Customer Reviews

Sonata Teutonica

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Even thought I live in Virginia, I had never heard of this Virgnian composer or his music until I found this album on vinyl at a 2nd hand store. It is beautiful music. Don't let the Teutonica fool you, this music is not Wagner rather it is Chopin-esqe. Although it was written in 1913, it is definitely a Romantic era piece, albeit a bit more clean and sparse than most 19th century counterparts. Like some of the Naxos CDs, the appeal to this album is partly in finding an overlooked 20th century American composer. It is a hard to judge the performance, as there are no others with which to compare it. Roy Hamlin Johnson's playing is technically proficient and precise, but it would seem the music could benefit by a bit more expressive performance. As I only have this on vinyl, I don't know what the CD sounds like - but on vinyl the recording is warm and clear. All in all - this is wonderful music which does not deserve to be forgotten.

John Powell (1882-1963) had a few years of notice as an American composer and pianist, particularly after he wrote his 'Rhapsodie Nègre' based on African-American themes. He was celebrated in his native Virginia; after living in Europe for a time he came home to Virginia where he continued to live and teach and compose. These two piano sonatas had a bit of attention but they essentially disappeared from view until resurrected by Roy Hamlin Johnson, long-time professor of piano at the University of Maryland. Johnson felt, rightly I suspect, that the 'Sonata Teutonica,' which initially ran over an hour, was better to be cut down and he edited it down to the 43-minute piece recorded here. It is in three movements, uses not particularly distinguished materials and tends to work them to death. The overall impression is quite frankly more American-sounding than 'teutonic,' and that is at least partly because it sounds so naïve. It has an open-faced charm that I can imagine won some friends when Powell was playing it in his own recitals back in the early years of the 20th century, but that charm has faded badly.

Although the earlier work, the 'Sonate Psychologique' (1906) is a bit more advanced, both in craft and in selection of thematic materials, it too is rather bland in effect. There are some interesting pseudo-Rachmaninoff passages, and we are reminded in the booklet notes that Powell, while living in Europe, was bowled over by an early performance of the Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto not long after its première. Still, there's not much here to get too excited about.

Roy Hamlin Johnson recorded these sonatas in 1977 and 1983 respectively, and they were originally issued separately on CRI LPs. The performances are stellar from a technical and musical perspective; clearly Johnson is a staunch advocate of these works.

I would not recommend these works except to those who are curious about Powell, or curious about American piano sonatas from the early 20th century. I was rather more positive about a recent recording of Powell's Symphony in A Major, the 'Virginia Symphony,' on the Albany label.

Scott Morrison