Customer Reviews

Kapustin: Piano Music

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The name Nikolai Kapustin will probably leave all but a very few people scratching their heads. Born in 1937, Kapustin is very much alive, a wonderfully prolific and active composer, and a virtuoso pianist of the highest caliber. He studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory with Alexander Goldenweiser, and is in possession of a world-class technique (I have been extremely fortunate to hear recordings of Kapustin performing his own music). Since his earliest student days as a composer/pianist, he has embraced the jazz idiom, with remarkable freshness and seemingly endless inspiration. Make no mistake though, this is not classical/jazz "cross-over", nor classical music with a whiff of jazz, but more the other way around. It is much closer to true jazz improvisation, meticulously written out, and in the right hands, capable of sounding incredibly free and spontaneous. And yet, Kapustin writes his style of music within established classical forms, like sonatas for example, of which he has written ten thus far, with hopefully more to come. I haven't heard anything quite like it. In that sense, his music is original in its own way, while at the same time clearly descended from two very established musical styles. The few people I know, all classical musicians, who have encountered Kapustin's music have had immediate and overwhelmingly favorable responses to it, myself included. I would think only the most staunchly conservative guardians of old-world western classical music traditions, or hardened jazz-haters would not love this man's music. There are very few pianists performing Kapustin's piano music in the world today, mostly because of extremely hard to find scores, and thus a general ignorance of his existence. My introduction to Kapustin's music was the pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, who has been programming Kapustin's Piano Sonata #2 on many of his recitals world-wide in recent times. Anyone who has heard Hamelin play Kapustin will not soon forget it, and I had sincerely hoped the he would make the first all-Kapustin CD. Nevertheless, as I listen to Steven Osbourne's playing on this disc, I find it nearly impossible to find fault with his playing in any way. At age 29, he is brimming with youthful vigor, and is totally at home in the jazz idiom. He has technique to burn, and exactly the right balance of rhythmic snap, clarity, and spontaneity to make these works jump off the page and out of your speakers. In the gentler moments, of which there are many, he conjures up a wonderful velvety, smoky, nocturnal mood that feels exactly right, not the least bit overdone or contrived. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Osbourne was a skilled improviser when not playing other people's music. In the Piano Sonata #2, Osbourne does not quite match Hamelin's fire, intensity, or overwhelming virtuosity in the "live" performances of this work I have heard, but he is quite rewarding in other ways. His slightly slower tempi in the fast movements and mellower approach allow the listener to be truly seduced by the music rather than being blown away by it, though frankly, I can be happy with either approach. If any of this sounds even halfway interesting to you, don't hesitate on this one. Buy it now, and thank me later. You'll be begging for more Kapustin before long.

Like one Mr. Yarish, I plus an internet friend heard Marc-Andre Hamelin play a couple of Kapustin's pieces as encores on a piano recital and the audience was floored by Kapustin's music. Therefore,this CD is very welcome for us who want to hear more of his music. I would go as far to say that Kapustin mostly reminds me of the piano music of Gershwin, and since he died in 1937, this composer gives us an idea about how Gershwin would have continued had he lived on. We hardly get to hear jazz through a Russian composer's eyes (although Shchedrin's Piano Concerto No.2 has such moments) and I have to admit that he can swing, although this music is mostly written down. Apparently there is improv involved, but we do not know what is written or improvised unless we can see scores, which are hard to come by. If you need a pick-me up or like the piano music of Billy Mayerl, George Gershwin, Elie Siegmeister, Morton Gould or William Bolcom you will enjoy this one!! Sourpusses should stay away!!!

Kapustin's piano music is not really jazz nor does it inhabit the serious classical genre,yet he taps a vein that easily utilizes in a very profound way both those worlds. I'm wondering what moments here are improvised. I was told there is a Kapustin Soceity where this music can be obtained. That will clarify where the performer's world begins. Osborne here simply plays the hell out of these pieces,he has a restrained discipline which the music needs,yet is never afraid of the forbidden density the music develops. The music is dense with a profound sense of the piano's unique timbre, broken octaves and chords, their voicings is exquisite,thunderous like basso accompaniment,which you actually hear,not simply opaque textures we usually find in the freak storms the free jazz cadres often display.The entire coloristic world of the piano is summoned by Kapustin, with a Sorabji-like density in every register,sometimes I felt as an after thought or a way of completing a musical idea,simply ascend,that will erase the idea,ready now for new content. And this music seems to be self-contained,it doesn't need a drum unit, it works very well away from other timbres,inhabiting its own voice, a remarkable aesthetic feature.

