Customer Reviews

Arthur Shepherd: Second Sonata and Other Works for Piano

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I had never heard of Arthur Shepherd until recently and it is a comment under my review of Walter Piston's unpublished Piano Sonata - IMO among the great American piano sonatas composed in the 20th Century, making it an incomprehensible decision that the composer never published it - that drew my attention to him, advising me to explore the composer's 2nd Piano Sonata (see Piston: Sonata pour Piano; Quintet for Pianoforte and String Quartet; Improvisation; Passacaglia). So I did - and the cheap price of this CRI CD was no disincentive either.

Born in 1880 and died in 1958, Shepherd is of the same generation as Edward Burlinghame Hill (1872-1960 - Bernstein's teacher at Harvard), John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951), Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920), Wallingford Riegger (1885-1961), Ferde Grofé (1892-1954) - and, of course, Charles Ives (1874-1954): other than Ives, something, it must be said, of a "lost generation", after the 19th century American Romantics (John Knowles Paine, Arthur Foote, George Chadwick, Victor Herbert, Charles Leoffler, Horatio Parker), before the true 20th century inventors of a genuinely "American" music: Gershwin, Piston, Cowell, Harris, Antheil, Copland and others. Trained at the New England Conservatory and serving there for a time in a teaching position, he spent most of his professional life as teacher and chairman of the Music Department of the Westen Reserve Conservatory in Cleveland. So he qualifies as an "academic" composer - no disparaging intended.

I'm not sure his 2nd Piano Sonata (1928) and the other, shorter piano pieces collated on the CD are masterpieces of the magnitude hinted at by the commentator of my review, but they are indeed valuable works. There is a very American-sounding, motoric, toccata-like vigor in the outer movements of the sonata, along with what I perceive as reminiscences of Debussy (Toccata) or Ravel (Sonatine, Noctuelles, Oiseaux Tristes). The liner notes contend that "the composer who is most vividly recalled by the remarkable mixture of lyricism and sardonic sharpness is Prokofiev". Maybe so, to an extent, but I also find much of the American motorism of Schumann or Mennin. The second movement is a reflective theme (of no particular distinction) and a series of variations, of which the one starting at 3:10 is very striking, a flurry of notes anticipating the repetitive minimalism of Glass or Adams. The shorter pieces, composed between 1928 (Exotic Dance No. 1, track 7) and 1948 (Eclogue No. 4) alternate between the same kind of muscular, toccata-like music (Capriccio II, track 4, Gigue Fantastique, track 10), reminiscences of Scriabin (Lento Amabile, track 5), bitter-sweet harmonies that could point to Prokofiev's War Sonatas or Shostakovich's Prelude and Fugues (Exotic Dance No. 3, Eclogue No. 4, tracks 8 and 9). In Modo Ostinato (track 6) is an intriguing little piece, with its jaunty ostinato theme in uneven rhythm forming the basis of a multi-voiced etude. All these compositions have a discreet and unobtrusive way of insinuating themselves into your mind and attention. They may be minor compositions by a minor composer, but they are minor masterpieces nonetheless.

Pianist Vivien Harvey Slater was a student of Shepherd and she specifically studied the pieces with him prior to the recording, so it can be considered authoritative. The recording was originally a rarity, having been released on LP by Western Reserve University in 1967. The sound is mono and a bit distant, but it is clear and comes with tape hiss that is perceptible only in the silences and softest passages.

The 12 songs completing the program were recorded in 1959, also by Western Reserve University and again under the composer's supervision, and, while the mono sound is not perceptibly inferior to the later recording, it does come with a static noise which points to a transfer directly from the LP. Again, the songs span most of Shepherd's compositional life, from 1909 to 1951. Stylistically, they are mostly subdued, melancholic and contemplative. Shepherd's choice of poetry is one of the songs' appeal, since he relies mainly (at least in this selection, from a total output of circa 35) on contemporary poetry. The compositional style is not very original nor advanced (they could be the songs of some of those minor English composers of the turn of the 20th century like, say, Ivor Gurney, Roger Quilter, Peter Warlock, Gerald Finzi) but again the songs have a modest and unassuming way of ingratiating themselves in one's attention. Again they show a minor master, a "petit maître", at work. Soprano Marie Simmelink Kraft (she's called a mezzo by the booklet, but she sounds soprano to me) acquits herself well, despite some vocal frailty in "The Lost Child", track 14.

The music of Shepherd may not offer any striking revelation, but it is well worth the try.