Notes and Editorial Reviews
ROSLAVETS
3 Compositions
(1914)
. 3 Etudes. Sonatas: No. 1; No. 2; No. 5. Prelude
(1915)
. 2 Compositions
(1915)
. 2 Poems. 5 Preludes
•
Irina Emeliantseva (pn)
•
NEOS 10902 (74:21)
These piano works span the experimental period of the Russian composer Nikolai Roslavets; they were written between 1914 and 1923. Roslavets was in the
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forefront of the Soviet avant-garde until under political pressure it ceased to exist. Although he seemed the archetype Soviet artist, coming as he did from the working class, he was eventually ostracized for his “decadent” atonal music.
The piano provided an ideal workshop for his experiments in tonality and texture, as it did in a different way for his contemporary Arthur Lourié. The works on this CD are therefore more extreme in terms of dissonance than some of the later music we have recently come to know, such as his magnificent violin concertos. This is not the aggressive dissonance of Bartók or early Prokofiev, however; Roslavets’s early influences range from Debussy and Ravel in the rippling textures, Schoenberg in the harmonic procedures, and, most notably, Scriabin in the perfumed chromaticism.
Back to back, this program is not a particularly easy listen. There is a lack of variety among the many short pieces—even the single-movement sonatas do not exceed 13 minutes. No doubt that is the nature of experimentation; the composer is feeling his way as he elaborates and plays around with his personal harmonic system based on chords of the 13th. The result is a curious cocktail of heady 19th-century perfume and astringent 20th-century ice. By the time of the fifth sonata, Roslavets has turned his attention toward form, but elsewhere structure and rhythm take second place to impressionistic textures and elusive, shifting harmonies. (The manuscripts of the third and fourth sonatas are lost.)
The challenge for the pianist, above and beyond coping with the demanding, multilayered keyboard writing, is to give a sense of the high and low points of each work. Irina Emeliantseva plays beautifully, from moment to moment pointing every detail, but she does not avoid the trap of making the music sound piecemeal. The first and third études, for instance, have no overall sweep in her performance. Unfortunately for her, we know it can be done because of Marc-André Hamelin’s 1997 recording for Hyperion. (Hamelin plays the same program in the same chronological order.) Hamelin finds more mystery in the Scriabinesque textures, and when the music occasionally calls for virtuoso flourish he effortlessly kicks up the excitement level a few notches. Tellingly, Hamelin’s fast pieces are all faster than Emeliantseva’s, and his slow pieces slower.
Comparisons aside, Emeliantseva gives a sensitive performance and is cleanly recorded. (Hamelin’s piano is more recessed, although his pianism is clearer.) I would be perfectly happy with either, but recent issues of Roslavets’s concertos and Chamber Symphony are more urgently recommended.
FANFARE: Phillip Scott
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Works on This Recording
1.
Compositions (3) for piano, Nos 1-3 (complete) by Nikolai A. Roslavets
Performer:
Irina Emeliantseva (Piano)
Period: Modern
Written: 1914
Venue: Studio 2, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Length: 2 Minutes 50 Secs.
2.
Etudes (3) for Piano by Nikolai A. Roslavets
Performer:
Irina Emeliantseva (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1914; Russia
Venue: Studio 2, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Length: 14 Minutes 20 Secs.
3.
Piano Sonata No. 1 by Nikolai A. Roslavets
Performer:
Irina Emeliantseva (Piano)
Period: Modern
Written: 1914
Venue: Studio 2, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Length: 10 Minutes 56 Secs.
4.
Prélude for Piano by Nikolai A. Roslavets
Performer:
Irina Emeliantseva (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1915; Russia
Venue: Studio 2, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Length: 3 Minutes 27 Secs.
5.
Compositions (2) for Piano by Nikolai A. Roslavets
Performer:
Irina Emeliantseva (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1915; Russia
Venue: Studio 2, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Length: 5 Minutes 47 Secs.
6.
Piano Sonata No. 2 by Nikolai A. Roslavets
Performer:
Irina Emeliantseva (Piano)
Period: Modern
Written: 1916; Russia
Venue: Studio 2, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Length: 12 Minutes 18 Secs.
7.
Poems (2) for piano by Nikolai A. Roslavets
Performer:
Irina Emeliantseva (Piano)
Period: Modern
Written: 1916
Venue: Studio 2, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Length: 4 Minutes 12 Secs.
8.
Preludes (5) for Piano by Nikolai A. Roslavets
Performer:
Irina Emeliantseva (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1919-1922; USSR
Venue: Studio 2, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Length: 8 Minutes 15 Secs.
9.
Piano Sonata No. 5 by Nikolai A. Roslavets
Performer:
Irina Emeliantseva (Piano)
Period: Modern
Written: 1923
Venue: Studio 2, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Length: 11 Minutes 26 Secs.
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