The Preludes here are more etudes,but many are deeply profound and sometimes the obvious jazz language is introduced,walking bass lines, and Weill-like dark harmonies to scour.

Boy, where to start? I wonder how the recording label, Hyperion, decided to put this in the 'classical' category. Probably they did so because Kapustin himself called these pieces 'Sonata' or 'Prelude.' But, truth to tell, I'm hard pressed to find very much in the way of easily identifiable classical music procedures here (aside from grouping four pieces together and labeling them a sonata) unless one considers an eleven-minute piece [the first movement of the Second Sonata] 'classical' on the basis of length alone; of course, that would require us to include some of the improvisations of people like Keith Jarrett or Cecil Taylor in that category, too, and I suppose some would do so. Of course, a composer can call his music whatever he likes (look at Satie!) and if Nikolai Kapustin (b. 1937) wants to give these pieces 'classical' titles, that's his privilege. Maybe one of our best Amazon classical CD reviewers, 'weirdears' [Chris Forbes], who is himself a jazz pianist and composer, should be reviewing this disc. How about it, Chris?

That aside, I found this CD to be entirely delightful, once I got over my expectation that I'd be hearing sonata-allegro or other similar procedures. And I had already had SOME idea what to expect because Marc-André Hamelin had included the Toccatina, Op. 36, on his 'Kaleidoscope' CD (also from Hyperion and highly recommended).

What we have here is a masterful compendium of piano jazz styles, everything from barrelhouse, stride and boogie to Bill Evans, Cecil Taylor, Oscar Peterson, McCoy Tyner and Art Tatum, not to speak of the introspectively melodic close-hands technique of George Shearing and Denny Zeitlin. There is no question that Kapustin, who studied with one of the best classical piano teachers in Russia, Aleksandr Goldenweiser, and who has made his living off and on as a touring jazz pianist, has the technique to play (and write) spectacular solo jazz pieces. It is to his credit that he wrote them down--although I gather getting ahold of published copies of his music is a bit byzantine--and that young British pianist Steven Osborne has learned to play them. [One understands that there are bootleg recordings of Kapustin playing but I've never run across any of them.]

Leslie Gerber, a fine record reviewer specializing in piano music (and a fine pianist as well) dismisses this music as 'cocktail lounge' music. All I can say is that Gerber must hang out in better cocktail lounges than I've ever been to. This is superior jazz-making and it is no surprise to me that Osborne, whose own piano-playing credentials include a fine recording of Messaien's 'Vingt Regards' and a recently released CD of Alkan's 'Esquisses,' need not be embarrassed by this choice of repertoire.

So, the bottom line is this: if you like solo piano jazz and you have a taste for something a bit unusual, try this Russian 'Third Stream' music. I honestly don't think you'll be disappointed unless you imagine you're going to be hearing something like, say, Scriabin, Prokofiev or Medtner.

TT=69'11

Scott Morrison

For most people, Russian music can be summed up simply: it's passionate. Whether it's Tchaikovsky or Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff or Schnittke, the music is soulful, melancholy, dramatic, full of deep emotions.

So imagine one's surprise when one puts on this charming and greatly entertaining disc. If I didn't know better, I would have thought that Hyperion mis-labelled a disc of jazz classics recorded in St. Louis!

Instead, we have Hyperion and pianist Steven Osborne to thank for another great discovery--70 minutes of wonderful, jazz-inspired music by a living Russian composer which adopts classical models. In fact, much of this music calls to mind William Bolcom's sophisticated blues-inspired creations or perhaps Rzewski's occasional dives into jazz.

Both sonatas are chock full of memorable tunes and fun improvisations (or are they--Osborne won't say!); but they also hold together formally. The selection of Preludes allow Kapustin more freedom to indulge his whims, which he does charmingly. (With 10 more minutes on the disc, I wish we had gotten a few more--or perhaps they're saving them for another disc! )

Needless to say, Osborne has fun with the music and Hyperion provides their usual high-class production. Lest I wasn't clear, GET THIS DISC! Who said Russians can't indulge in sophisticated charm?

I won't add much to the excellent reviews published below. Kapustin's piano music can be in turn exciting in the extreme and very demanding technically, or simple and meditative. While Steven Osborne is always up to the task as far as technique is concerned, I found him missing a bit of freedom and flexibility. I have since compared his reading of the Second Sonata with that of Nikolai Petrov on Olympia: the Russian pianist may be more messy in places (it's a live recording), but he gives more drive and impulse to the delirious final allegro, and plays the Largo with more abandon and sensuality. Despite his magnificent virtuosity, to my ears Osborne sounds too corseted and square for this exuberant music. It's probably a matter of taste, as I grew up listening to jazz, and came only recently to classical music. I would love to hear the composer himself play his own works.

