George Copeland, The Victor Solo Recordings. Pearl (two discs)
The American pianist George Copeland (1882-1971) so impressed Debussy that the composer declared, "I never thought to hear my music played as well as that in my lifetime". To experience the harmonic luminosity, sensually supple lines, unbelievably smooth contouring and levitational lightness of Copeland in the 1933 recording of his solo piano arrangement of Prelude A l'Apres-midi d'Un Faune is to witness a rare miracle of pianistic art. The first CD is almost wholly devoted to Debussy. The second shows a different facet of Copeland's work as he strums, struts, and brings a sweat-spraying snappy energy to a varied selection of Spanish music. The recordings, mostly 78s from the 1930s, but with excerpts from his last concert in 1964, have been sensitively restored.
By Michael Dervan
Ruth Crawford Seeger Portrait. Schonberg Ensemble/Oliver Knussen. (DG)
This new portrait collection adds nine works to the meagre current CD listing of the pioneering American experimental composer Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-53). The questing spirit of her dissonant idiom reveals itself in a potent combination, marrying directness, even bluntness of expressive mode and sophistication of construction. Much of the music stands strangely outside of its time. In the masterly String Quartet, this is particularly true of the burdened slow movement, with its wrenching swells and cluster effects. In performances fashioned with especial care, virtually everything here, from the early Ivesian layering of the Music For Small Orchestra through the surreal Three Songs and the political polemic of 2 Ricercare to the later, folksier works, speaks with unusual immediacy. Strongly recommended.
By Michael Dervan
Bach: Organ Music. Kate van Tricht (MDG Gold)
The search for authenticity in musical performance takes many forms. This new disc illuminates "the Romantic Bach", who was "discovered" by Karl Straube, a man best remembered today for his lifelong championship of the music of his friend, Max Reger. In the early years of this century Straube endeavoured to exploit the Wagnerian orchestral grandeur of the romantic organ to dispel "Bach's reputation for being out-of-date". Although the great organist modified his outlook with changing public taste, his pupil Kate van Tricht (1909-1996) chose to represent his original views on the organ of Bremen Cathedral in 1987, documenting with faithful wholeheartedness many of the characteristics against which modern organ-playing was a reaction. A real curiosity, with performances captured in a beautifully atmospheric recording.
By Michael Dervan
