20th Century Foxtrots Vol 6: Southern Europe
Gottlieb Wallisch (piano)
rec. 2022, Studio 2, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Munich, Germany
Grand Piano GP926 [71]
A little while ago I reviewed Switzerland, the previous volume in this entertaining and enterprising series (Grand Piano GP922 review) and I find this new disc, taking us to countries around the Mediterranean, just as juicy and tempting. It takes us on a cruise from Italy to the Iberian peninsula, stopping at Cyprus, Greece and Malta along the way and like its predecessor it features a fascinating variety of responses to the jazz idioms that were beginning to make their way across the globe.
On the lighter side of things are the Tango viola da ‘Cabaret Epilettico’ by Franco Casavola and, rather surprisingly Cocktail’s dance by Alfredo Casella, two futurist Italians who put that aside briefly for these short dances, Casavola bringing us a languid tango and Casella a cocktail that is as frothy and ebullient as they come. Casella is also represented by one of the Nove pezzi written for his pianist wife Yvonne Muller, a dark edged habanera with a sharp, dissonant timbre, much closer in feel to the Casella we expect to hear. Staying on the lighter side we have a Zez Confrey/ Clement Doucet-like novelty rag written by Alfredo Gattari and based on two Chopin’s pieces, the D flat étude and the minute waltz, and a luxurious waltz by Marco Enrico Bossi, a composer more familiar to organists for his many works for that instrument that include a beautiful Organ Concerto. Short childrens’ works come from the pens of Venetian Emma Teresa Bianchini and Portuguese composer António Tomás de Lima; the former wrote three books entitled My Dolly’s Dances from which we hear her lovely lullaby hesitation and a dazzlingly energetic charleston-come-can-can alongside a one-step and tango and the latter’s Cuckoo dance, buffooning and Goodbye one-step make for a brief but engaging suite, from the unmistakeable birdsong of the first to the rambunctious one-step via a tumbling fox-trot.
Thoughts of Franck may come to mind with the title Preludio, Corale e Fuga but Ettore Desderi’s jolly triptych is far away from the Belgian’s noble and dignified music. Desderi is known, if at all, for his sacred choral works so where did this come from? The prelude is like a silent movie perpetuum mobile and the chorale is inspired by spirituals and blues. As for the fugue I felt I could be listening to Nikolai Kapustin or Frederick Gulda in his piano play. Catalan composer Josep Martí I Cristià’s ragtime the Joyous American sounds like an overture to a particularly boisterous Broadway revue while Five O’Clock Tea and Valse illusion by Clifton Worsleyevoke this side of the Atlantic; though the name suggests as such this was actually a pseudonym adopted by another Catalan composer, Pere Astort I Ribas, to help sell his music on the American market. Five O’Clock Tea is a polite novelty solo that sounds pre-Billy Mayerl and Valse illusion is a melancholy Boston waltz, quite Palm Court Trio. The sole representative of Cyprus is Anis Fuleihan whose From the Aegean suite provides a breezy tango for sunny climes that opts for simple textures to set off the rhythms while in Greece we meet Theophrastos Sakellaridis, a composer of some eighty operettas as well as operas and other music. A duet from his operetta To please her husband became his Foxtrot Shimmy, light-hearted and untroubled by the chord clusters, rhythmic complexity and shifting time signatures that feature in Shimmy by his compatriot, the somewhat more familiar Schoenberg pupil Nikos Skalkottas.