Obviously, judging from the previous reviews, there is an enthusiastic public for Kapustin. In my case, it is a name that came to the periphery of my attention when the CD of Marc-André Hamelin was released. I didn't really read the reviews, but everything Hamelin tackles is going to be interesting, so I put it somewhere on the wish list I keep on the back of my mind. Then, one of the rare times I physically went to the used record shop, I chanced on this CD by Steven Osborne (which came out in 2000 and consequently predated Hamelin's recording) and grabbed it. I should have read the reviews first.

I guess I expected Kapustin's piano music to sound like some post-Prokofiev, or post-Mossolov: many notes, pounding, dynamic, reasonably dissonant. Wide off the mark. Read the reviews: they are all quite appropriate in their description. This in Jazz, in fact. Good imitations of various styles of American Jazz - and not being very knowledgeable in the idiom, I'll take the word of the other reviewers for which various styles are being imitated.

So if you are into Jazz, chances you will like Kapustin - and if you are not, chances are, you won't be interested.

That said, I wonder what the fuss is really about. Even if you are a lover of Jazz, I don't think you will hear anything in Kapustin you haven't heard before, that was developed by many American Jazz musicians. Kapustin writes good imitations - but little more, it seems to me.

A number of 20th Century classical composers have used Jazz in their compositions: think of Ravel's Concerto in G and Violin & Piano Sonata, Antheil's Jazz Sonata, Stravinsky's Ragtime, Piano Rag Music and Ebony Concerto, think of Copland, Bernstein, think even of Bernd-Alois Zimmermann and many others, think of Nancarrow's player piano - not to mention Gershwin. But when they did, they never just wrote plain Jazz. They digested Jazz, they metabolized it in their own language and style. Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto isn't Jazz, it's Stravinsky. That's what makes all these compositions so great.

Or: many Jazz musicians have been happy to play in whichever predominant style, but some have developed unique styles of their own. Within the idiom, they've developed something unique, that was grounded into the Jazz vocabulary and style but still developed it in new directions that were not just imitations or elaborations of older styles.

Or: it can be the other way around. One of my favorite versions of Bach's Goldberg Variations (I must have over sixty) is the one made by John Lewis, the pianist of the Modern Jazz Quartet (and NOT the "Golden Gate Quartet", as a slip of mind had made me type first; thanks Andrew Billek for pointing out the error), with his wife Mirjana, under the title "The Chess Game" (The Chess Game and The Chess Game, Vol. 2). Mirjana plays the theme and each variation "straight", on the harpsichord (and pretty well, too), and after each John turns out a Jazz impro on the piano: Jazz variations on Bach's variations. And how authentically Jazzy Bach can sound under the fingers of Lewis is wonderful.

None of that with Kapustin, I find. I don't hear any personal style of Kapustin, any specific Kapustin personality. This is not "Jazz according to Kapustin" or "Kapustin's way with Jazz". He just writes imitations of various styles of American Jazz. At the most, there is a little bit of Prokofiev in the percussiveness of the 2nd Sonata's scherzo, and the wild drive of the same's finale in boogie-woogie style vaguely - oh so vaguely - brings to mind Nancarrow.

So again, what's the fuss? Is it that Kapustin is a Russian Jazzman? So? So there were Russian Jazz musicians. Which proves... what exactly? That the Soviet regime wasn't so evil, after all, as it allowed that degenerate bourgeois musical form? Or that it is not a coincidence that the regime finally crumbled, as, like the French Ancient Regime monarchy in 1789, it had long lost the cultural battle? There never was a Texan balalaika virtuoso, as far as I know. And I'm not aware that there ever was a Chinese Kapustin, either: maybe that's why the Communists still rule. But still, being Russian doesn't make Kapustin's Jazz more original.

Or is it that he has all the credentials of a great Russian virtusoso, having studied under the famous Goldenweiser? That he is a Jazz musician who wrote down his impros, thus giving him the quasi-status of a Classical musician? A kind of Jazz Busoni or Godowski, as it were? But Kapustin ain't Busoni or Godowski and his Jazz ain't Bach or Chopin (of which Busoni and Godowski made famous "imitations"). Yes, there are many notes, particularly in the 2nd Sonata. It may make the pianism impressive (true that there aren't many cocktail lounge pianists who could play like that), but it doesn't make the Jazz more original.

