for CBS (ML 5185). Long associated with the Vermont Marlboro Festival, Kirchner accepted a commission around 2001-2002 to write a piece in memory of Felix Galimir, the violinist and pedagogue who did much to promote the Second Viennese School. Kirchner, even by way of his mostly lyrical homage, manages to slip in a quote from Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. Coached by Kirchner, Ida Levin and Jeremy Denk make a compelling case for a work Denk first characterized as “a Mahlerian jazz riff.” While the piece does have some blues progressions, it generally promotes a passionate, Beethoven-like arch-form rife with alternate joy and melancholy, and is quite accessible. Recorded 13 August 2002, the work concludes a solid testimonial to one of America’s chamber music bastions and its limitless sense of musical comraderie.
— Gary Lemco
