Gramophone – September 2019

gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONESEPTEMBER 201987

inVar3.Theseriousandsubstantial

sideofDickinson’smultifacetedcreativity

deservesequalattentionalongsidehis

ingenuouspastiche-typecompositions,

andWilliamson’sscrupulouspianism

arguablysurpassesthecomposer’sown

extremelycapable 1975 performance

(Naxos,2/12).

Onemustconcentratetofullyabsorb

theprotractedtime-scaleandslowly

meted-outcontrastsbetweenstaticand

petulantgesturesthroughoutElisabeth

Lutyens’s 1975 TheRingofBone.

WilliamsonintonesLutyens’sspokentext

inadeepandunderstatedvoice,abettedby

hisintenseandincisivereadingofthepiano

part.Personally,IpreferHelenNoonan’s

vocalpresencegracingArabella

Teniswood-Harvey’srecordingonthe

AustralianMovelabel,eventhoughitmay

behardtosource.

Idon’tnecessarilyshareWilliamson’s

viewthatAnthonyHerschelHillis

‘perhapsmoststrikingofall[thisdisc’s]

composers...fordisplayingsuchan

individualcompositionalvoice’,but

hisLitanyandToccataeffectivelytoethe

19th-centurycomposer/pianistpartyline

in21st-centurygarb.AndthetwoDelius

transcriptionsaretextbookexamplesof

howtomakeunpianisticmusicpianistic.

Inall,astimulatingandsometimes

provocativerelease.JedDistler

‘ElusiveAinity’

JSBachKeyboardConcertos:BWV974(after

A Marcello)– Adagio;BWV975(afterVivaldi)–

AdagioKancheliPianoPieces– No15;No 23

PärtVariationsfortheHealingofArinushka

RihmZwiespracheSchnittkeFiveAphorisms

ShchedrinDiary

AnnaGouraripf

ECMNewSeriesF 4818131 (63’• DDD)

Forher third ECM

release, Anna Gourari

hasassembled a

thoughtful miscellany

whoseaffinityisnotsomuch elusive as

susceptibletochangebetween works and

acrosstherecitaloverall.Most substantial

arethreesetsofpiecesfrom around the

turnofthiscentury.

FiveAphorisms(1990)find Alfred

Schnittkedrawingonthat sparse and

refractedidiomthatcame to the fore

withthebleaksoundscapes from his final

decade,inwhichhispolystylistic approach

of allusion and quotation is replaced by

an altogether more austere and fragmented

means of expression – with the gaunt

chorale of the final piece offering the most

tenuous of resolutions. Gourari has their

measure, as she does that of Diary (2002),

in which Rodion Shchedrin addresses the

‘bagatelle’ genre with resourcefulness and

no little subtlety, avoiding the tendency

to style-hopping often found in his music.

Even more unified stylistically is the

Zwiesprache (1999) of Wolfgang Rihm,

though this was no doubt occasioned by the

concept underlying these five pieces – each

of them an ‘in memoriam’ to a colleague

who died during the year in question, and

making for a sequence unified yet also

varied in its elegiac manner.

Gourari is a lucid guide to this music, as

also the winsome adaptations from theatre

and film scores by Giya Kancheli, ‘get well’

variations by Arvo Pärt that crystallise

his re-embrace of tonality, and slow

movements from Bach’s concertos after

Vivaldi and Alessandro Marcello that

bookend the recital with unerring pathos.

Certainly those who recall Gourari’s

insinuating presence in Werner Herzog’s

film Invincible should find this latest disc

hardly less enticing. Richard Whitehouse

INSTRUMENTAL REVIEWS

Anna Gourari has compiled an enticing programme of music from Bach to Schnittke

PHOTOGRAPHY:

MARCO BORGGREVE/ECM RECORDS