The best of Martin Jones: Discover Erich Korngold
Erich Korngold (1897-1957)
Martin Jones (piano)
Rec. November 2000 and May 2001 at Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, UK
Nimbus NI7743 [72]

Forget the unfortunate title: this is an intelligent selection of Korngold’s piano music, taken from the complete collection made by Martin Jones on four discs (review). Rather surprisngly, most of these were written when Korngold was a child or a teenager; he was a child prodigy comparable to Mozart or Mendelssohn. He reached full musical maturity in his twenties when he wrote his two largest operas, Die Tote Stadt and Das Wunder der Heliane, both of which are represented here, after which something seemed to go wrong. He spent a great deal of time rearranging operettas and then started writing music for films, which proved a refuge for him when the Nazis made life impossible for him in his native Vienna. However, in his later years he wrote hardly anything for the piano.

I have listed the works here in the order in which they are presented on the disc, which is neither the chronological one nor the order in which they are discussed in the booklet. I shall discuss them in chronological order.

We begin then with the Sonata No.1, written when Korngold was eleven. This is a stormy work, with very full writing of a kind which suggests to me the Russian school, and specifically early Scriabin. This is a single movement in sonata form and what is remarkable about it is not so much the occasional sense of pastiche but that of many original features, including chromaticism and pungent harmonies.

Don Quixote is a suite of six pieces presenting various moments in the Don’s career and possibly suggested by Richard Strauss’s tone poem. We here have three of them. The Don himself and Sancho Panza are well characterized and there is some elaborate and florid writing, particularly in the third piece, Don Quixote goes forth.

The Märchenbilder of the following year is another suite, this one based on fairy tales, from which again we have three. These are delightful, with The brave little tailor and The fairy tale’s epilogue being particularly attractive.

The second sonata was a great success at the time and regularly played in concert by Arthur Schnabel. Again it is in one movement, a modified sonata form, with a heroic first subject  and a languid second one.

We then have two of the Four Happy Waltzes, apparently each named after a different girlfriend and whose publication was prevented by Korngold’s domineering father, Julius Korngold. These are charming.

We then jump many years to the two operatic fantasias. First there is one on themes from Die Tote Stadt. This is in the spirit of Liszt’s operatic fantasias, taking themes from the opera and combining them in a different way. It is much the longest work here, and I wish I liked it more. I admire and respect the opera but I find this fantasia smacks too much of a piano arrangement rather than of a recomposition in pianistic terms. I note that it was arranged by F. Rebay, who is otherwise unknown to me, and is therefore not wholly Korngold’s work.

Between this and the interlude from Das Wunder der Heliane we have the Four little caricatures. These are really just squibs, tiny parodies of four contemporary composers: Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartók and Hindemith. These are fun and also good pieces as well as amusing.

The Heliane interlude, possibly inspired by that in Wozzeck, is a kind of funeral march and draws from music in the first two acts. This is impressive in a sombre way.

I should say something about the works not chosen for inclusion in this selection. Most of those in the four disc collection seem to be transcriptions of stage works, the main exception being Korngold’s third piano sonata, of 1931. I must say I would rather have had that than the Tote Stadt fantasia but maybe that is just me.

Martin Jones is one of those pianists whose very versatility can lead one to underestimate him. He has recorded a great deal of music, including composers as different as Szymanowski and Granados. He plays fluently and well and is complete command of the idiom. As I said at the beginning: this is a useful selection of Korngold’s piano music and should satisfy all but the completist.

Stephen Barber

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Contents
Grosse Fantasie aus der Oper Die Tote Stadt arr. F. Rebay (1920)
Sonata No. 1 in D minor (1908/9)
Four Happy Waltzes: Nos. 2 and 3 (1911)
Don Quixote: six character pieces after Cervantes :Nos. 1, 2 and 3 (1909)
Märchenbilder Op. 3 Nos. 2, 6 and 7 (1910)
Zwischenspiel Intermezzo (Akt III) from Das Wunder der Heliane (1927)
Four little caricatures for piano Op. 19 (1926)
Sonata No. 2 Op. 2 (1910)