Kristina Marinova: 4 Rhapsodies
Navona Records

The four works on 4 Rhapsodies place considerable demands on a pianist's technical prowess and interpretive sensitivity, but it's a challenge Kristina Marinova ably meets. A native of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, the New York resident is currently readying herself for a concert series in New York, a music festival in France, and her next recording project, Bach's Goldberg Variations. For now, however, there's this superb new collection, which features material by Liszt, Gershwin, Piazzolla, and Erno Dohnányi recorded in April at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon, New York. If Dohnányi's titular piece is performed less than the others, it might have to do with the level of musicianship it requires of the performer. Yet Marinova navigates its virtuosic passages and emotional trajectories with such authority, it could well inspire other pianists to take it on too.

One of the reasons why the performances are so strong has to do with the fact that their panoramic range of emotional expression dovetails seamlessly with Marinova's sensibility. As a result, these expressive rhapsodies become something of a cathartic outlet for the pianist. Drama, joy, grief, sadness, melancholy, and more emerge during the recording and even sometimes within a single piece.

Written in in 1902-03, Dohnányi's Four Rhapsodies Op.11 requires the pianist to execute fluidly many alterations in emotion and mood. In contrast to the other pieces on the release, his is not a single-movement work, though a thematic connection lends the material a unifying form; in the fourth rhapsody, for example, traces of the first re-emerge to close the circle. Some scholars apparently regard the half-hour work as a sonata in four movements, with a sonata-allegro, adagio, scherzo, and theme-and-variations following in turn, and it's certainly possible to view the work in that way. The terrain traversed in the opening “Allegro non troppo, ma agitato” is a world unto itself; vividly picturesque, the movement methodically advances through episodes of varying character, all of them masterfully realized by Marinova. If the “Adagio capriccioso” is stately and intensely dramatic in its swells of emotion, the “Vivace”—spirited, impish, and even devilish—is a rollicking good time and the aptly titled “Andante lugubre,” yes, lugubrious but also majestic.

Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla dedicated the Tango Rhapsody (Adiós Nonino) to his late father, which helps account for its generally melancholy tone. The lyrical piece is a fine exemplar of the composer's revolutionary “Nuevo Tango” style; even more importantly, however, it captures the beauty and humanity of Piazzolla's music. While Marinova's execution of the technically demanding parts dazzles, her rendering of the tender moments impresses as much.

Like Dohnányi's work, Liszt's Rhapsodie Espagnole (Spanish Rhapsody) encompasses a vast range of expression and mood and demands much from its interpreter. Inspired by a trip the composer undertook to Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar in the 1840s, the work begins its travelogue with a magnificent cadenza and soars thereafter. Folk themes emerge as the trip progresses, with transitions between the parts effected expertly by the pianist. Joy infuses the work's exuberant expressions; as captivating is Marinova's execution of the work's volcanic sections.

Gershwin's beloved Rhapsody in Blue ends the recording on a rapturous note, the celebratory realm it inhabits far unlike that of Piazzolla's Tango Rhapsody. A remarkable synthesis of jazz and classical elements, the piece was conceived by its composer as “a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America—of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness.” All of its tricky shifts in tone, tempo, and melody are present as the pianist engages with Gershwin's multi-faceted creation fervently. However familiar its contents are, the work never fails to captivate, especially when it's delivered with the kind of conviction Marinova brings to the performance. The same might be said, of course, for the recording as a whole, where nary a misstep occurs during her dynamic treatments.

December 2021