Pola Baytelman: A Pianist Explores Her Jewish Heritage
Centaur Records

Testifying to the breadth of her interests and repertoire, this recent solo piano release by Pola Baytelman concentrates on material by Jewish composers, making it a natural complement to earlier ones that focused on Latin-American (From Chile to Cuba) and US artists (Celebration of the New), the country she now calls home. Consistent with that focus, she's a graduate of both the University of Chile and Boston's New England Conservatory of Music (she also earned her doctorate at the University of Texas). Across seventy-seven minutes, the Chilean-born pianist explores a panorama of styles, from twelve-tone serialism to Brazilian and Baroque, and delivers all with the finesse, insight, and prowess for which this formidable Steinway artist has become known.

As varied as the composers are whose works appear on A Pianist Explores Her Jewish Heritage, they're the tip of the iceberg for Baytelman. Elsewhere, she's performed material by the Schumanns and Amy Beach and contemporary composers Katherine Hoover and Hilary Tann; Baytelman's also a respected educator, writer, and sought-after competition judge. All such experiences are used in service of interpretations that exemplify technical mastery and lyrical expressiveness.

American composer Paul Schoenfeld (b. 1947) is represented by Six Improvisations on Hassidic Melodies, a work that originated when he received a book of Hassidic music and was asked to create material for a synagogue dinner banquet. Enchanted by what he heard, he proceeded to develop the six-part piece that Baytelman executes exquisitely. Listening engagement sets in immediately when “Ufaratsta” introduces the work with rousing dance rhythms and an overall feeling of joy. It's hardly one-dimensional, as shown by the plaintive eloquence of “Achat Sha'alti” and the youthful spiritedness of “Vah'hi Vishurun Melech.” At times ruminative (“Nigun” [Melody]”), at others playful (“Kozatske [Cossack Dance]”), Schoenfeld's work is a fine tone-setter.

Written when Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47) was thirty-two years old, Variations Sérieuses Op. 54, in D minor augments a theme of haunting tenderness with seventeen variations. They range widely, of course, moving as they do from Bach-like elegance and breathless urgency to regal majesty and hushed lyricism. Emblematic of his revolutionary twelve-tone technique, Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) wrote the two parts of Zwei Klaviertücke Op. 33 in 1929 (“Klavierstück Op. 33a”) and 1932 (“Klavierstück Op. 33b”). The first is the more opaque of the two, sprinkled as it is with clusters and splashes of chords, the second, while comparatively more lyrical, as dramatic in its spidery upward crawl.

French composers are well-accounted for on the release, with works by Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), Charles Alkan (1813-88), and Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772) included. Milhaud wrote his Saudades do Brasil, Op. 67 following a two-year stay in Brazil and titled each dance after a Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood. Up first is “Sorocaba,” whose irresistible allure is matched by the sparkle of “Corcovado,” the lilt of “Sumaré,” and the exuberance of “Gávea.” Taken from his Esquisses Op. 63 and Préludes Op. 31, Alkan's seven settings are character studies designed to express a specific mood or idea, be it playful (“Fantaisie”), elegiac (“Ancienne mélodie de la Synagogue”), or ominous (“Chanson de la folle au bord de la mer”). The release concludes with two early settings by Daquin in Pièces de Clavecin (ca. 1735) that see Baytelman animating “Le coucou, rondo” and “Les vents en couroux” with light-speed acrobatics.

March 2024