Before we leave the lighter track we have works written by even more familiar names. Victor de Sabata, well known as a conductor is thought to have written Principe, a gaily tripping foxtrot, though the manuscript only says V. de Sabata so there is the possibility it was written by his uncle Vittorio. Possibly the most familiar name in the whole series is Giacomo Puccini – does his fame trump Ravel and Shostakovich who appeared earlier in the series? The Piccolo tango may not actually be by Puccini; there is no manuscript, just a publication by an American firm and the acceptance of his estate. Nonetheless it is, as Christian Heindl, the booklet’s author remarks, enchanting and it is fun to listen out for identifying phrases. Yet another familiar name leads us into more “serious” territory; Federico Mompou’s 1916 Fox-trot hardly sounds like the composer we are accustomed to with its evocation of music hall or a Parisian stage. More in character is his tango, a dance seen through a mist rather than through the more usual smoky haze and his very short Temps de blues from Ballet could have come from the pen of Francis Poulenc. Virgilio Mortari studied with Ildebrando Pizzetti who promoted Italian instrumental music rather than opera which was its mainstay in the 19th century and Mortari followed in his tracks with many chamber works to his name. There is an element of burlesque in his occasionally acerbic Foxtrot del Teatro della Sorpressa whose brazen opening music tries to intrude on the lyrical music at its heart, even disguising itself as a gentle countermelody. Maltese composer Charles Camilleri contributes two études from book three of his Picasso Set, the first a sharp-edged fox-trot that hints at stride piano but strays into other territory and the second an extended blues, veiled and impressionist. Like many composers, including at least two others on this disc, Domenico Savino emigrated to America, arriving in 1910 and in the thick of the jazz age. Heindl’s comment that his Arabesque in Blue didn’t quite achieve the popularity of Gershwin’s Rhapsodie in Blue can only be called dramatic understatement but this improvisatory, impressionist work deserves more outings. So too do the wonderful tango and fox-trot by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco from his Of Medium Difficulty. I glanced at the score and of medium difficulty was not the first thought to enter my head but he was a virtuoso pianist so perhaps these beautiful dances, almost fantasies on dances were not what he considered difficult. While not the light music that several composers here wrote they are still in his very accessible tonal language, full of suave chromaticism and skilfully textured layers of sound, especially so when the left hand takes the melody in the tango or the piece shifts into the major key. The fox-trot is full of brash humour and hints of Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso and Debussy’s Rêverie sneak out of the texture in places. The recital is rounded off with the fado inspired Arraial – village fair – by Portuguese Pedro F. Ribeiro d’Almeida and if Fado is indeed a form of music characterised by mournful tunes and lyrics as wikipedia writes d’Almeida was evidently having none of that in this swaggering and humorous one-step.
Once again I am loving Wallisch’s thrilling pianism, his energy and characterisation as well as his wonderful sense of adventure and passion for this repertoire, varied and multi-hued as it is. He has opened up vistas that are far beyond what I expected to hear in this series and you realise just how much of an impact jazz had on the musical world in the first decades of the twentieth century. Presentation and sound are all first class and I can’t wait to hear where he goes next on his travels.
Rob Challinor
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Contents
Italy
Franco Casavola (1891-1955)
Tango viola da ‘Cabaret Epilettico’ (1925)
Alfredo Gattari (1894-1972)
Two Novelty Piano Solos (pub.1928)
No.2 Chopin’s Charleston Dream
Marco Enrico Bossi (1861-1925)
Venus Valse, Boston-Valse No.2 from Due Valzer Op.221 (1921)
Victor de Sabata (1892-1967) or Vittorio de Sabata (1866-1933)
Principe, Foxtrot
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Piccolo Tango (pub.1942)
Alfredo Casella (1883-1947)
Cocktail’s dance (1918)
In Modo di Tango No.8 from Nove Pezzi Op.24 (1914)
Ettore Desderi (1892-1974)
Preludio, Corale e Fuga in modo sincopato (1934)
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco(1895-1968)
Media Difficoltà: quattro pezzi per pianoforte (1931)
No.3 Tango
No.4 Fox-Trot
Emma Bianchini (1890-1929)
Danza della mia Mambola Op.8 (pub.1927)
No.2 Hésitation
No.3 One-Step
Danza della mia Mambola Op.9 (pub.1927)
No.2 Tango
No.3 Charleston
Virgilio Mortari (1902-1993)
Foxtrot del Teatro della Sorpressa (1921)
Domenico Savio (1882-1973)
Arabesque in Blue (1928)
Cyprus
Anis Fuleihan (1900-1970)
From the Aegean No.2 Tango (1950)
Greece
Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949)
Suite for piano No.3 Shimmy tempo (fragment, 1924)
Theophrastos Sakellaridis (1883-1950)
To please her husband – fox-trot shimmy (1922)
Malta
Charles Camilleri (1931-2009)
Piano études, Book.3 the Picasso set (1964, rev. 1972)
No.1 Fox-trot
No.5 Blues
Spain
Josep Martí I Cristià (1884-1918)
The Joyous American Ragtime (1917)
Clifton Worsley (1873-1925)
Five O’Clock Tea fox-trot (pub.1917)
Triste Illusion, Valse triple Boston (pub.1916)
Federico Mompou (1893-1987)
Fox-Trot (1916)
Tango (1919)
Ballet No.5 – Temps de Blues (1949)
Portugal
António Tomás de Lima (1887-1950)
Album Infantil Series 3 (pub.1927)
No.4 O Cuco bailarino one-step
Album Infantil Series 1 (pub.1926)
No.2 Buffooning fox-trot
No.3 Goodbye one-step
Pedro F. Ribeiro D’Almeida (1880-1965)
Arraial, one-step sobre motivos do fado
