Recorded 21-23 June 2006 at the Sosnoff Theatre at Bard College, this essential survey of Shostakovich keyboard works reveals Melvin Chen as an articulate spokesman for modernism, especially as the Op. 12 Sonata (1926) still has the power to disconcert us with its radical approach to both harmony and form, likely derived from Scriabin’s experiments in “poetic” expression. The fact that the piece arranges itself around the note C as a spiritual center does not mitigate its harsh tone clusters and almost atonal chromaticism, its primitive dissonances. Shostakovich does not hesitate to batter us with the keyboard’s lowest register, supplemented by harsh, often grotesque adjustments in texture and affect, the rhythms alternately jaunty and wild. A Lento section projects a glittery surface, only to thrust us in the third movement into a perverse tarantella, which Chen pounds out with certain delight.
Chen opens with the 1952 suite Dances of the Dolls, music derived from balletic and cinematic scores which have a light, theatrical sense as their common sensibility. One particularly sonorous dance is The Petite Ballerina, originally a section of Shostakovich’s ballet The Bolt (1931). At least two of the waltzes belong to The Limpid Stream ballet (1935). Airy and witty, these pieces bespeak to the composer’s wry sense of humor, his sobriquet as “the Soviet Rossini.”
The Ten Aphorisms (1927) owe debts to the Schoenberg/Webern school; at least, No. 8 “Canon,” a three-voice, contrapuntal moment pays a sarcastic homage to Vienna. A series of brief character pieces, they share an anti-sentimental point of view with Prokofiev’s Sarcasms. The “Nocturne,” for instance, makes blatantly erotic puns on “things that go bump in the night.” The “Elegie” (in eight bars) has a modal gloom about it, a touch of Debussy or Faure. A jaunty “Marche funebre” might have come from Debussy’s Box of Confections ballet. The “Totentanz” transposes the Dies Irae into a waltz medium that is no less a moto perpetuo etude. “Legend” exploits repetitive phrases for two minutes, A simple “Lullaby” returns to the ethos of Bach and Schumann, a moment of expressive sincerity.
The B Minor Sonata (1943) has a strong recorded history, especially in the classic inscription by Emil Gilels. An elegy for Shostakovich’s late teacher Leonid Nikolayev, the piece incorporates traditional procedures, like Bach’s counterpoint and the sonata-form and variations from late Beethoven sonatas. A rolling series of opening figures plays off against a second subject that flits in a cavalier, Prokofievian way. Two-part counterpoint moves the materials forward, B Minor against E-flat Major, the hands moving in contrary motion in block chords not too far from Prokofiev’s G Minor Concerto, falling figure tying the coda together. Chen’s playing shines idiomatically, especially in the second movement, a Lento that is angular, built on Scriabin-esque tritones (perfect fourths) that move us into a wasteland sensibility after abortive attempts at melodic extension. Only at the end–the opening motif in canon–does Chen add the sustaining pedal to fill out the otherwise desiccated sonorities. The last movement features a 30-bar monody whose angular exoticism makes it ripe for motivic and intervalic development, shifting between B Minor and E-flat, adding nine variations that often echo Beethoven’s Op. 110. Chen imposes a classic restraint on the affective labyrinths Shostakovich proffers, accenting the outline of the original kernel or grund-gestalt that aligns the movement with the ambitions of the Goldberg Variations. The last two or three variations enjoy a dirge-like nobility fully in keeping with the composer’s valedictory feelings for his passed master Nikolayev, similar to what Tchaikovsky accomplished in his own Trio in memory of Nicholas Rubinstein.
— Gary Lemco