4.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting and fun recital, February 28, 2011
This review is from: Lady of Spain and Other Realities (Audio CD)
An interesting recital, because it is not what you expect, and turns out to be pretty outlandish. From the title you'd expect transcriptions for accordion of "Spanish" pieces, Scarlatti and Soler sonatas, Bizet's Carmen and the 20th century classics, Falla and Albeniz (sure, it'd love to hear Iberia on accordion, what atmosphere it would have!). Not at all: the closest you get is the transcription of Ravel's Bolero, track 11 (but there is more to it than just a transcription, and not without reason is it titled "Ravel's Bolero Rewritten", see hereafter) and, if you really stretch it, of themes from Rossini's Barber of Seville, track 2 (Spanish only in title). Track 13, "Mexican Hat Dance", is an arrangement of various dances - none specifically Mexican, except when the Cucaracha zips through - very much in the tradition of the instrument: a tarantella, a landler, a czardas, a Cossack dance, a wedding Gig and a regional clapping song. Schimmel calls it "a celebration of cultural diversity" and "a post-ethnic dance suite".
But the recital is much more than that. William Schimmel, born in 1946, is not only one of the architects of the resurgence of the accordion in the US, he is also a trained composer: his teachers at Juilliard included Carter, Persichetti, Sessions, Berio, Hugo Weigsall and Paul Creston. But, as he explains in the liner notes: "at age 11, I thought composition was hearing a classing and re-creating it in your own manner", and he has stuck to the credo, writing, as Liszt before him, his own "paraphrases", "fantasias" on famous pieces, or even compendiums of a composer's complete output, as in his 2-minute Lisztrauma (track 7).
The recital starts pretty inconspicuously, in what might be, indeed, straight transcriptions and paraphrases, first of a Chopin prelude (track 1), then of themes from Rossini's Barber of Seville and The Thieving Magpie (track 2) - although the latter is already interspersed with a Tango from the Bunuel/Dali film The Andalucian Dog. But it all rapidly skids off the expected track: the Chopin preludes, which come here as interludes, are often distorted beyond recognition and turned into quasi-tangos, 1950s ballads and what not. The ensuing "Mozart Fantasie in Long Hair or General Mop" (track 5), after Mozart's Fantasy in C Minor, slips constantly from reminiscences of Mozart to contemporary music, a little in the manner of Schnittke but in a much more playful way. And that "skidding out of track" marks, to various degrees, all of Schimmel's paraphrases; some skid less, like the above mentioned Mexican Hat Dance, or the Von Suppé paraphrase, "Morning Noon and Nite in Vienna" (track 9), fairly "straight" (if you can so designate the kitsch but fun Viennese flavor it exudes), although its last two minutes also rock way far out of Vienna. And some skid more. But even more than the original tunes, it is that very "skidding out" that make the interest and fun of it all. The Bolero is an irresistible piece in whatever form (see my review of
Ravel's Greatest Hit: The Ultimate Bolero), and the accordion transcription is fun in itself, sometimes close to Ravel's obsessive melody, sometimes escaping from it, but halfway through Schimmel has it recede to mere percussive interjections and then stop playing, and he just beats the rhythm (or rather, a rhythm) on the body of the instrument for a while.
The apex is reached in Schimmel's own, fully-fledged composition, Parousia (track 16), composed in 1971. The composer describes it as "a seminal work in the development of an avant-garde accordion composition sound world even prior to such works by Nordheim, Norgaard and Gubaidulina." And it is. The recital ends with Schimmel's paraphrase and spoof on the popular song from the 1930s "My Lady of Spain" - a tune made famous in the 1950s by the Lawrence Welk TV show, where it was dazzlingly played by Myron Floren (you can see it on YouTube, and I recognize none of it in Schimmel's version). Here Schimmel sings, with a not very distinctive, untrained voice, lacking character. He's better at the instrument.
TT 69:32.
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