Musical suggestion #4 - Byron Janis

This is another which would fall under the category of resolving the problem of glut. Prokofiev’s Third is among the most popular of piano concertos, and is assured of being so for the foreseeable future by dint of the fact that it is, among other things, a competition perennial. It poses challenges that a young pianist would, and should, want to surmount, and so they all have it in their repertoire, and so we hear it a lot. In certain circles, the piece is resented for this very reason, as it is so often treated like a kind of steeplechase, which it is, but the grudgingness of such respect overlooks the fact that in addition to being a challenging piece, it is also chock full of terrifically distinctive lyrical melodies, ideas, jokes and jewels. It just keeps coming at you with ideas and surprises and runs and riffs and gorgeous melodies. Richter referred to Prokofiev’s eighth sonata as being “a tree laden with fruit.” The same could be said of the third.

For all these reasons, there are a ton of serviceable versions out there. (Oddly enough, there is no Richter account.) I get the sense that maybe Martha Argerich is given the edge as an interpreter, but let me cast my vote here for Byron Janis.

Janis is an American pianist who peaked in popularity in the 60s and whose career was curtailed for a time by arthritis. (He is also, for those who might be interested, husband of Gary Cooper’s daughter, but sadly no relation to Conrad Janis, Mindy’s Boss on Mork and Mindy, despite the fact that Conrad Janis apparently plays a pretty mean trombone.) He has in recent years overcome his arthritis, enough at least to mount a comeback, issuing recording of not quite so physically demanding Chopin pieces.

In 1960, Janis made a trip to the Soviet Union of which this album (which includes an account of Rach’s 2nd) is the lasting fruit. The crowds loved him, stormed the stage, and when the dust and flowers all cleared recorded his version there in Moscow, with the Moscow Philharmoic under the direction of Kryril Kondrashin.

There are a couple reasons why I would recommend this above all the rest.

First, Janis. In comparison to most other versions, I’d say his tempi are just a teeny bit on the slow side – or to put another way, every one else’ tempi (such as Argerich, and Prokofiev himself) are wee bit fast for the reason already mentioned: pianists feeling obliged to prove their chops with speed. Janis (like the also highly recommendable Grigory Sokolov) draws down on speed, but only so that he can hit a little harder. If this is not the fleetest Third on record, it winds up being one of the more percussive and clear. It is a full throttle attack. There is no smudging, as result of which there are moment, and passages, that come through with a clarity I’ve never really heard elsewhere.

To name the most outstanding instance. About ten minutes into the second movement, a Theme with Variations, Prokofiev comes to what is probably his fifth crack at the melody in question. What Janis and Kondrashin decide to do, precisely by slowing it down,yields what is without question one of the downright funkiest passages is the classical catalogue. If you don’t find yourself actually bobbing and weaving to the downbeat syncopation of the 30 or so seconds at question, you, my friend, do not have a neck

The other glaring virtue of this particular recording is the quality of sound. This is one of those “Mercury Living Presence” recordings, of which there are a limited number. I’m no engineer. I won’t pretend to know exactly why the Mercury Living Presence Recording sound the way they do. It has something to do with the quality of the microphones, (microphones being one piece of hardware that has apparently gotten worse in the last fifty years, not better) – and with how they were placed around the orchestra, and with the fact that the orchestra was playing, more or less live, not all clipped together like Frankenstein’s monster.

Whatever the cause, the effect is extraordinary. I venture to say that on the basis of sound alone, all MLP recordings are (as they say) self-recommending, but the other one that I would recommend would be the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra. Like the Prokofiev, it positively blooms in your living room. It surrounds you. It sits you in your chair, lights your pipe, and shoves the ottoman underneath your feet. In fact, the vibrancy of these recordings have always suggested a comparison to me, the explanation of which may be as philosophical as technological or psychological, who knows? But think of movies made in the same era, late fifties, early sixties. Think of all the Douglas Sirk. Think of ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS. Think of THE RED SHOES, think of the actual palettes of those films, how rich and deep they are, almost like blots on the screen. If those colors could be turned into sounds, the MLP recording is what they would sound like. Again, I leave it to the reader to figure out how contemporaneous technologies of two such different media – sound recording and visual recording – were able to yield such eerily similar emotional and aesthetic effects, but I stand by the impression. The Janis recording sounds like Sirk movies look – which is to say, gorgeous in a way that we may simulate, but never recapture.

musical suggestion #2, Yekaterina Ervy-Novitskaya

I have to confess, I’m a little embarrassed that my first entry under what I hope to be this blog’s most recurrent category, musical suggestions, turned out to have been such an obvious one. Shostakovich’s Seventh is a great symphony, granted, and the Bernstein/Chicago rendition is tremendous. Still, recommending it to a potentially interested listener out there is a little like recommending Gone With the Wind to a cinephile.

