Hallelujah Junction
Geniušas Duo
rec. 2024, Funkhaus, Berlin
Alpha Classics 1122 [66]
Husband and wife pianists Anna Geniushene and Lukas Geniušas both have successful careers as soloists, but this disc is their first recording as the Geniušas Duo. They certainly work very well together, producing a unified sound in this disc of rhythmically challenging music. It is arranged chronologically and we are given a survey of nearly seventy years of American music. Stravinsky and McPhee although not born in the USA became naturalised citizens.
Gershwin’s Cuban Overture was written after a visit that to that country and is infused with jazz and Cuban dance rhythms. It works very well in this arrangement by the composer’s friend Gregory Stone. The pianists do take some liberties with the printed score, some of which work and some of which do not. On first listening, I thought the piano sound was too light but repeated listening have shown that the lightness of touch helps to bring out the individual lines most effectively, as does the tempo which is slightly slower than is usual for the work.
Stravinsky’s Concerto in E flat was commissioned by Robert Woods Bliss to celebrate his thirtieth wedding anniversary. First performed at his Washington DC estate, named Dumbarton Oaks, the concerto is usually known by that name. Nadia Boulanger was the conductor at the premiere. The composer admitted to being influenced by Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, though the central movement is more classically oriented. Considering that it was written at a dark time for the composer who was suffering from tuberculosis and the death of his daughter Mika, it is a jolly piece. The soloistic writing for the original fifteen instruments is obviously missing in this the composer’s own two piano version, but as Stravinsky usually composed at the piano, the music works very well on two pianos. One does miss the orchestral colours, but the players here are remarkably dextrous, conjuring up a wide range of piano sounds and textures.
Copland’s El Salon Mexico was the beginning of his popular style of writing and appears here in an arrangement by his friend and at the time, protégé, Leonard Bernstein – and very effective it is, too. The complex rhythms are sympathetically shaped. The dance hall of the title is brought to life in a technicolour soundworld.
Frederic Rzewski was a virtuoso pianist who as a composer had a decided political bent in his music. His most famous work is the virtuosic piano solo The People United Will Never Be Defeated! inspired by the Chilean revolutionary song.Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (1979) for solo piano was inspired by the film Norma Rae about union organizing in a Southern Cotton mill and arranged in 1980 for him and Ursula Oppens to play.
The Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues was a song that workers would sing and whistle in the 1930s whilst at work in a textile factory in South Carolina. The original song opens with the verse:
Ol’ man sergeant sittin’ at the desk
The damn ol’ fool won’t give us no rest
He’d take the nickels off a dead man’s eyes
To buy a Coca-Cola an’ a eskimo pie.
The work starts in the lowest register with the motoric sound of the looms. Semitone semiquavers quickly become black and white clusters first with fists and then forearms; it is quite something to see a live performance. The duo are magnificent here in keeping the texture clear and not turning it into mud. It is quite terrifying in its relentless pounding, and it is something of a relief when the folk melody slowly makes its appearance. In this second half, the music becomes more human and is written in the style of a blues – but it is not all plain sailing, and the machine-like clusters appear again, this time in the upper registers. The work dies away as though the workers are leaving the mill at the end of a long day. It is a thrilling work on one piano, but a stunning one on two, especially when the performance is as musically outstanding as this.
The Canadian/American composer Colin McPhee spent time in Bali researching the music of that culture. His most famous work is the brilliant orchestral Tabu Tabuhan from 1936. His Balinese Ceremonial Music can be seen as a forerunner of that work. I have seen it variously described as a transcription or arrangement. It is certainly based on the music he heard in Bali, but I cannot say whether or not a Balinese musician would recognise their music played in a different tuning on a different instrument and stripped of its socio-cultural significance. However, the work did much to alert Western musicians to the sound world of the Balinese gamelan and thus served an educational as well as an artistic purpose.
The three movements Pemoengkah, Gambangan and Taboeh teloe, imitate the ringing tones of the metallophones of the gamelan. The performers are exemplary in executing the sudden and gradual changes in tone colour, dynamics, tempo, and attack, as well as the complex interlocking melodic and rhythmic patterns. This performance is almost four minutes slower than that of the 1941 recording made by the composer and Benjamin Britten, but it works, the slower speed allowing the resonance of the notes to sound more effectively.
Although he did not live to see it, McPhee’s study of Balinese music played a major role in the development of American minimalism. The final work on the disc is one of the major works in that style John Adams’ Hallelujah Junction. The title comes from the name of a truck stop near the California-Nevada border, although the work is in no way descriptive of the area. What did inspire the musical material was the rhythm of the word “Hal-le-LU-jah”. The work focuses on delayed repetition between the two pianos, creating an effect of resonant sonorities. There is a constant change of pulse and time signature, and it requires quickfire reflexes from the pianists to clearly articulate the ever-changing interlocking parts. The duo is absolutely on top of this here and even manage to go beyond the mechanical rhythms and bring a real human feel to the music. This is particularly evident in the almost ragtime/funk feeling of the last movement which brings the disc to a rousing conclusion.
In the notes, the pianists observe that “Playing duo piano music is already about dialogue, and these pieces feel like they are in conversation with each other.” In these performances, the listener feels welcomed into their dialogue and grateful to be there.
A lot of thought has gone into design. The triptych cardboard case is very sturdy and has a colourful picture of a desert gas station which even if it is not the actual Hallelujah Junction is very decorative. Then you open inside to find a black and white picture of the real place – all very cool. The booklet has useful notes in English, French and German and fetching photographs.
Paul RW Jackson
Buying this recording via a link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free
Contents
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
Cuban Overture (1932 arr. Gregory Stone)Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Concerto in EbDumbarton Oaks (1938 arr. composer)
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
El Salon Mexico (1936 arr. Leonard Bernstein)
Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021)
Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (1980 arr. composer)
Colin McPhee (1900-1964)
Balinese Ceremonial Music (1934)
John Adams (b. 1947)
Hallelujah Junction (1996)
