Ukraine – A piano portrait
Margaret Fingerhut (piano)
rec. 2024, The Menuhin Hall, Stoke d’Abernon, UK
SOMM Recordings SOMMCD0701 [78]
I often find myself noting how a small country with a small population, punches above its weight; examples include Estonia and, as I discovered recently, Malta. On this occasion, I am using that phrase to refer not to a country, Ukraine (population 38 million and the second largest in Europe after Russia), but to a single town within it, Odessa. It produced an extraordinary number of world-class musicians, all of them Jewish, a race of people which also punches above its weight. The startling list of incredible and incredibly well-known performers who were born there include Benno Moseiwitsch, Shura Cherkassky, Emil Gilels, David Oistrakh and Nathan Milstein – and for interest one can add George Gershwin’s parents and Bob Dylan’s grandparents. You could say this observation is a red herring, since none of the composers on this disc was born in Odessa and I am unaware that any were Jewish. However, it does serve to highlight that if a single town can produce such a wealth of talent what might the entire country manage? The answer is to some degree demonstrated on this disc for, though some of the names may be unfamiliar to listeners they are part of the important legacy of Ukrainian music.
With the sole exception of Mykola Lysenko, all these composers lived during the Soviet era, which, as we all know, often placed difficult working conditions upon them as well as constraints as to the kind of music they produced. Once you have listened to this disc, I think you would agree that there is no discernible contrary influence upon these works exerted by a repressive State, though one could argue that had it not been for the insistence that music had to be understandable to ordinary people and that ‘formalism’ was anathema, we might not have Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony, a work universally loved and respected. These piano works are uncomplicated and all are highly enjoyable and, it is to be hoped that their composers will continue to enjoy greater exposure as they fully deserve. Pianist Margaret Fingerhut, herself a granddaughter of a native of Odessa, puts it perfectly in her booklet notes that in her programme she aimed to ‘take the listener into the heart of Ukraine, to reflect its many moods: dark, sad and tragic of course, but also richly romantic, heroic, triumphant, joyous, even humorous.’
The first piece on the disc is the richly descriptive Les Rochers d’Outche-Coche, which although it does not refer to a specific geographical location, it forms part of Sergei Bortkiewicz’s collection Crimean Sketches, inspired by a trip the composer made to the famous peninsular with its rugged beauty. The work has plenty of drama as befits such a description and repeated hearings add more levels of rewarding listening. To follow are two of Vasyl Barvinsky’s five preludes, which are simple but ravishingly beautiful little gems. One of the overriding feelings with everything on this disc is why we don’t know any of them better, or at all. As Margaret Fingerhut points out, it is interesting to hear how much the composer had progressed by the time he came to write his Piano Cycle on Love, from which she plays Loneliness, the Sorrow of Love, for it demonstrates how much more complex his compositional approach had become a mere seven years later. However, it is no less winningly charming, with echoes of Rachmaninov clearly discernible in the luscious harmonies.
The only composer who died before the upheaval caused by the Russian revolution was Mykola Lysenko who is credited with being father of the dumka, the brooding lament, made famous thanks to Dvořák’s Dumky trio written almost fifteen years later. The folksy themes are amply on display here and are deftly handled by this seminal composer in Ukrainian music history. With the 3 Preludes, Op.4 by Levko Revutsky, we are delivered firmly back into Romantic territory going from yearning through shadowy inscrutability to a lively yet nervously infectious little Presto. His Improvisation shows his ability to take a simple theme and work it through several improvisatory passages in a short but telling four minutes.
Margaret Fingerhut explains her motivation for including Viktor Kosenko’s Nocturne-Fantaisie as the hypnotising effect of the music invaded her dreams. Its Scriabinesque atmosphere is clearly on display and that composer’s other-worldly influence is powerfully apparent throughout this work’s eight magical minutes. Valentin Silvestrov may be the most recent composer in this recital but though his 3 Bagatelles were composed as late as 2005, the musical language is totally in keeping with that of all the other works on the disc. Silvestrov has written that his music ‘is a response to and an echo of what already exists’. To quote from the booklet notes once again Margaret Fingerhut points out that Martin Puchner in his book Culture: wrote “everyone is influenced by someone. What is important is not what we borrowed but how we borrowed”. Silvestrov has certainly used any borrowing he may have made in a unique way. These three miniatures are so perfectly formed, so disarming in their simplicity, that they make a powerful impression that lasts long after hearing them. This is particularly the case with the second of them which you may very well believe you have heard before.
For the first time in this recital, we are plunged into a heightened state of drama with Boris Lyatoshinsky’s 2 Preludes on the Melodies of Ukrainian Folk Songs. Composed at the height of World War II it is a full-throated battle-cry and, it is interesting that Margaret Fingerhut writes of the influence of Chopin in the following Elegy-Prelude “Mourning” for it was also very apparent in the second of the preludes. The Elegy-Prelude “Mourning” is an impressively bleak piece as befits its title, but, if like me, you ‘enjoy’ pieces that tap deep into your soul then this will satisfy such an appreciation. As if to let you down gently, Margaret Fingerhut completes her recital with a peaceful and gentle work, Sergei Bortkiewicz’s Consolation which it certainly proves to be. If music can be said to be balm, this is the perfect example to end with.
Margaret Fingerhut is a superb pianist and this collection which she has put together amply demonstrates her love of the piano, her understandable feelings towards her ancestral home, particularly at this difficult time in its history, and her determination to help listeners get to know seven composers, some hardly known, others perhaps unknown. She has done a sterling service in every respect and this is a disc that should gain wide recognition.
Steve Arloff
Buying this recording via a link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free
Previous review: Philip Harrison (April 2025)
Contents
Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877–1952)
Esquisses de Crimée, Op.8 (1908) – Les Rochers d’Outche-Coche
Vasyl Barvinsky (1888–1963)
5 Preludes (1908) – No.1 in G major, No.2 in F sharp major
Piano Cycle on Love (1915) – Loneliness, the Sorrow of Love
Mykola Lysenko (1842–1912)
Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes No.2 “Dumka-Shumka”, Op.18 (1877)
Levko Revutsky (1889–1977)
3 Preludes, Op.4 (1914)
Improvisation (1920–30)
Viktor Kosenko (1896–1938)
Nocturne-Fantaisie, Op.4 (1919)
Valentin Silvestrov (b.1937)
3 Bagatelles, Op.1 (2005)
Boris Lyatoshinsky (1895–1968)
2 Preludes on the Melodies of Ukrainian Folk Songs, Op.38b (1942)
Elegy-Prelude “Mourning” (1920)
Sergei Bortkiewicz
Consolation, Op.17 No.4 (1914)
