The Romantic Piano Concerto, Vol. 49 = STENHAMMAR: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 1 (Original version); Piano Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 23 – Seta Tanyel, piano/Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Manze – Hyperion CDA67750, 75:16 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] ****:
Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871-1927) has been called the father of modern Swedish classical music, and he developed an impressive catalogue of works despite a grueling regimen as a concert pianist and conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. The 1893 Piano Concerto No. 1 comes as the result of studies in Berlin, and a certain Brahms influence can be felt. The opening two chords bow to that composer’s Tragic Overture, and the piano’s response to the French horns smiles an acknowledgment to the Brahms B-flat Concerto. That both concertos contain four movements cannot seem coincidental. The integration of keyboard and symphonic lines assumes the mantle of “symphony with piano obbligato” designation that inevitably befalls the two Brahms concertos. Occasionally, the filigree in arpeggios takes it page directly from the Beethoven G Major Concerto. The boldness of writing, its explosive propulsion and orchestral counterpoint, often suggests the Richard Strauss Burleske. Seta Tanyel, a devotee of Louis Kentner, appears to relish (rec. 24-28 November 2008) the glitter and dazzle of the keyboard writing, which often basks in cascades of arpeggios and broken block chords with a marcato flavor, recalling the rhetorical fervor Anton Rubinstein.
The second movement, Vivacissimo, has a touch of Saint-Saens or Litolff in its dainty coloration and light boulevard style. Rapid alternations of dialogue occur between Tanyel and the Helsingborg woodwinds. Perhaps Stenhammar considered this virtuosic exercise his “wisp of a scherzo” to play along side of the Brahms model. The French horn and plucked strings announce the rather “Nordic” sensibility of the Andante, a clear call to the later Sibelius. The layering of melodic lines quite resembles the build up of the plangent theme in the Brahms D Minor Concerto Adagio, the very concerto with which Stenhammar made his debut as a concert soloist in 1892. The rising and falling of themes in thirds–as well as the progression of the tonal structure of the movements in B-flat Minor, F-sharp Major, D Major, and B-flat Major–suggests the influence (in reverse) of the Brahms C Minor Symphony. The swelling romanticism of the third movement could easily be mistaken for a forgotten fragment by Schumann. The last movement: Allegro commodo–Andante con moto–moves with a folkish evanescence, the heavy opening tune angular by way of Max Reger. The long strings of arpeggios look to Saint-Saens. Suddenly, the affect changes dramatically to permit Stenhammar’s adaptation of his own song from Op. 8, a simple elegy of life, death, and Nature’s indifference. Tanyel plays solo, a cadenza in the form of a plaintive chorale. Piano and orchestra develop this elegy to colorist terms until it rises to a lovely apotheosis and floats into space.
By the way, conductor Manze provides an authoritative note on the etiology of this “original version” of the score of First Concerto, which had long appeared only in an adaptation through Kurt Atterberg in 1946. A Professor Alan B Ho rescued the original score from oblivion, having been working in 1983 at the Library of Congress, where he discovered a second copy of the composer’s otherwise lost score.
The D Minor Concerto (1907)–also in four movements–posits a titanic struggle between the tonic and its gravitational objective, C-sharp Minor, the key of the third movement. The dark hue of the first movement’s three sections–Moderato; Allegro molto energico; Piu tranquillo–conveys less of Brahms than a fully developed musical personality whose style no longer amounts to a pastiche of influences. Huge chords and long meditative recitatives mark the ungainly progression of the first movement, which has a tendency to start and stop, only to renew its chromatic agon with hectic fervor. The superimposition of the orchestral commentary on the keyboard’s ongoing rhetoric has something of Busoni about it.
Attacca to the Molto vivace–Allegretto–Adagio–Molto vivace second movement, a scherzo of episodic and manic character, quite the bravura workout in the manner of Liszt and Litolff. Typical of Stenhammar, the orchestra falls silent for the piano to make a declamatory statement, and then an extended responsory ensues, ending on a tremulous cadence. The Adagio takes its songful cue from Sibelius and Nielsen, a declamatory chant in block chords and arpeggiated rhetoric that seems a Nordic response to a Chopin nocturne, solemn and inflated. A brilliant passage–a la Mendelssohn–takes us directly to the D Major Finale: Tempo moderato; Animato; Piu animato. The chromatic string writing has a flashy gait that borrows from virtuosic Saint-Saens and splashy Russians. For the sheer exuberance of bravura coloration for piano and orchestra, this fervent reading of this all too infrequent work comes as a delight for Best of the Year honors.
–Gary Lemco
