Rosy Wertheim (1888–1949)
Rosy Wertheim’s Wonderous Worlds
Naoko Christ-Kato (piano)
rec. 2025, Haus der Klaviere Gottschling, Dülmen, Germany
Genuin GEN25932 [58]
As a musician based in the Netherlands I am ashamed to say I knew very little about Rosy Wertheim until finding this excellent recording amongst the listings and taking the opportunity to educate myself. Born in Amsterdam, she studied harmony and counterpoint with Bernard Zweers and Sem Dresden at the Muzieklyceum there, further studying composition in Paris with Louis Aubert and in Vienna with Karl Weigl. In the 1920s she taught solfège and piano at the Amsterdam Muzieklyceum, was conductor of a number of children’s and women’s choirs. In 1929 she moved to Paris for six years, becoming acquainted with the likes of Ibert, Jolivet, Honegger, Milhaud and Messiaen, and gaining inspiration from the music of Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky. After travels to Vienna and New York she returned to the Netherlands in 1937, but was forced into hiding during World War II, after which her final illness marked the end of her composing career.
Pianist Naoko Christ-Kato is dedicated to bringing to light the works of forgotten and persecuted Jewish composers, and this wide-ranging programme of performances includes numerous world premiere recordings. It should also be noted that Wertheim’s music has been researched and promoted through the Leo Smit Foundation, ensuring its publication by the Dutch music publishing company Donemus.
The booklet notes for this release do not cover each piece in detail, but representative of the Leo Smit Foundation Eleonore Pameijer sums up her work as “influenced by French composers such as Clause Debussy and César Franck… Her music is pleasant, sophisticated and accessible, featuring strong lyrical qualities and a great talent for harmony.” The relatively early works here do indeed have a romantic character, with touches of exoticism flavouring parts of the Sonatine, whose title is somewhat deceptive for what is after all quite a substantial work that digs deep alongside its air of charm.
The collection of character or descriptive pieces that follows are all first recordings, with The Uninvited Guest showing clear influences from Debussy in its sonorities. A contrast of light playfulness with a hint of melancholy follows with The Puppets are Dancing, a title with a double meaning in Dutch though these puppets don’t appear to get into a fight. Wertheim’s taste for whole tone scales and rich harmonies emerge in the atmospheric and reflective The Outcast Fool and the Dancer. The impressionist opening of Funeral put me in mind of some of Déodat de Séverac’s piano music, the piece building into a suitably solemn procession with softer moments of regret, with The Source of Life another beautifully written and distinctly French-tinged image.
The Six Morceaux pour piano are undated, but with their more abstract compactness would appear to be later in style. Wertheim never abandons tonality but there are some surprising moments of angularity and rhythmic drive here to go along with the more lyrical pieces. Each of the Morceaux has a title so we are still in character mode, with the final Petite Valse perhaps a nod towards Erik Satie. The programme ends with the larger-scale Ten Variations on a Theme by César Franck, which at just over 13 minutes is still fairly brief. Wertheim doesn’t turn herself into a more grandiose Brahmsian composer in this genre, and while each variation is a study in style using the material to hand her now familiar musical fingerprints make this feel more like a continuation of what has gone before in this programme rather than anything with grand symphonic ambitions, though the rich harmonies of the final variation form a sublime and eloquent conclusion.
The piano sound for this recording is good if not exceptionally detailed. This is music evocative, to my mind’s eye at least, of wood-panelled rooms and dim lighting in which serious creativity takes place far enough away from the hustle and bustle of commerce to inhabit its own intellectual space. Rosy Wertheim clearly had a keen ear for the French sound, but she never goes for the jazz influences that infected other composers in Paris at the time, and was certainly not attracted to German and Austrian modernists such as Richard Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg despite her time in Vienna. With all this said there is a lot to discover and enjoy here, and I would sincerely invite all lovers of good early 20th century piano music to take some time to appreciate Wertheim’s work.
Dominy Clements
Contents
Sonatine Voor Piano (Sonatina for Piano) (1918)
De Ongenoode Gast (The Uninvited Guest)
De Poppen Aan’t Dansen (The Puppets are Dancing)
De Verstooten Nar en de Danser (The Outcast Fool and the Dancer)
Prelude/Zeeimpressie (Prelude/Sea Impression) (1917)
Uitvaart (Funeral)
De Levensbron (The Source of Life)
Six Morceaux pour piano
Dix Variations sur un Thème de César Franck (Chant de la Creuse) (1918)
Buying this recording via a link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free
