Walter Niemann (1876-1953)
Piano Music Volume Two
Tomasz Kamienak (piano)
rec. 2024 Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio of Polish Radio
Toccata Classics TOCC0747 [69]

Walter Niemann’s fame has not lasted in the seventy odd years since his death from a stroke at the age of seventy six. Now just a name in an encyclopedia that only a few would recognise while a century earlier the internationale moderne Klaviermusik described his piano works as the most frequently performed in Germany. He was born into a musical family, grandson of an organist and son of a pianist who had studied with Hans von Bülow no less. His uncle Gustave was a violinist, composer and teacher of conductor Robert Kajanus while his extended family got in on the act with five professional musicians among his cousins. The family had settled in Wiesbaden from which Niemann took the long trip to Boppard, over an hour’s drive even today, to study with Englebert Humperdinck. His one to one time with Humperdinck was a rare gift for Niemann as he discovered when he moved to Leipzig after his father’s death; the stark academia of the conservatory took some getting used to though studies with Carl Reinecke, Salomon Jadassohn and Liszt pupil Alfred Reisenauer were eventually worth it. He began to teach and work as a music journalist, composing as a side-line but positive feedback from Humperdinck to his op.20 variations convinced him to concentrate more on that side of his art; he continued to write books and articles but eventually his compositions grew to 189 opuses, predominantly piano and often collections of pieces so that along with unpublished works he amassed something in the region of a thousand pieces. Though he lived until 1953 his style remained late romantic and very tonal even when we hear the odd touch of impressionism.

Five pieces make up the Ruby op.161, Niemann’s second work based on the stories of Friedrich Hebbel, the first being his 1912 Suite op.23. It is based on a story of a Turkish lad, Assad, who rescues a princess from a malevolent jewel’s influence. There is only the barest hint of any eastern harmony and this not until the fourth portrait, Cadi or the judge; the movements rather depict the lead characters, Assad, bright and confident, Fatime, the princess in a dreamy piece with a passionate heart that suggests a more complex character than Assad, Soliman the jeweller and his rather stiff minuet that gives way to the music of the evil Ruby with its mesmerising, shimmering figuration in the upper reaches of the piano. The Judge’s music is brash and stern while the Sultan has a noble sarabande whose baroque touches are in contrast to its romantic grandeur. The end of the tale is clear in the Sultan’s sudden change to happiness with the major key ending.

The booklet says that the Ballade from olden days Op.49 was dedicated to the fine pianist Celeste Chop-Groenevelt (1875-1958) though the copy I have in front of me is dedicated to another pianist Paul Otto Möckel (1890-1926). Whichever is the correct dedication the piece itself is a work of contrasting sections; a fantasy like opening with slow moving harmonies that are woven around with rising arpeggios, a major key melody in repeated chords – much like Liszt’s étude paysage – and a minor key middle section that incorporates elements from both these sections to rise to a grand climax of keyboard encompassing chords. Celeste Chop-Groenevelt certainly has history with the next piece, the Suite after the words of J.P. Jacobsen, the Danish writer and poet (1847-1885) whose writing also influenced two much more familiar composers, Frederic Delius and Arnold Schönberg. Chop-Groenevelt was the dedicatee of the first piece and actually recorded the beautiful Rosenzeit for Vox in 1924. The suite opens with the prelude the old fountain which is represented by a gently undulating and constant right hand forming a backdrop to the left hand’s melody, mostly above the right hand and often in a staccato that seems to suggest errant drops of water. The Romance, Season of Roses is a delicate work featuring a short melody over slowly rising arpeggios that, despite the changes of key and dynamic in the middle, remains restrained and wonderfully lyrical. Chop-Groenevelt’s recording is a little freer than Kamieniak’s but he matches her in tenderness and colour. The wonderfully evocative barcarolle, in the punt is headed with Jacobsen’s words and it seemed as if the boat was sailing on a mirror of gold. Niemann captures the slow and lazy progress of the boat as it pushes through the waves and the faster second section with its gondolier’s song is a joy. Similarities to the final two movements of Chopin’s second sonata may be found in the finale, Phantom in the mist and not only the key signature; the restless moto perpetuo, enigmatically chromatic isn’t as fast as Chopin’s finale but has the same kind of disturbing energy and at the end it returns, played slowly with the chords of a funeral march played above, coincidentally or not in the same rhythm as Chopin’s. It certainly fills the brief set by the words and out of the mist it came, formless and yet recognisable…

