The Romantic Piano Concerto, Vol. 50 = TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23; Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major, Op. 44 and two Andantes (ed. Siloti and Hough); Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 75; Concert Fantasia in G Major, Op. 56; Solitude, Op. 73, No. 6; None but the Lonely Heart, Op. 6, No. 6 – Stephen Hough, piano/Minnesota Symphony Orchestra/Osmo Vanska – Hyperion CDA6711/2, (2 CDs) TT: 141:10 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] ****:
British piano virtuoso Stephen Hough (b. 1961) collaborates with Osmo Vanska at Orchestra Hall, Minnesota (2009) for a series of live concerts featuring Tchaikovsky’s works for piano and orchestra, and the otherwise hushed audience breaks into hysterical raptures every time. Hough and Vanska whistle through the familiar B-flat Concerto with a sustained impetus and fiery elan that reduce the concerto’s epic proportions but maintain its fleet lyric bravura, the various modulations from the D-flat Major introduction–that vanishes after having served its hortatory function–through B-flat Minor, E Major, G-flat Major, C Minor, and A-flat Major. These modulations in brisk tempos serve to color the work and its rhetorical stops and start with a Ukrainian flavor as well an impish sense of improvisation. Hough sparkles in the cadenzas, small and large, and the syncopated coda rings with fire. Few surprises in the latter two movements, until what had been an invisible audience erupts in ecstasy after the last note of the explosive rondo disappears in smoke.
The real find in this set has to be the infrequent 1884 Concerto Fantasy in G Major (24-26 September 2009), a two-movement work conceived for virtuoso Eugen d’Albert. Tchaikovsky turned to his folk and balletic roots for inspiration, merging a large rhapsodic form to a substantial cadenza that serves as a development section. The sparkling Russian dance that opens the work treads with light feet, a kind of experiment or pastiche in national colors. The second movement, “Contrastes,” opens with a barcarolle or Italian song, but the tempo picks up by way of percussion–a tambourine straight out of Esmerelda’s dance in The Hunchback of Notre Dame–and Tchaikovsky evolves a Russian carnival scene. The affecting cello part–a feature Tchaikovsky will utilize in his G Major Concerto–is played by Anthony Ross. As encores to the Fantasia, Hough plays his own solo piano arrangement of the song “Solitude,” which collectors recall Stokowski likewise orchestrated. The sentimental “None but the Lonely Heart” once featured as a Jane Wyatt vehicle to beguile Cary Grant in a 1944 Hollywood film.
Stephen Hough opts for the original Tchaikovsky score of the 1880 G Major Concerto–the cut version of the Andante by Alexander Siloti–along with Hough’s own emendations to that mutilated version–is included in the appendices to the second disc. The performance (28-30 May 2009) opens at breakneck speed, just within the bounds of clear articulation of the martial opening and the subsequent modally Russian counter theme. The spirit of Weber’s opera Der Freischuetz permeates the melodic content of the first movement, given the contour of the melody’s similarity to Agatha’s theme in Weber’s opera. Some of the repetitions in the filigree become tiresome, but Hough negotiates everything with a bravura facility that never falters in its enthusiasm. The Allegro brillante features two cadenzas, the second even more demanding than the first. When the orchestra returns after the first, Hough takes the volcanic rising octaves in one startling gulp. Vanska relishes his moments of ballet, albeit them “learned” by way of canonic treatment. The second cadenza exploits any number of virtuoso techniques, a minor fantasia in its own right, wherein Hough’s glissandi pack their own knockout punch. The recapitulation and coda play like a Roman festival, a spirit not far from Respighi.
Cellist Anthony Ross and violinist Jorja Fleezanis enter the color mix for the Andante non troppo, a pas de trois that gently touches upon the “triple concerto” medium. When the piano joins in and evolves the melodic line to the reprise, the orchestra drops out, and we have a piece akin to Tchaikovsky’s great Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 50. Some lovely flute work infiltrates the movement as well, and the double cadenza for the string soli proves powerfully stirring. The last movement, Allegro con fuoco, prefers the drolleries of Saint-Saens to the emotional commitment of Schumann, a Mediterranean romp in octaves that favors knuckles over brains. Hough and Vanska have rather a jolly good time with it all, and barely has the last chord decayed before the audience howls with praise.
The 1893 E-flat Concerto No. 3–an aborted attempt at a full-length symphony–consists of one movement in a relatively subdued mode, the piano part rarely attempting anything like virtuoso filigree, despite a lengthy cadenza. The piano does have a toccata riff in the style of a Russian trepak, then Tchaikovsky modulates for an interlude of nervous dialogue of piano with winds and strings. The orchestra takes over for its own development, exploiting the melodic theme in G Major, a tune with something of the old Tchaikovsky magic. Then it’s Hough’s turn to engage in a solo cadenza, albeit repetitive and rife with cascading scales and arpeggios. The last four minutes give us a recapitulation and coda, relatively dynamic, given the added harmonizations and color elements, a moment of affirmation in Tchaikovsky’s otherwise bleak, numbered days ahead.
–Gary Lemco
