When I first saw the subtitle of this new release I thought “Oh-oh – this is going to one of my writers more friendly to serial works than myself.” Then I auditioned it, and here I am writing the review. I think this release should appeal to a much wider group of music lovers than just those who think works using serial techniques are the epitome of modern classical music.
First, a mirror canon is a double fugue in which the original themes and voices are presented as if in a mirror, reflecting one another. Norwegian pianist Aspaas teaches at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, has been a soloist under many top conductors, and made several recordings, including the complete piano music of Paul Dukas. His perceptive booklet notes first analyze some of the Beethoven Sonata, which he characterizes as taking sonata form to the very edge of what is deemed possible, playable and comprehensible. He says the premature embryonic ideas of Beethoven were seeds of the future developments in composition which resulted in the Second Viennese School. Of course there was really no First Viennese School, but his musicological approach uses this concept to understand the many connections between the two styles of composition. Aspaas’ discussion of this sonata, his magnificent performance of it, and the transparent 2L surround sound (recording direct to DXD with 4 times the data of standard DSD) had my hearing the work in an entirely new light.
I was surprised to enjoy the Schoenberg six piano pieces. Then I read that they actually were written a dozen years before he introduced his straightjacketed 12-tone technique. He had just orchestrated his massive Gurrelieder and wanted a relief from the gigantism of that work. Aspaas describes its style as “a weakening of tonality’s magnetic field” – an apt phrase which fits a number of works of this period which I have always greatly appreciated – including the late Mahler symphonies. Webern was Schoenberg’s most devoted student and carried his teacher’s serial work much further – reducing all elements to spare kernels of sound. I failed to make it thru all four of those tracks, if truth be told.
Berg’s only solo piano work is an entirely different animal. Glenn Gould called it “the most auspicious Opus One ever written.” Amazingly a student work, Berg used strict sonata form to keep control of his radical harmonic language, which often sounds diatonic when it’s not. It’s main theme has a mirror fugue not unlike the one in Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32. It’s gorgeous conclusion has a comforting diatonic home key feeling. The Sonata ushered in a new age of composition which to my thinking has not been surpassed. A few composers such as Stravinsky were able to use serial techniques in a highly personal way that retains the interest of the average listener, but to my ears only Berg was able to do it without draining the result of all emotion and human communication.
– John Sunier
