Jacob Greenberg: Neo/Classic.
Furious Artisans
On Hanging Gardens, the wonderful double-CD set issued by Jacob Greenberg in 2018, the pianist combined works by the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg) and Debussy to striking effect, the release's impact bolstered by the presence of soprano Tony Arnold on Schoenberg's Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten (The Book of the Hanging Gardens). In like manner, Greenberg's single-disc followup exploits temporal and stylistic contrasts by coupling Haydn and Mozart pieces with works from later centuries by Stravinsky, Ravel, Elliott Carter, and Phyllis Chen. If the new release is slightly less audacious conceptually than its predecessor, it nonetheless impresses for the calibre of its musicianship. Simply put, Greenberg's the kind of pianist whose playing's gripping no matter the material performed.
By way of introduction, Greenberg, who produced the recording and recorded it at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon, New York, identifies some of the characteristics associated with the classic and neoclassic eras, balance, simplicity, and order principles tied to the former and form, transparency, and concision the latter, conscious rejection of opulence and indulgence also key to the neoclassic sensibility. Of course, overlaps between them clearly exist, a point not merely implied but acknowledged explicitly in the very title of Ravel's Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn. Greenberg captures the eloquence and charm of Ravel's music in this graceful miniature, which, true to its title, uses musical notes of his forebear's name by way of tribute.
The pianist's consummate command of tempo and phrasing is shown in his expressive rendering of Haydn's two-part Sonata in D major, Hob.XVI:42, the andante movement suitably bright and resonant and the second dazzling in its briskness. The composer's also represented by the three-movement Sonata in B minor, Hob.XVI:32, which advances from an exuberant, methodically considered intro on through an engaging minuet and a “Presto” taken at an at times furious clip. Mozart's Fantasy and Fugue in C major, K. 394 follows its opening declamation of a dignified theme with characteristically imaginative examinations, some passages delivered at a torrential pace but all of it rich in counterpoint. His Ten Variations on “Unser dummer Pöbel meint,” K. 455 caps the release with folk-inspired variations on an operatic comic aria by Gluck that were originally improvised in concert by the composer with Gluck present and were eventually refined into the charming single-movement set-piece presented here.
Written as a birthday tribute to the composer Goffredo Petrassi, Carter's engrossing 90+ is by comparison a complex, spidery affair comprised of ninety regular, accented pulses that no one could possibly mistake for a piece by those earlier figures. A commission treated to its premiere recording, Chen's meditative SumiTones draws for inspiration from the calligraphic art of her grandfather in a work that accentuates precision, expressive gesture, delicacy, and the omission of the nonessential. Stravinsky's four-part Serenade in A, which is an all the more welcome inclusion for being one of his less familiar works, begins with a stately theme immediately recognizable as one by the composer (even if it's purportedly a riff on Chopin), after which follows a sprightly minuet, a rollicking “Rondoletto,” and wryly nostalgic finale.
Certainly one of the project's takeaways has to do with downplaying the divide presumed to exist between music composed centuries apart. As stylistically different as the pieces by Mozart and Stravinsky are, Greenberg's interpretations also hint at connections between them. Still, the organizing principle behind Neo/Classic. is ultimately of less import than the performances themselves, the recording more constituting a powerful argument on behalf of Greenberg's artistry than anything concept-related. The release hardly suffers for being broached on such terms, and one might perhaps best think of it as a well-curated concert-styled programme distilled into recorded form. It also provides an excellent opportunity to hear the pianist, who can otherwise be heard performing as a member of ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), playing solo.January 2020