SCRIABIN: Poeme in F-sharp Major, Op. 32, No. 1; SCHUMANN: Kreisleriana, Op. 16; TCHAIKOVSKY: The Months, Op. 37b – Konstantin Igumnov, piano
APR 5662, 74:07 (Distrib. Harmonia mundi) ****:
Another in the series The Russian Piano Tradition, this installment celebrates the artistry of Konstantin Nikolayevich Igumnov (1873-1948)–Moscow Conservatory teacher of notables Jakob Flier, Lev Oborin, and Bella Davidovich–with inscriptions Igumnov made 1935-1947 in fair to moderately passable sound. The Moscow Conservatory could boast three distinct personalities after the passing of Anton Rubinstein: Alexander Goldenweiser, Heinrich Neuhaus, and Konstantin Igumnov. Igumnov claimed supremacy in the romantic repertory, particularly in the music of Chopin, Schumann, Scriabin, Rachmaninov, and Tchaikovsky. Long eschewing the recording medium as cramped and unspontaneous, Igumnov conceded a few shellacs to posterity, his most ambitious the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio with David Oistrakh and Sviatoslav Knushevitsky from around 1941.
The earliest of these Moscow-based recordings dates from 1935, Chopin’s B Major Mazurka, which despite the tinny sound that haunts all Soviet inscriptions, reveals a fine sense of legato and good inner pulsation. The Scriabin Poeme No. 1 especially pleases in its naturally crystalline eroticism, quite effete in its own transparent way, as if Roderick Usher were at the keyboard. The 1941 Kreisleriana suffers from a hollow acoustic, but the finesse and playful indigence of the piece–its magical allusions to E.T.A. Hoffmann–proves quite mesmeric, the splicing of distinct periods and affects to produce a quilt of many colors. The bass tones, repeated notes, and three-hand effects can be colossal, the sonority reminiscent in what we hear from the old Joseph Lhevinne shellacs of Chopin.
The suite by Tchaikovsky, The Months, comes late in Igumnov’s career, 1947, when health problems plagued his work. We feel as though we are privy to a salon recital by a close contemporary of the composer, well initiated into his style and ambitions. The influence of Schumann (July Reapers’ Song) and Mendelssohn (the April Snowdrops) exerts itself, alternating parlando passagework with rolling arpeggios and an urge to simple, often diatonic melodies, as in the March Song of the Lark and June Barcarolle. Swish and after-echo occasionally intrude on the sweet musings, but Igumnov’s lyrical, arched style suffers not. The February Carnival is almost too robust for the primitive recording process, a tempest in a Russian teapot. Igumnov makes Tchaikovsky sound like Grieg in Bright May Nights and October‘s Autumn Song. Both the August Harvest Song and th September Hunting Song suggest what Igumnov might have sounded like in a major concerto, say the Grieg or the Tchaikovsky B-flat Minor. A beautiful, detached sonority for the November Troika renders it exquisitely memorable, even as it avoids cloying sentimentality. Last, December Christmas: in the style of a lilting waltz, Igumnov imposes all sorts of Chopin touches, a kind of etude in the form plastic agogic accents. Delicious macaroons in the form of a candied suite of charming pieces, expertly realized.
–Gary Lemco