So, just to establish a little more steet cred, let me for my second recommendation suggest a recording that’s a little farther from the beaten path.

Yekaterina Ervy-Novistkaya was 18 years old when she recorded most of the selections on this LP in that most blessed of years, 1969. A devoted Prokofievian, this US debut featured are Sarcasms (which I’ve never really gotten), the Fifth Sonata (the second movement of which is kind of a must-listen), Fugitive Visions (an all-time fav), and the piano transcription of ten selections from Romeo and Juliet.

As far as I can tell, this is Ms. Novitskaya’s only solo recording. In a moment of far-flung procrastination a while back, I think I tracked down the fact that she married and moved to Belgium, where she is still teaching. Whether the brevity of her recording and performing career is a function of illness, bad luck, stage fright, or domestic obligation, I just don’t know. Whatever the cause, it is, like the death of Jeff Buckley, a point of intensely selfish regret to me personally, I consider this recording to be such a glittering (if sharp) gem. Fair to say, based upon the performances in this recording, I would listen to this woman play anything, anytime, anywhere.

That said, there is no quintessential performance on the record. For the Fugitive Visions, I would still have to give the nod to Richter. For the Romeo and Juliet, I’m not sure there is a #1 piano version just yet, and the same as with Glenn Gould, everything Ervy-Novitskaya plays should probably be heard as played by someone else, just for context. Her decision are not all agreeable. As with Gould, the virtue of the recording resides in the fact that she is such a distinctive player, and CLEAR. Spiky is a word that comes to mind. If she uses the pedal at all, I’m not aware of it. This is distinctly percussive playing for a distinctly percussive (piano) composer, but hers is a very heavy, sonorous finger as well. She hits harder and more emphatically than Prokofiev himself, whose playing can be heard on Pearl issue I am going to recommend just as emphatically. Most of the pieces on the Pearl LP were recorded in 1935. The sound is not good – a version of the third piano concerto, played by the composer and conducted by Piero Coppola, is unfortaunately distant (and a little hasty in parts), but the solo material burns through the mist more than clearly enough to substantiate what was often said about Prokofiev’s pianism, which is that for such a radical and brash composer, he was remarkably restrained player, one willing to the notes do the talking. The playing on his recording is all very respectful, subtle, at no point showy.

Ervy-Novitskaya is not exactly showy either. She clearly means to be a humble servant to the material, but her playing does call attention to itself, again, just because her sound is so distinct: emphatic, clear, very serious and ironic at the same time. Even so, and even though her decisions does not quite match Prokofiev’s, and even though he was famously cruel to players who took liberties with his scores or who seemed to have misunderstood his purpose, one gets the sense that he would have found Ervy-Novitskaya’s playing deeply, deeply pleasurable and affirming of his gifts. As idiosyncratic as it may be, she gets at an aspect of his music more directly than any other player I’ve heard, including Richter, and including Prokofiev himself.

For highlights, let me suggest the second movement of the fifth sonata, and just about all of Romeo and Juliet (with the possible exception, sadly, of the Knight Dance, which I’m ready conclude just doesn’t translate well to the keyboard). There’s a moment right at the end, though, track 38, as the bodies of the two young lovers are being taken away, the music is fading beautifully, drifting (yet marching) away, when out of nowhere, eleven rapid-fire chimes sound. In Ervy-Novitskaya's hands, a chilling, evanescent appearance of the devil himself.

For that, and countless other moments contained in this LP, my thanks to you Ms. Ervy-Novitskaya. If you are out there, if you have ever been tempted to reenter the fray, send up a flare, I will be first in line.