Modern Piano Works

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Igor Stravinsky, Peter Lieberson, Stefan Wolpe

Label: New World

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: NW344-2

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
(3) Bagatelles Peter Lieberson, Composer
Peter Lieberson, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Serenade Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Sonata for Piano Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Pastorale Stefan Wolpe, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Stefan Wolpe, Composer
Form IV: Broken Sequences Stefan Wolpe, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Stefan Wolpe, Composer
(4) Studies on Basic Rows, Movement: Passacaglia Stefan Wolpe, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Stefan Wolpe, Composer

Composer or Director: Igor Stravinsky, Peter Lieberson, Stefan Wolpe

Label: New World

Media Format: Vinyl

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: NW344

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
(3) Bagatelles Peter Lieberson, Composer
Peter Lieberson, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Serenade Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Sonata for Piano Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Pastorale Stefan Wolpe, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Stefan Wolpe, Composer
Form IV: Broken Sequences Stefan Wolpe, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Stefan Wolpe, Composer
(4) Studies on Basic Rows, Movement: Passacaglia Stefan Wolpe, Composer
Peter Serkin, Piano
Stefan Wolpe, Composer
The last item on this disc provides its principal justification. Stefan Wolpe's music is rarely recorded, and the ''Passacaglia'' is a remarkable example of his work. It may not be so tightly disciplined or so stylistically consistent as the much later Form IV: Broken Sequences, but it is distinctive, absorbing, and striking for its date—assuming that the later revision di d not amount to major surgery. The piece reveals Wolpe as a worthy heir to his mentor Busoni, with all that implies of grandiose eclecticism, and Peter Serkin revels in its taxing, flamboyant textures. Serkin effortlessly sustains the gradually evolving argument of the ''Passacaglia'', and its two huge climaxes are contained without distortion by a recording which is not otherwise particularly successful by modern standards. In addtition, Wolpe's early Pastorale—light at the outset, but gradually clouding over—and the quirky but never arbitrary sound-geometry of Form IV are also of the greatest interest, and very well performed.
I was less taken with Serkin's Stravinsky. In both works he seems to be cross-examining the music for evidence of that 'expressiveness' the composer affected to despise, only to discover triumphantly in the finale of the Sonata that energy and shape are all. In general the Serenade is too severe, too deliberate, the Sonata—until the finale—too weighty: and the recording leaves one very conscious of the space round the piano. Serkin is more at home in Peter Lieberson's Bagatelles. Having failed to respond to this composer's sprawling Piano Concerto (New World NW325, 6/86) I hoped to find him more appealing on a smaller scale. I can't claim to have been converted by these rather desultory pieces, but Serkin plays them with abundant virtuosity, and is particularly persuasive in the fanciful lyricism of the second, ''Spontaneous Songs''.'

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