There is a great difference harmonically with the next set, the Antique idylls, six character pieces, each headed with a verse by Else Bergmann. Exotic lands evidently appealed to Niemann – there are two Japanese suites, old China, the orchid garden and Bali, hermitage and the exotic pavilion – but the past held its own fascination and was an exotic land in its own right. Niemann regularly explored this region in suites such as from olden times, Old Greek temple dances, Pharaoh’s land, the old Dutchman and Galante Musik and on this CD the Antique Idylls, with their depiction of characters and locations from the Mediterranean past. He wrote a suite of ten pieces called Pompeii, his op.48 and that city destroyed by Mount Vesuvius’ fury also opens the idylls. This is the city in its dreamy state before the destruction which is only referenced in the final line of the header poem the lava mountain murmurs in the distance; it is slow and sarabande like with unusual chord movement but otherwise sticking to a D flat major harmony. There are slight hints of Debussy’s Danseuses de Delphes, which the booklet says was an influence, and even la cathedrale engloutie in its mysterious solemnity. Lalage, a courtesan’s name, is a melancholy F minor piece that has a whiff of impressionism about it and chromaticism both in the harmonisation of the melody and in the degree to which the key changes. Telemachos, the son in search of his father Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey, is by far the most exuberant and swift of this otherwise relatively restrained collection. I idly thought of Percy Grainger in the bounce of this piece but the tonal base, changing every bar or less is a very different harmonic style than the Australian’s. The confident final line of the associated poem is my young arrow shoots regally aloft into immortality and Niemann matches this with a grand glissando and two sharp final chords, simple but effective. Odysseus himself makes an appearance next in a wonderful pastorale with glowing seventh chords in its melody and central harmony, all book-ended by an imitation of, as Niemann writes, a shepherd’s shawm. Paesta, an ancient Greek city left devastated by floods; the swamp boils with fever…dreadful sun stares and drought spreads its hot, dead hands…arejustsome of the words of its descriptive poem. Niemann concentrates on quiet desolation and the stillness of sun-baked death as a contrast to the bustling metropolis that once was with minor second dissonances and rising chromatics in many of its bars that almost, but not quite, suggest Wagner. This concentrated portrait of hopelessness is quite moving and worthy of more attention. The final idyll, Erinna named for the poet from the sixth century B.C. opens with a ruminative bass line and rising chords before moving into jaunty major key music that is quite different in style from the other idylls, its breezy dotted rhythms almost approaching an early jazz style. His three Modern piano pieces were dedicated to Walter Gieseking with whom he became friends when he was editing for Hupfeld Phonola piano rolls; Niemann actually recorded a good deal of his piano music for Tri-Phonola and Welte rolls including the Romantic Waltz that opens this set of three pieces. His is a very romantic and over pedalled version but that is probably more to do with the mechanism than Niemann’s playing. Kamieniak is wonderful in bringing out the languid indulgence of this slow waltz that, despite the title of the set, is as highly romantic as the name suggests and a contrast to the genuinely modern music that was overshadowing such heady romanticism at this time. Delphi, solemn hymn follows, a broad work whose rich opening theme rises inexorably and sinuously, giving way to a series of arppegiated chords, diffusely pedalled over long bass notes; I thought of Gershwin a little which gives more credence to the modern of the title. Niemann again turns east for the final piece, in the Far East, exotic grotesque, that doesn’t sound hugely oriental, the occasional parallel fourths notwithstanding, or even grotesque for that matter though its flowing rhythms and harmonic shifts are very engaging. By way of a fun encore Kamieniak plays the two gossip-mongers, a very brief scherzo, perfectly describing the staccato buzz of busy chatter, that was published Göbel & Grabner in Bad Salzelmen, the spa town frequented by Niemann.

Kamieniak is a worthy champion of Niemann’s music. He has a flair for Niemann’s character and picture painting alongside finely crafted phrases and fabulous pedalling. With a clear, rich sound this is an excellent addition to Niemann’s growing discography and I hope that he adds more volumes to this series that he began with four of the piano cycles on Toccata Classics TOCC0484.

Rob Challinor

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Contents
Der Rubin, gestalten und Bilder aus dem Orient nach
Friedrich Hebbels gleichnamiger Novelle Op.161 (publ. 1944)
Ballade aus vergangenen Tagen Op.49 (publ.1918)
Suite nach Worten con J.P.Jacobsen Op.43 (publ.1917)
Antike Idyllen, 6 Idyllen nach Dichtungen von Elsa Bergmann Op.99 (publ.1934)
Drei moderne Klavierstücke Op.68 (publ.1920)
Die beiden Klatschmäulchen (publ.c.1935)