Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952)
A Romantic From Kharkiv
Piano Concerto No.1 in B Flat Major Op.16 (publ.1913)
Lamentations and Consolations Op.17 No.1 Consolation in D Minor (publ.1914)
Nocturne Op.24 No.1 in E Flat Major Diana from 3 pieces Op.24 (publ.1922)
One Thousand and One Nights Oriental Ballet Suite Op.37 (publ.1928)
Anne Shelest (piano)
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra/Neeme Järvi
rec. 2024/25, live, Estonia Concert Hall (concerto); New York
Music & Arts MACD1313 [68]
Sergei Bortkiewicz was an unashamed romantic whose music while individual is an amalgam of the great tradition of romantic playing from Chopin and Liszt through Tchaikowsky and the mighty handful, those Russian nationalist composers that included Balakirev, Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov. There are even hints of Rachmaninov in the writing but these tend to be fleeting and perhaps co-incidental; the concerto recorded here is full of ‘big-tune’ moments but they are very different from the way his slightly older contemporary approached them.
The booklet includes Bortkiewicz’s short autobiography that Bhagwan Thadani translated and published as part of Recollections, Letters and Documents. He writes that he was born in Charkow in February 1877 and goes on to list his teachers starting with his mother Sofia Kazimirovna. Familiar names amongst them are Anatole Liadov, Salomon Jadassohn and, to a lesser extent, Liszt pupil Alfred Reisenauer who also taught Sigfrid Karg-Elert. Bortkiewicz lived and studied in Leipzig for a while and then Berlin, travelling around Europe and further afield giving concerts and visiting his family in Ukraine. The first world war forced him out of Berlin and just three years later the revolution forced him out of his homeland, firstly to the Crimea, then to Constantinople and then to Vienna. Further turmoil, both personal and financial resulted from the second world war and the loss of many of his manuscripts and income from works that had been published but were banned by the Nazis who had taken over the publishing houses. Though there was a little respite in the post war years he never fully recovered from the hardships of two world wars and constant upheaval. He died in October 1952, just a few months after a concert at the Vienna Musikverein that celebrated his 75th birthday and which featured his first symphony, the lyrical intermezzo for violin and orchestra and the first piano concerto played by Felicitas Karrer.
The first piano concerto was written in 1912 during his Berlin period. Six years earlier he had premiered his ‘first’ piano concerto op.1 but apparently destroyed this so this grand romantic concerto is his official first concerto. His admiration of Wagner is evident in the quiet opening chords of the orchestral introduction and the piano’s reflective entry. It isn’t long though before the big-boned romanticism takes over, revelling in post-Rubinstein, Tchaikowsky and Lisztian virtuosity and just a short time after that the requisite big-tune. The slow movement takes up the romantic baton with a simple but heartfelt melody over gentle orchestral triplets but which easily transforms itself into full-blown fortissimo melody singing out in the orchestra with keyboards spanning chords from the soloist. It is the quieter passages that impress as much though and it is a shame that this gorgeously nostalgic movement is unaccountably neglected by the wider music loving audience. The blistering finale uses a Ukrainian folk song Vozle rechki, vozle mosta – by the river, by the bridge – and rivals the finales of Tchaikowsky’s piano concertos for visceral excitement. The applause at the end of this live recording at the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn is well deserved. It is thanks to the endorsement of conductor Arthur Nikish that the work was published and by 1917 it had been played in Berlin, Holland and had reached over the Atlantic to Carnegie Hall.
The Lamentations and Consolations were published in 1914, just as Bortkiewicz was forced to leave Berlin, and the first lament, with its imitation of Ukrainian funeral songs and strong sense of loss succinctly sums up his despair. The nocturne from the three pieces op.24 is very different in mood, dreamy and tranquil with occasional hints of impressionist writing and exoticism. It was inspired by a wonderful moonlit night while Bortkiewicz was in the Crimea, its languid mood giving no hint of the second exile that Bortkiewicz had been forced into.
His time in the Crimea and Constantinople sparked his imagination on other ways and helped him to bring to life a story that had delighted him in childhood, One Thousand and One Nights. Though it was conceived as a ballet suite he arranged the orchestral version from a piano score and it was this orchestral work that was premiered alongside his violin concerto and third piano concerto in 1927. The piano version was published shortly afterwards. As far as I can see this is only the second recording of the piano version. It was in March 2025 that I reviewed Etsuko Hirose’s excellent performance on her Danacord disc Scheherezade (Danacord DACOCD985 review). The suite comprises ten movements that all have a sense of the exotic in their harmonies though once again Wagner makes a brief appearance in the enchanted castle where the rumbling chromatic and diminished arpeggio runs are interrupted by an echo of the Tristan chord which we already visited in the concerto. The exoticism of the Crimea is pervasive throughout – there are even hints of the harmonies of Balakirev’s Islamey, itself inspired by folk tunes of the Crimea and Caucasus,especially in the third piece Dance of the young girls. Both Hirose’s and Shelest’s performances are excellent and I am not sure I could choose between them. Shelest is a little more evocative in the story of the poor fisherman with her slightly slower tempo and Hirose wins out in the bright clarity of Oriental Dance but this to and fro is not really productive as both pianists create a wonderful atmosphere in this colourful suite.
Shelest, like Bortkiewicz a native of Kharkiv, impresses once again and plays to blistering effect in the live recording of the concerto, fully committing with Järvi and the Estonian players to its full-bloodied passion and virtuosity; it is one of the grandest of romantic piano concertos. She matches this with exceptional playing in the solo items. I am glad to read that she has also recorded the second piano concerto by Arthur Lemba, from the same concert as the Bortkiewicz for a future release.
Rob Challinor
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