Until Night Falls
Eva Barta (piano)
rec. 2023, Friedrich-Ebert-Halle Hamburg-Harburg, Germany
Genuin GEN24828 [64]
One might expect nocturnes galore in Eva Barta’s programme exploring the delights and mysteries of the dark hours but they are notable by their absence. Instead she evokes the whole spectrum of nightly pursuits in a recital of, mostly early 20th century, piano solos and song transcriptions. The first three pieces immediately cover the most obvious elements; moonlight, evening revellers and sleep but dreams, flitting shadows and death make an appearance along the way. Chopin and Brahms give their own views of lullabies, gossamer decoration from the salons of Paris and care-worn and quietly intense in Brahms’ three Intermezzi, his lullabies of my pain written in 1892. That same year Rachmaninov was composing his early fantasy pieces including the doom laden Prélude in C sharp minor that was to haunt him throughout his concert career. Barta couples it with the march like prélude in G minor with its lyrical heart that she finds evokes the Arabian Nights. Rachmaninov’s rich luxuriance is in contrast to Scriabin’s little miniature trill étude, written just two years later; described by Barta as ghostly and whimsical I have always thought of it as a moth flittering against a window pane, trying to reach the light, a more mundane if equally evocative picture of the night.
For me the attraction of this recital is the inclusion of Barta’s own transcriptions of song by Schönberg, Sibelius and Weill. The former both set poems by Richard Dehmel though their approach is very different; Schönberg’s opulent post Wagnerian chromaticism and heavy drama against the simple but intensely hypnotic repetitions and equally beguiling harmonic structure of Sibelius. His setting of The Silent City beautifully encapsulates this stark picture of the forsaken, lonely city, seemingly empty of life and Barta’s transcription is highly effective, moving the melody line into bare octaves, ringing almost bell-like over the eerie accompaniment. Her final transcription is of Kurt Weill’s 1935 song Youkali, the Shangri-la like island that lies at the end of the world, a Utopian haven that undoubtedly filled the dreams of many under the growing threat of the Nazis. Ultimately the song reminds us that this is a fantasy, a paradise that is forever out of reach. Attractive though her playing is I’m not sure that Barta entirely conveys that, lacking much of the heartache and passionate hunger that someone like Barbara Hannigan brings to the original (Alpha-Classics 790).
I very much admire Barta’s programming and to a point I admire aspects of her pianism; not to my taste is her sometimes inflexible rhythmic sense; this works to good effect in the Sibelius, all loss and desolation but in Chopin’s berceuse she sounds emotionless; I much prefer the delicacy and subtle rubato of Marc-André Hamelin (Hyperion records CDA67706). That said her touch is refined and she produces a beautiful sound. She brings plenty of character and vibrant rhythm to Bartók’s first Romanian Dance and his Evening in Transylvania, Barta’s homeland, and her tonal sense in the Schönberg transcriptions is wonderful, from the limpid depiction of water and moonlight to the ache and yearning in Schenk mir deinen goldenen Kamm.
Rob Challinor
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Contents
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Clair de lune from Suite Bergamasque (1890-1905)
La Soirée dans Grenade from Estampes (1903)
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Berceuse Op.57 (1843-44)
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Evening in Transylvania from 10 Easy Pieces (1908)
Romanian Dances Op.8a No.1 (1910)
Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951) transcribed by Eva Barta
from 4 Songs Op.2 (1899-1900)
Erwartung
Jesus bettelt (Schenk mir deinen goldenen Kamm)
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) transcribed by Eva Barta
from 6 Songs Op.50 (1906)
Die stille Stadt
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Etude Op.42 No.3 (1903)
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Prélude in G minor Op.23 No.5 (1901)
Prélude in C sharp minor Op.3 No.2 (1892)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
3 Intermezzi Op.117 (1892)
Kurt Weill (1900-1950) transcribed by Eva Barta
Youkali (1935)
