Jacob Greenberg: Hanging Gardens (Debussy, Berg, Webern, Schoenberg)
New Focus Recordings

In sequencing this two-hours-plus collection, pianist Jacob Greenberg could have elected to place the Claude Debussy material on disc one and the Second Viennese School pieces on the second. As orderly as such an arrangement would have been, it also would have undermined one of the project's fundamental goals: to show how much their respective musics share, not just with respect to textural richness and sensuality but compositionally, too. Obviously extreme differences in compositional approach separate Debussy from Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, yet Hanging Gardens goes a long way towards showing the divide to be less than normally presumed. Greenberg's desire to “explore fields of intersection between these two musical worlds often thought to be opposite in character” is effectively realized by the recording.

His discography is formidable, including as it does the many releases he's participated in as a longtime member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) as well as the impressive releases he's issued as a solo artist on labels such as Naxos, Tzadik, and New Amsterdam. A quick scan of that discography reveals an artist strongly committed to the contemporary classical tradition (Crumb, Carter, Reich, Messiaen) as well as classics of the repertoire; how telling that one of those discs pairs Schumann and Busoni.

Certainly there's no shortage of recordings of Debussy's Préludes from which to choose; one of the things that makes Greenberg's recording valuable is his and soprano Tony Arnold's performance of Schoenberg's Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten (The Book of the Hanging Gardens). What makes the proposition even more appealing is that in their hands the music exudes a sensuality that's well-nigh palpable, and the inclusion of the piece bolsters one's impression of Hanging Gardens as an especially well-curated release. Generally, the aridity that's typically assumed to characterize works by Schoenberg and his famous pupils is downplayed, with Greenberg purposefully emphasizing their music's emotionally expressive potential.

The set couples Debussy's two books of Préludes (twenty-four pieces in total) and assorted individual pieces with selections from the Second Viennese School; for the record, it's worth noting that while the four composers‘ names are displayed in the same size on the cover, it's Debussy and Schoenberg who predominate, with a single setting by Berg and three short pieces by Webern rounding out the release. Be prepared to settle in comfortably as forty-six tracks in total are presented.

As an indication of just how thoughtfully sequenced Hanging Gardens is, Greenberg follows his sensitive reading of Debussy's “Sarabande” with Berg's Sonata, op. 1, whose dramatic tonal colours and contrasts the pianist brings to vivid life in a thoroughly engaged performance. Even at this early stage, a through-line of sorts between the composers' respective works emerges, with the visceral, harmonically fecund world essayed by Debussy complemented by the whole-tone patterns of Berg's haunting piece. When Webern's Variations appears after the twelve settings in Debussy's first book of Préludes, one is struck by how seamless the transition is between the pieces, with the harmonic adventurousness of the latter's material forming a natural segue to Webern's miniatures, however formally different their respective material is.

A magnificent range of moods and stylistic approaches is encompassed by the Préludes, for which Debussy drew for inspiration from Symbolist poetry and ancient classical art; some of the intensely aromatic settings in the first book are delicate and gentle (“Danseuses de Delphes”) whereas others are querulous and mystery-laden (“Voiles”); the playful and exuberant sides of his music also are well-accounted for (“La danse de Puck”), as are the stately (“La fille aux cheveux de lin”) and dramatic (“La cathédrale engloutie”).

On disc two, Greenberg eases the listener in with a lovely reading of Debussy's D'un cahier d'esquisses, after which Schoenberg's song-cycle appears. In The Chicago Tribune's estimation, “anything sung by soprano Tony Arnold is worth hearing,” and the sentiment's certainly supported by her performance in this case. The Book of the Hanging Gardens, its fifteen songs based on texts by Stefan George, presents no small number of challenges to a vocalist, harmonically and otherwise, but Arnold meets them splendidly. In her handling of the atonal material, she demonstrates a remarkable technical command; even better, her expressiveness captures the tone of the German texts, which, set in a verdant outdoor setting, have to do with romantic passion and its emotional extremes (imagine, perhaps, Oskar Kokoschka's Bride of the Wind translated into musical form). Close connections in dynamics and form between text and music resonate throughout, and Arnold's performance is abetted considerably by Greenberg's, whose playing is sympathetic and supportive in the extreme.

Coming as it does after the song-cycle, the second book of Préludes can't help but feel a bit anticlimactic, though one does quickly re-acclimatize oneself to Debussy's world after Schoenberg's comparatively destabilizing work. As with the first book, the second sees the composer ranging widely across richly contrasting terrain, from the wistful and elegant (“Bruyères”) to the spirited and playful (“Général Lavine - eccentric”). In the book's most curious twist, a little bit of “God Save the Queen” makes its ways into “Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C.,” its title a reference to the protagonist of Dickens' The Pickwick Papers.

October 2018