Creston: Piano Sonata; Six Preludes; Giannini: Piano Sonata; Flagello: Piano Sonata; Two Waltzes / Rankovich

Nicolas Flagello (Composer), Paul Creston (Composer), Tatjana Rankovich (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Tatjana Rankovich
• Composer: Nicolas Flagello, Paul Creston
• Audio CD (June 22, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Phoenix USA
• ASIN: B00005YY0B
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #126,050 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Piano Sonata, Op.9 (1936) Composed by Paul Creston

2. Six Preludes, Op. 38 (1945) Composed by Paul Creston

3. Piano Sonata (1963) Composed by Vittorio Giannini

4. Two Waltzes (1953) Composed by Nicolas Flagello

5. Piano Sonata (1962) Composed by Nicolas Flagello

Editorial Reviews

The three American composers represented on this recording belong to the group often described as “20th-century traditionalists”—those figures who rejected most of the tenets of Modernism--especially its emphasis on originality, rational objectivity, and experimentation, and its contempt for communication as an artistic objective. Rather, the “traditionalists” viewed themselves as inheritors of a living legacy, to which they sought to make their own individual contributions, with recourse to the full range of classical forms and techniques, and with the aim of personal expression and communication. Beyond their aesthetic affinities, Creston, Giannini, and Flagello shared an Italian ancestry, and spent most of their creative lives in the environs of New York City. Creston and Giannini were approximate contemporaries, while for many years Giannini and Flagello maintained a master-apprentice relationship. Each composer is represented here by a piano sonata composed at a different phase of his respective career. Creston’s sonata is an early work, written before his language had reached maturity; Giannini’s dates from the last years of his life, when his style seemed to be charting a new course; Flagello’s sonata appeared at the midpoint of his career and the apex of his compositional development.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Conservative but highly elaborate, not major works but enjoyable and at times even impressive in their own right, August 5, 2007

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Discophage (France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Creston: Piano Sonata; Six Preludes; Giannini: Piano Sonata; Flagello: Piano Sonata; Two Waltzes / Rankovich (Audio CD)

The three American composers featured on this disc share a common Italian ancestry - Paul Creston was born Giuseppe Guttoveggio in 1906 -, a traditionalist compositional bent, and even personal ties, as Flagello was a pupil of Giannini.

In view of the fact that he left school at 15 in order to earn a living and was largely self-taught in music and composition, Creston's Sonata from 1936 is an early work. It starts muscularly and busily as a Prokofiev Sonata, but soon settles into a neo-classical (even neo-baroque) and very French elegance. It could have been written by Poulenc, Auric or Sauguet. Debussy (Suite Bergamasque) and Ravel (Sonatine, Valses nobles et sentimentales) also comes to mind. As the notes aptly put it, the music is "a combination of Baroque patterns and textures and Impressionist harmony, suffused with a romantic temperament and organized around the elaborate development of a few basic motifs".

The six preludes from 1945 are meant to exemplify the theory of rhythm that Creston had developed in those years, but despite its theoretical purpose it doesn't sound at all cerebral. Ravel and post-Debussy impressionism again come to mind in the nostalgic and dreamy preludes # 2 (which also evokes Copland's "prairie" style) and 5 (the latter's Romanticism also recalls some Rachmaninoff salon piece), as well as in the rippling arpeggios of # 3. It is Gershwin and ragtime that come to mind in the jagged boogie-woogie syncopations of # 4, and even the first movement of Dutilleux's Sonata in the busy activity and sometimes anger of Prelude 1 & 6.

I hear similarities again with Dutilleux's Sonata in the agitated but dreamy harmonies of the First movement of Giannini's Sonata - a late work (1963), composed three years before the composer's death. Vittorio Giannini, born in Philadelphia in 1903 to a musical family, had received his formal training at an early age in Milan, Italy then at Juilliard. His music is said to show the influence of Italian late-romanticism, but his piano compositions display a German-minded seriousness and care for contrapuntal elaboration. Another link to Creston then is his complex elaboration of characteristic basic motifs, an angry three note call in the first and last movements, a Beethovenian fate theme in the second, a funeral march. I first encountered the music (and name) of Giannini through his relatively early (1947) Variations on a Cantus Firmus and his Prelude and Fughetta from the late 1950s, disc mates to the best interpretation available of Ernest Bloch's magnificent 1935 Piano Sonata by Myron Silberstein (Silberstein plays Franck, Bloch and Giannini). But the two Giannini compositions failed to impress me, although I already noted the Dutilleux similitude in the flurry of notes that launches the Prelude. Despite a long career and a large output, Giannini didn't leave a big mark on the history of music, and his Sonata, although I find it more convincing than the two above-mentioned works, gives a clue as to why. It is superbly crafted and displays a commendable attention at carefully elaborated formal processes, it is enjoyable and even exciting in the motorism of its finale, but it hardly breaks any new ground, technically or musically. There is nothing in it that Prokofiev or the German expressionists (Krenek and the likes) and many since hadn't said years before - though maybe not always as elaborately.

