Minimalist
Szymon Nehring (piano)
Polish Radio Orchestra/Michał Klauza
rec. 2024, Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio, Warsaw, Poland
IBS Classical IBS132024 [79]

Szymon Nehring’s choice of the Etude No. 4 by Philip Glass which opens this new disc gives it a hesitant beginning. A work beset with stops and starts, perhaps not the emphatic curtain raiser this recital needed. But it’s also symptomatic of the curious choices of music made throughout. A compelling programme of minimalist works for piano and orchestra and solo piano could be devised of course, but this isn’t it.

The pillars of the recital are three works for piano and orchestra. Górecki’s two movement Piano Concerto comes first which I can only describe as unbelievably banal. An Allegro molto first movement based on basic scale exercises which are instantly irritating and cause one to switch off mentally at an early stage, and a Vivace finale based on a melody so facile I was convinced it had to be a parody. I read later in the rather solemn booklet notes by Pierre Élie Mamou that ‘Górecki must have been jesting when he referred to this minimalist tour de force as a joke’. I suspect no jest was intended.

The next substantial piece is Valse Boston for piano and strings by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli. This is a portentous, fatally statuesque creation, devised from really slow and highly basic chord progressions at the start and end of its 25 minute duration, with an hyperbolic middle section centred on, you’ve guessed it, a slow, repeated, descending scale passage. If one of the effects of La Valse, which surely was a basic model for Kancheli, is to leave listeners unsettled, Valse Boston places you in a nightmare of a different kind. It’s the same feeling one gets listening to an already overrunning and uninteresting presentation when the speaker says ‘…and later in my presentation I will be…’

The Polish composer Wojciech Kilar provides the third sizeable work on the disc. Kilar is best known for his film music. Indeed on the basis of this concerto I think it unlikely he would have made much of a name for himself in concert music alone. His first movement Andante con moto is based on a single phrase under and over which the orchestra places differentiated effects and which at least has some rhythmic and harmonic variation as it proceeds but it’s sparse fare intellectually for ten minutes of music. The second movement Corale (marked Largo religiosamente) sounds like a sequence of musical platitudes, Liberace plays plainchant. The finale is a Toccata and has an initial drama redolent of film music. But then nothing much happens save for that dramatic theme coming around again. Think of Mission Impossible, Tom Cruise trying to save the world, but in reality running on the spot.

These works are interspersed with shorter solo works, by far the most memorable of which are the two by Arvo Pärt, beautifully played by Nehring. But they are scant solace for the tests of patience elsewhere.

When I was sent this CD to review a couple of months ago, I listened to it a few times then put it to one side because I could find little to say that was positive. I’m saddened that returning to it afresh my thoughts are unfortunately much the same. In short, if one wanted to provide a selection of works that would give substance to the sometimes negative press that minimalism receives, then these would be ideal choices.

I recognise of course that a huge amount of effort goes into a project like this and should say that the music is all very well performed in excellent sound (and I should commend Nehring’s choice of a Kawai piano, which fits the music perfectly). I also acknowledge the inherent subjectivity in all of my reactions. As ever, Music Web offers an alternative perspective. My colleague Paul RW Jackson also reviewed this, and provides what you might feel is some welcome balance after my moaning.

Dominic Hartley  

Previous review: Paul RW Jackson (November 2024)

Contents
Philip Glass (b. 1937)
Etude No 4 (1994)
Szymon Nehring (b. 1995)
Bridge (2024)
Henryk Górecki (1933-2010)
Concerto for Piano and Strings (1980)
Simeon ten Holt (1923-2012)
Canto Ostinato (1976)
Giya Kancheli (1935-2019)
Valse Boston (1996)
Arvo Pärt (b. 1934)
Variations zur Gesundung von Arinuschka (1977)
Für Anna Maria (2006)
Wojciech Kilar (1932-2013)
Piano Concerto No 1 (1997)

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