By the way, I don't have Hamelin's recording for comparison, but Osborne seems to me more than proficient, playing with bounce, zest, dynamism, great syncopation and swing. Maybe Hamelin is heads and shoulders above after all. But that a guy runs a hundred meters in 9"72 doesn't mean that the next guy who runs it at 9"99 is a snail. One of my stars is for Osborne.

It is certainly not my intention to criticize the enthusiasm of the Kapustin enthusiasts. I just want to warn those who don't know what to expect with Kapustin: what you'll get is not post-Prokofiev, not post-Mossolov, but good imitations of various styles of Jazz, whose main originality is possibly to fill these various styles with great keyboard virtuosity.

Still, one positive outcome of my encounter with Osborne's disc is that Hamelin's Kapustin is one CD I can cross off of my wish list.

Osborne is a good piano player otherwise he would not be able to play Kapustin, sure. I ve listened to MIDIs and to Marc-Andre Hamelin; compared, Osborne plays not as good. Kapustin has released CDs too (Olympia label and other labels like Bohemia, etc.), but I have nt listened to the composer's performances yet. I doubt that he plays his own pieces better than Marc-Andre Hamelin. Hamelin is the only worthy player for such hard stuff, like Kapustin, Sorabji, Alkan, Medtner, Scriabin, etc. etc.

I wish that Hamelin will record, one day, all piano music by Kapustin. I ve got the original sheet music of the Second Sonata and the Eight Concert Etudes, Op.40. If you re interested in these sheets, please let me know. On the sheets, the music looks very simple (Second Sonata) and sometimes outlandishly difficult (some of the Concert Etudes); in reality, it s impossible to play: Only pros like Hamelin are able to master this type of music. I do recommend this CD because it is hard to purchase any other Kapustin-music-CD. So you got no other choice than buying this high quality hyperion label CD. You can order hyperion-CDs anywhere, but it s hard to order Olympia- or Bohemia-CDs. A place for Olympia is www.jpc.de Hamelin is the best and most interesting piano player in the world and nobody else should ever dare to record the music which he has already recorded. Osborne s playing is fine. Well, he plays better than me. But what kind of attitude is this not to record the complete Preludes but only an arbitrary selection of it? If you want to listen to 30sec-samples of all tracks of this Osborne-CD, go to www.jpc.de. Then you can judge for yourself whether Hamelin or Osborne or Kapustin is the better performer. Sheet music will be released soon by the Kapustin Society London; so far I only own the Second Sonata facsimile manuscript and the originally purchases album Eight Concert Etudes incl. Jazzetudes bei Danill Kramer. Drop me a line and I will tell you where you can buy the sheet music. mailto: emc2d@uni.de

Osborne is a good piano player otherwise he would not be able to play Kapustin, sure. I ve listened to MIDIs and to Marc-Andre Hamelin; compared, Osborne plays not as good. Kapustin has released CDs too (Olympia label and other labels like Bohemia, etc.), but I have nt listened to the composer's performances yet. I doubt that he plays his own pieces better than Marc-Andre Hamelin. Hamelin is the only worthy player for such hard stuff, like Kapustin, Sorabji, Alkan, Medtner, Scriabin, etc. etc.

I wish that Hamelin will record, one day, all piano music by Kapustin. I ve got the original sheet music of the Second Sonata and the Eight Concert Etudes, Op.40. If you re interested in these sheets, please let me know. On the sheets, the music looks very simple (Second Sonata) and sometimes outlandishly difficult (some of the Concert Etudes); in reality, it s impossible to play: Only pros like Hamelin are able to master this type of music. I do recommend this CD because it is hard to purchase any other Kapustin-music-CD. So you got no other choice than buying this high quality hyperion label CD. You can order hyperion-CDs anywhere, but it s hard to order Olympia- or Bohemia-CDs. A place for Olympia is (...) Hamelin is the best and most interesting piano player in the world and nobody else should ever dare to record the music which he has already recorded. Osborne s playing is fine. Well, he plays better than me. But what kind of attitude is this not to record the complete Preludes but only an arbitrary selection of it? If you want to listen to 30sec-samples of all tracks of this Osborne-CD, go to (...). Then you can judge for yourself whether Hamelin or Osborne or Kapustin is the better performer. Sheet music will be released soon by the Kapustin Society London; so far I only own the Second Sonata facsimile manuscript and the originally purchases album Eight Concert Etudes incl. Jazzetudes bei Danill Kramer. Drop me a line and I will tell you where you can buy the sheet music. mailto: emc2d@uni.de