Bowen • Medtner • Rachmaninov: Piano Works

Bowen • Medtner • Rachmaninov
Bowen: Theme & Variations, Op. 139; Medtner: Two Pieces, Op. 58; Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances
Joseph Moog, Kai Adomeit (pianos)
Onyx ONYX 4229   65:23 mins

This fascinating and intelligently planned programme brings together the final works of three late-Romantic composers whose stylistic outlook, at least on the surface, appears to have been at odds with the harsh and modernist external environment in which they were living. Just consider, for instance, the opening nostalgically reflective paragraphs of York Bowen’s Theme and Variations of 1951 which undoubtedly hark back to Brahms and Elgar. Yet there’s nothing predictable about the way Bowen unfolds the work, and some later episodes are surprisingly chromatic, featuring complex chords that would not sound out of place in the music of Messiaen. Russian composer Medtner also provides some surprises amidst his largely post-Schumann musical language. In ‘Knight Errant’, the second and more extended of his Two Pieces composed in 1946, the composer momentarily disorientates the listener with unexpected dissonances and dislocated rhythmic patterns. But the most forward-thinking composer here is surely Rachmaninov, the acerbic harmonies and syncopated rhythms of his Symphonic Dances providing a vibrant and at times disturbing response to the aggressive musical language cultivated by his compatriots Stravinsky and Prokofiev.

Joseph Moog and Kai Adomeit are fully attuned to the more percussive aspects of Rachmaninov’s writing. In the outer sections of the final dance, they batter the listener with high voltage dynamically exciting playing that would not have sounded out of place in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. But other elements in this work are overlooked, a good example being the wistful thematic allusion to the composer’s First Symphony near the end of the first movement, which here sounds a tad perfunctory and lacking in requisite warmth.

Erik Levi