American First Sonatas
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Alexander Reinagle, Edward (Alexander) MacDowell, Charles T(omlinson) Griffes, Elie Siegmeister
Genre:
Instrumental
Label: Danacord
Magazine Review Date: AW16
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 71
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: DACOCD774
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(4) Philadelphia Sonatas, Movement: D |
Alexander Reinagle, Composer
Alexander Reinagle, Composer Cécile Licad, Piano |
Sonata for Piano No. 1, 'Tragica' |
Edward (Alexander) MacDowell, Composer
Cécile Licad, Piano Edward (Alexander) MacDowell, Composer |
Sonata for Piano |
Charles T(omlinson) Griffes, Composer
Cécile Licad, Piano Charles T(omlinson) Griffes, Composer |
Sonata for Piano No. 1, `American Sonata' |
Elie Siegmeister, Composer
Cécile Licad, Piano Elie Siegmeister, Composer |
Author: Harriet Smith
Alexander Reinagle: who he, you might well ask? Born the same year as Mozart, he was in fact Edinburgh-educated but emigrated to the States at the age of 30. Written in around 1786, his D major Sonata is a real charmer, the first movement making its effect through high-energy figuration set against clear-cut harmonies, while the second is a lolloping Allegro.
Edward MacDowell and the tragically short-lived Charles Griffes (cut down by the flu pandemic in 1920 at just 35) both trained in Europe. MacDowell’s Tragica Sonata dates from 1893, a year after Dvořák had turned up in New York to head the National Conservatory of Music of America, with the aim of helping American composers find their own strain of nationalism. The piece has a kind of bardic quality suggestive of great vistas (Liszt springs to mind, but so too does Grieg). Licad is equally engaging in the sombre and sonorous slow movement as in the grand Allegro eroico finale.
Griffes tends to be dubbed an American Impressionist but that’s hardly an apt label, and his compelling Piano Sonata, completed in 1918, is an intriguing mix of traditional form and questing harmonies, sometimes dipping into the Scriabinesque in terms of harmony and the rapidity with which the moods shift. Compared to Ohlsson and Wehr, Licad is slightly softer edged when it comes to the outer movements, the finale in particular, whose clangorous edginess (of which Prokofiev would have been proud) is a touch subdued. Her slow movement dreams more daring than Ohlsson’s but I marginally prefer his greater sense of flow.
To end, the American Sonata of Elie Siegmeister, near-contemporary of Copland. Here, at last, is an overtly home-grown piece, both in its jazziness and in the bouncy bumptiousness of the first movement. The second movement is in strong contrast, being predominantly high-lying and inward, while Licad finds plenty of energy in the finale.
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