Like Creston, Nicolas Flagello was born in New York City (in 1928) and like Giannini, in a musical family. From early on he became a pupil of Giannini, with whom he studied until the older composer's death. The two waltzes from 1953 are trifles, but his Piano Sonata is heavy, serious stuff. It dates from 1962, one year before Giannini's, and the spiritual and stylistic kinship with the latter's piece is striking. As Giannini's, it is highly elaborate and cogently wrought in its formal procedures (the 1st movement is a complex elaboration in sonata-form over a four-note motif), busy and highly virtuosic in its keyboard activity, grim and turbulent in mood, with two kinetic and toccata-like movements framing a slower one, alternating between a meditative and dreamy atmosphere and a powerful and tormented climax.

These compositions break no new grounds then and are not fundamental additions to the literature, but they are very enjoyable in their own right and style, and at times even impressive. Tatjana Rankovich, born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and Juilliard-trained, seems entirely up to the works awesome technical demands, with a playing that his both muscular and full of feeling. Truly excellent notes by Walter Simmons, one of the most esteemed authorities on the American 20th century traditionalists, and also producer of the recording. The Creston and Giannini items are world-premiere recordings, by the way.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific piano music, October 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: AMERICAN PIANO WORKS/CRESTON:PIANO SO (Audio CD)

These mid-20th Century composers created some melodic, beautiful works, as evidenced here. Tatjana Rankovich interprets with style and passion.

3.0 out of 5 stars Moderately interesting music, decently played, February 13, 2012

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G.D. (Norway) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Creston: Piano Sonata; Six Preludes; Giannini: Piano Sonata; Flagello: Piano Sonata; Two Waltzes / Rankovich (Audio CD)

Paul Creston, Vittorio Giannini and Nicolas Flagello were all Italian-American. Musically, they also shared a certain conservativeness with respect to idiom - Creston employing mildly dissonant but lyrical neo-classicism (or neo-archaisism), Giannini a staunch neoromantic, somewhat reminiscent of Barber, though not afraid of dissonance, whereas Flagello's almost ardent romanticism does to an extent mark him off as the most conservative of the three (even if he was not averse to more modern colors or grittiness). The disc at hand collects together their most important works for solo piano, and is as such a useful compendium; the music is generally fine - even though none of the works are anywhere close to masterpieces by any standards - and the playing more than competent, even though one could dream of slightly more suave phrasing. The occasional harshness of the sound is partially to blame on the recording, however, which is clear but not particularly flattering to the piano sound.

Creston's sonata was penned in 1936, and is a resourceful and variegated work. It avoids emotional extremes, going instead for a certain urbane elegance and sophistication, but the results are compelling - in fact, it is probably the highlight of the disc. The opening movement starts out assertively, but gradually gives way to a more playful, lyrical atmosphere. The second movement is slightly sardonic but very enjoyable, the third movement is rich, variegated and beautiful, and the finale is a color take on neo-baroque ideas. The six Preludes (1945), based on various "rhythmic structures", are also enjoyable, even if I doubt they really add up to anything particularly memorable. I personally consider Creston a great composer, whose symphonies are woefully neglected (though fortunately available on disc in very good performances), but I am hard pressed to rank either of these works among his very best.

Giannini's sonata is a late work, and heavily dramatic and stormy, especially the first movement. The second is a dark, ominous, but melodic song without words that builds to a huge climax before residing into sadness. The finale is craggy and harsh, and concludes another worthwhile, intermittently almost great, work. Flagello's two waltzes are slight, but the sonata (1962) is again dramatic and passionate - again especially in the tempestuous first movement. The second movement is dark and brooding and the finale is fierce and stark.

Throughout the program Tatjana Rankovich delivers rather compelling interpretations, but her best effort is clearly the Creston section. In the Giannini and Flagello sonatas her approach is certainly hard-hitting and fiery, but it lacks the emotional drama and turmoil one might have hoped for in the music. Her phrasing is not always ideally clear either, though I suspect I should blame this partially on the recording; although the recording is generally fine, the sound of the piano is a little hard and dry and thus lends an even harder edge to the music than it originally appears to have. Nevertheless, this is certainly worth checking out for fans of twentieth century American music.