Volume 21 Issue 3 - November 2015

ultimately eliminating materials from a “collection of musical fragments.
They appear at different speeds, transposition levels, and with
different timbres throughout the work.” It is very effective.
Kitchener-based Buhr says, “A monk, dancing is a good metaphor
for a composer. We composers spend much of our time alone in our
studios (monastic cells), but the task is to imagine music; so in our
minds, we dance.” After a long contemplative section rife with rich
melodic chant-like lines in the cello, an arpeggiated transition leads to
the “dance” – “bright and happy, with a beat a monk could dance to…”
– before returning to contemplation.
While there is a certain sameness to the lush timbres and textures
produced by harp and cello in all of the pieces, there is enough
diversity to sustain interest throughout this fine recording.
At the Turning Point concert I was particularly impressed with the
sound Barnes produced from his cello which he told me is a modern
Portuguese instrument. On this CD he is playing another gorgeoussounding
cello, the 1730 Newland Johannes Franciscus Celoniatus on
loan from the Canada Council Musical Instrument Bank. I am left with
the feeling that any cello would sound great in his hands.
The only piece of music by Isang Yun that I have ever heard
performed live was Novelette for flute, harp, violin and cello,
presented in the context of New Music Concerts’ Portrait of Toshio
Hosokawa that also included Hosokawa’s Memory (In memory of
Isang Yun) back in May 2000. The story of Yun is an intriguing one. He
was born in what is now Tongyeong, South Korea in 1917, long before
the division of North and South. Yun studied and settled in Germany
where he was the first Asian composer to integrate aspects of the
music of his homeland into the Western Art Music tradition. Yun was
a strong believer in the reunification of Korea. While living in West
Berlin, along with a number of compatriots, he was in contact with
North Korean representatives in East Germany trying to open cultural
relations between the two Koreas. Accused of being a spy, Yun and his
colleagues were kidnapped and taken to South Korea where they were
imprisoned and tortured. After a year, pressure applied by the German
government resulted in Yun’s release and return to Germany, where,
despite hoping to one day return home to a unified Korea, he
remained until his death in 1995. Since that time his music has been
championed in both North and South Korea where there are institutes,
competitions and festivals in his name, although he is still seen
as a dubious character by some.
teacher, mentor and composer of
popular school anthems, which
continued to be performed
anonymously during the period
when his music was banned in
his homeland.
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Of course there is much more to the story
than that, some of which is told in Isang
Yun Inbetween North and South Korea, a
film by German director Maria Stodtmeier
which has been released by Accentus (ACC
20208). It is an excellent introduction to the
man and the music, with extended excerpts
of performances of his challenging and virtuosic
compositions – of special interest to me
was the extremely demanding Cello Concerto
– as well as moving reminiscences of him as a
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Keyed In
ALEX BARAN
Variations, by their nature, tend toward
the cerebral. Pianists who understand
this devote a good deal of effort
maintaining their ties to the thematic homeland
in spite of the distances a composer may
travel in his creative wanderings. Konstantin
Scherbakov demonstrates this beautifully in
Eroica (Two Pianists Records TP1039190)
where Beethoven’s Eroica Variations Op.35 journey far on a surprisingly
short musical idea. When at times the composer has left little
more than a hint of harmonic progression as a fragment of the original
idea, Scherbakov finds it and underlines it to remind us of our point
of departure. By the time he’s played through all fifteen variations,
the closing fugue comes as a highly energized and joyous finale in the
form Beethoven so loved to use.
The same disc contains both the Pathétique and Appassionata
sonatas. Here, Scherbakov is more formal. He is very aware of the
architecture around his musical content and artfully recalls the ideas
Beethoven requires in the closing arguments. The Adagio of the
Sonata No.8 in C Minor, Op.13 “Pathétique” is perhaps less outwardly
emotional than some would like, but this works well in the context
of Scherbakov’s overall approach to both sonatas. A strong performer
with a clear technique, he has made this a very fine addition to
anyone’s Beethoven collection. Production values on this disc are very
high despite the fact that the program was recorded in different locations
(UK and Moscow).
Also recorded in Moscow are Prokofiev’s
Piano Sonatas 6, 7 and 9. Digitally restored
from original sources Prokofiev Piano Sonatas
(Archipel Records ARPCD 465) features three
separate public recitals by Sviatoslav Richter
from the mid-1950s. Disappointingly bereft
of any historical notes about the concerts,
the disc is economically packaged but thankfully
a little web sleuthing can uncover plenty
more about this material. These are among the recordings from the
decade that introduced Richter to the West. The audio restoration is
wonderful although the somewhat narrow frequency range of the
recording reflects the technology of the period. Still, it in no way
impedes the colossal technique Richter possessed. His utter control
of the wildest passages in Sonatas 6 and 9 stand in contrast to his
pensive playing of the Sonata 7 where doleful reflection speaks of the
personal burden Prokofiev felt under the Stalinist regime.
Richter seems the perfect pianist for this repertoire. Recording two
of Prokofiev’s “War” sonatas from the early 1940s (No.6 and No.7) just
a few years after Stalin’s (and the composer’s) death, one wonders
what the propaganda chatter must have been at the time. The final
sonata on the disc, No.9, was written for and dedicated to Richter in
1947. All three of these performances are truly arresting.
Vadym Kholodenko is the 2013 Van Cliburn
International Piano Competition gold medalist.
His collaboration with Miguel Harth-Bedoya
and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra in Grieg,
Saint Saëns Piano Concertos (harmonia
mundi HMU 907629) produces thoughtful
and unhurried performances. Pianist and
conductor are in complete agreement on
tempi that favour a more relaxed approach than we sometimes hear.
This subtle expansion of time offers the listener an extra moment of
consideration before processing the composer’s next thought. The
Grieg slow movement is especially exquisite for this reason.
The Saint Saëns Concerto No.2 in G Minor, Op.22 is not quite so
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