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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
the wittiness of Poulenc, the rythmic bounce of Stravinsky and the drama of Schoenberg, but short TT,
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This review is from: Serenade 3 (Audio CD)
I was interested enough in the music for solo piano of George Perle (see my review of George Perle: Piano Works) to want to explore more. This Elektra/Nonesuch CD was recorded in 1983 and 1984 and released in 1985; these were the very early days of the CD, and, frustratingly,the timings were those of the LP era: here, 38:22. That's about half of what you can get on a CD, so if you buy it find it priced accordingly. I wouldn't complain so much if the music wasn't so appealing.
As the excellent liner notes (by pianist Richard Goode himself) aptly recall, Perle's compositional outlook was, early on, dramatically shaped by his discovery of the music of Alban Berg and especially the Lyric Suite, and Perle paid great tribute to Berg, especially in his two books devoted to the composer's two operas. Yet, Perle's compositional style has little similarities with Berg's, although in the two Chamber Concertos featured here the choice of a small instrumental ensemble, made essentially of woodwinds and brass (Serenade 3 adds a violin, cello and percussion, Concertino has timpani) likens them to Berg's Kammerkonzert. Perle dubbed his compositional approach "twelve-tone tonality", but if you've never heard the music of George Perle, don't be deluded: I don't know if it is (like Berg's music) actually tonal or even with tonal references, but it definitely sounds atonal. "Twelve-tone tonality", if I understand what I've read about it in the liner notes and other sources found on the net, is a way of organizing the hierarchies between pitches, using some pitches as referential anchors, analogous to the hierarchies used earlier in tonal music and arising from the natural properties of the twelve semi-tones; but in the works featured here, those hierarchies do NOT result in music that sounds anything like tonal. In fact, I'd call Perle's two Chamber Concertos here a strange cross-breed of Poulenc and Schoenberg, with whiffs of the late Stravinsky. Both the short, one-movement Concertino for Piano, Winds and Timpani from 1979 and the five-movement Serenade No. 3 for Piano and Chamber Orchestra from 1983 have the wittiness and jauntiness of Poulenc, the balletic rhythmic bouce (and staccato writing for the piano) of Stravinsky (and especially the late Stravinsky), the drama of Schoenberg, and above all the wealth of sonic and orchestral events characteristic of both Stravinsky and Schoenberg. The music is not particularly appealing melodically, but it is wonderfully rich in its orchestration, dynamic and exuberant in its piano writing. The instrumental ensemble brings to mind memories of Schoenberg's Serenade and Kammersymphonies as well as Berg's Kammerkonzert, but also of Janacek's Capriccio and Concertino. The style is decidedly Schoenbergian, but with a ryhtmic unpredictability and playfulness that are fully Perle's. The 4th movement of the Serenade, Perpetuum Mobile, is a dazzling light-fingered race of the fingers accross the keyboard in soft dynamics with colored punctuations from the instrumental ensemble, including, if my ears serve, marimba. Richard Goode points that it is the sonic Ghost of Chopin's F-sharp major impromptu, and, true enough, when you become aware of the association, many an etude also comes to mind. Oh, and in case you wondered (I did, and checked on Perle's homepage), Serenade No. 1 (1962) is for viola and Chamber Orchestra, and Serenade No. 2 (1968) for eleven instruments. Too bad they weren't included on the Nonesuch disc. At respectively 13 and 15 minutes, they would have made a perfect match. I find the 1981 Ballade for solo piano (written for and premiered by Richard Goode) less interesting, Perle's homage to Romantic music, and sounding to me somewhat derivative of Berg's Sonata without the tautness of form and the melodic distinctiveness. Still, the two Chamber Concertos are highly appealing and rewarding works in their own terms.
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