New Worlds: Mompou, Berg, Falla and Bartók Piano Music

The disc opens with the remarkable Variations on a Theme of Chopin by the Spanish composer Frederic Mompou. It was originally devised for cello and piano but was never completed. Mompou then penned four variations for piano, which were issued. Later, approached by the Royal Ballet to produce a dance score, Mompou finished all twelve variations in 1957. The ballet was never performed, but the music was duly published.

The Variations are based on Chopin’s Prelude in A major, op.28 no.7. The booklet sums up the impact of the variations: “[They] present an extreme diversity of styles and moods, including sumptuous art déco harmonies; airy reveries; gentle Mediterranean echoes of Poulenc’s pianism; more intimate, personal visions alluding to sonorities from earlier Mompou works; undisguised tributes that stick closely to the Chopinian model; and moments of passionate virtuosity.” Echoes of Fauré, Satie and the “impressionists” can also be heard in these pages.

The surprising thing about this piece is its late date. Much was happening in the mid-nineteen-fifties, with the boundaries of music being pushed to a huge extent. Think Boulez, Stockhausen Berio and Xenakis. Yet here was composer writing in an elusive, meditative, and evocative manner that is at least fifty years out of date. It is a beautiful work that is played here with a magical touch.

Alban Berg’s Piano Sonata (1908) crosses several boundaries of musical aesthetic. It looks back to Lisztian and Wagnerian chromaticism and forward to the extended atonality that was to become a feature of his music. Using thematic transformation and developing variation, the single movement gradually unfolds, creating all the appurtenances of ‘classic’ sonata allegro form – exposition, development, and recapitulation. Although written in B minor, the tonality is fluid, with abundant chromaticism and some whole tone scales.

It is known that Berg originally intended the Sonata to be in three movements, but he was unable to finish it, and on the advice of Arnold Schonberg, he published the first movement as a standalone piece.

Javier Laso gives a spellbinding performance that undoubtedly reveals Berg’s argument. It emphasises the exploration of the thematic fragments developed from the opening bars. The varying emotions are well defined, with passion and repose perfectly balanced.

The Fantasia Baetica was the last major work that Manuel de Falla wrote for the piano. (There was a small contribution to the multi-authored Homage à Dukas, published in 1935). It presents a “characteristically Andalusian manner.” Criticism over the years has tended to suggest that the Fantasia is too long: recommendations for cuts has been made. Yet what to cut? I think that removing any bars would destroy this wonderful evocation of Spain.

It was commissioned by the Polish pianist Artur Rubenstein and was reputedly premiered by him in New York on 20 February 1920. Sadly, although he championed the piece for a brief period, Rubenstein felt that it was too long, he did not really understand it, nor knew how to interpret it. Since that time, it has not had the popularity that it deserves. Great advocates include Alicia de Larrocha and Garrick Ohlsson.

In my preparation of this review, I listened to the Fantasia with the score. One marvels at the technical difficulties of this music. Mainly flamboyant, if a little brittle, there are intimate moments. Falla seems to have realised a perfect balance between the “grand romantic style” and a sense of Andalusian improvisation. I was interested to read that music historian Ann Livermore has suggested that the Fantasy was a late tribute to Isaac Albeniz, who had died in 1909. Certainly, much of the pianism would suggest the elder composer.

The liner notes advocate that it is a lively journey through an “arid landscape” – with Falla’s newfound admiration of Stravinsky becoming clear. Yet, here are “guitaristic influences, energetic dances, evocations of sultry evenings, traditional songs and resounding echoes of flamenco that are expressed in novel, authentically pianistic figurations…”  This is all captured by Javier Laso’s stunning, expressive performance.

The final opus on this CD is Béla Bartók’s Piano Sonata SZ.80 (BB 88). It was completed during June 1926 and was dedicated to his second wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók. The first of the three movements, Allegro moderato, is lively and dissonant and is “martial in character.” The liner notes explain that it was “probably inspired by the verbunkos, a traditional Hungarian recruiting dance.”  The second, which is alleged to evoke the Hungarian Plains, is sustained and serious in its impact. The finale, Allegro molto, is a good old-fashioned rondo, which is refreshing and dynamic. It is interesting that Bartók has used classical forms for each movement, with modernity provided by dissonance, percussive use of the piano, and lack of key signature. There is an influence from folk music, but this integrates these “overlooked resources” into “an international style weary of chromaticism.”

Spanish pianist Javier Laso studied piano at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Salamanca, receiving many awards. Laso furthered his education at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. His recordings include CDs of Schubert, Schumann, and Bach. He was recently nominated for the German “Schallplattenkritik” award.

The concluding paragraph of the liner notes reveals the raison d’être of this CD. It explains that Javier Laso’s journey on this album “travels through four apparently unrelated worlds, distilled from four lives dispersed by the tide of history. Each of those lives cultivated a new landscape in a new century, and yet all four were shaped during the same period of European history – the moment at which the old continent ceased to see itself as the centre of the known universe.”

There is no doubt that the four works presented here represent four distinct strands of Western music. They are a salutary reminder that Classical music may be harder to pigeonhole than we would first imagine. 

Track Listing:
Frederic Mompou (1893-1987)
Variations on a Theme of Chopin (1957)
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Piano Sonata, op.1 (1908)
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
Fantasia Baetica (1919)
Béla Bartók (1881-1946)
Piano Sonata, Sz.80 (1926)
Javier Laso (piano)
rec. 25-27 July 2022, Auditorio de Zaragoza, Sala Mozart, Zaragoza, Spain
Eudora Records EUD-SACD-2402
With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.