Interview with pianist Daria Parkhomenko about her recording of Enescu's music

The debut recording from pianist Daria Parkhomenko, a Russian of Romanian origin, features three major works by George Enescu. To celebrate its release on the Prospero Classical label, I discuss her love of Enescu's music in an interview below.

[Image credit: Michael Reinicke]

ED: How did you first encounter George Enescu’s music? How long have you been playing Enescu’s music for?
 
DP: As a performer, I began to learn the music of George Enescu 4 years ago, in 2018. I took part at the George Enescu International Competition in Bucharest and obligatory piece in the semifinal was one of his piano works. At that time I knew quite a lot of his symphonic music, chamber music, violin sonatas, but his piano works were unknown to me. I chose the second suite for the semifinal, and I really fell in love with this music.

After the competition, I was motivated to learn more his piano works. After the Second Suite I started to learn the first piano sonata, which would later become my favorite, and later, I was interested to learn more, and I opened the scores of the Third piano sonata, which I learned quite quickly, as I had a lot of time during the pandemic. 

The inexhaustibility of Enescu's fantasy in his music is amazing and makes his music special and captivates every listener, and this inspired me to record my first album with three piano works by him.

ED: Your debut recording includes three major piano pieces by Enescu – the two sonatas and the second piano suite. How important are these pieces for you as a pianist?

DP: As I like very much 20th century music in general, I was interested to learn new music from this time for my concert programmes. And despite the fact that pianists have an extremely large repertoire, I am very happy to learn new piano works, especially if they are little known to listeners, and present it to the audience. 

For me, as for musician, a new piano piece is like a new book. It is always an occasion to discover something new in music and in yourself. Definitely through this music it helped me develop as a musician in many ways, I developed as an artist, discovering and playing his music.  As I have Romanian roots, Enescu’s music has a very special connection to me.  I am very happy that I have discovered this gorgeous music, and feel that I have learned more about Romanian culture and I understood myself deeper as a Romanian.

ED: How did you approach recording the works? What specific interpretive points did you want to make about them?

DP: It is surprising that there are not so many recordings of these works, and at the very beginning of studying the text and understanding the concept of this music, it was not so easy for me. In many aspects, his music is complex in structure and I want to note that he wrote his notes in scores in great detail regarding tempos, dynamics, colors. In general, it is unusually curious to learn music with a clean slate, it inspires much more to create your own interpretation.

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ED: Enescu lived as an international musician - in Romania, in Paris and he toured extensively. At heart, though, he was Romanian. What Romanian influences do you find in his piano writing?

DP: Enescu was a giant musician, and he composed music that was different both emotionally and stylistically, the inspiration for which was the music of Brahms, the music of french impressionists, and of course the Romanian folk music. 

The folk art of his homeland was primarily an inspiration for his works. Therefore, in each of his works, in addition to the influence of classical and romantic traditions, the influence of folk songs and dances can be felt. For example, the First piano sonata is an example of his unique compositional style. I find especially thrilling the mixture of Romanian folklore and turn of the century French Impressionism. In my opinion, both the piano sonatas, for their musical language and technical means, are among the most difficult of Enescu's pieces for piano.

ED: Enescu’s music often presents many challenges to a performer. What challenges did you find in these works?

DP: His music is extremely rich in different types of effects and diverse emotions through musical gestures and diverse dynamics. I feel this interesting combination fits quite well and his music is very close to my heart.

Most important was for me to show the variety of his compositional effects, which Enescu heard in many ways as a violinist. And for performer this is a very interesting creative process, that comes a lot from imagining and hearing these effects rather than technical abilities. I would like to acquaint and involve as many listeners as possible with the piano repertoire of Enescu.

ED: I know you often play Enescu’s piano works within your recital programmes. What do you find the audience reaction is to them?

DP: After winning the Enescu competition, I combined various programs for my recitals, included piano and chamber works by Enescu, and I am very pleased that many listeners listened to this wonderful music with great interest, as did I myself. 

I remember my first performance of the 1 piano sonata in Hamburg, which I learned for my master exam, and I did not expect to get so many positive reviews about only this sonata, and it’s motivated me a lot. It often happens that if a piece of work is little known to the listener, he is not always able to fully understand the music and perceive it. Enescu's music is largely ambiguous. And as a performer, it is interesting and very valuable for me to hear the understanding of the meaning of this music from different people, that is, how they hear this music and how they perceive it.

ED: Enescu wrote a great deal of other music for the piano, are any of those in your repertoire? Do you plan to play or record other pieces by Enescu in the future?

DP: I also performed the third violin sonata, arranged for classical saxophone, which is very unusual, and I managed to perform this year in concert, it was very interesting and exciting experience. And of course, I would like to learn many other works of Enescu, both for piano and chamber music and arrangements.

Enescu was a brilliant musician and a great teacher. He had an incredible aura that captivated audiences. The passion, the colourfulness and the melancholy of his music makes this music very attractive to the listener. I am very happy to recommend all pianists in the world to familiarize themselves with the piano works of George Enescu. And I believe that people will inspired by this wonderful music as much as I am!

ED: Thank you very much, Daria. I wish you all the best for your recording, future career and further discovery of Enescu's music.

CD Review: Sandro Fuga - Piano sonatas 1-3 (G and C Fuga, C Voghera, piano) Naxos 8.579110

Sandro Fuga (1906-1994) was a prolific composer who has been somewhat overlooked in recent years. Like several other Italian composers of his generation, he came under the influence of Franco Alfano and Giorgio Federico Ghedini – very much opposite ends of the spectrum – both of whom he studied with.

It would appear that when it came to the sonata form, for Sandro Fuga they came in threes: there are a trio of sonatas for piano, violin (recorded on Naxos 8.573142) and cello (recorded on Tactus TC900601). The first and third sonatas are in four movements, the second sonata in three movements.

Fuga’s piano writing, if these recordings are anything to go by, was extremely varied. That said, in these works the imprint of Alfano and Ghedini is hard to detect. There is little doubt that the sonata form pre-occupied him, yet repeated listening shows that his approach to it became more sequential and episodic rather than focussed upon thematic development. As Flavio Menardi Noguera’s useful liner notes make clear, Fuga’s writing is honest, direct and founded upon the many fluctuations of tempo and sonority that inhabit his works. Melody, harmony and rhythm are Fuga’s bedrocks, though sometimes it is all too easy to hear the cracks between them, as it were. Fuga was not always the master of integration, which is why perhaps why I find them of niche interest, rather than something I will revisit often.

The recordings are fine – family members Giacomo and Carlotta Fuga (Sandro’s children, one assumes) take the first and second sonatas respectively. The third sonata is played by Claudio Voghera, who studied with Luciano Giarbella, one of the elder Fuga’s pupils. Each artist has the measure of their respective works and one has the feeling that each recording is more personally important to me than I find them.

CD Review: Germaine Tailleferre Piano works revived vol.1 (Nicolas Horvath, piano) Grand Piano 891

Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) is a composer ripe for rescuing from obscurity. With this first release in a new survey of her complete piano works the Monaco-born pianist Nicolas Horvath proves he is the man for the job.

Tailleferre, it would seem, possessed a rebellious streak. Against her father’s wishes, she insisted on a career in music. To that end, she rubbed shoulders in the 1920s with Milhaud and Poulenc as the only female member of the Montmartre-based collective Les Six. It is known that she wrote at the piano, hence, keyboard music is central to her output. Tailleferre’s compositional style, however, was far from fixed: it shifts from the neoclassical and tonal to bitonality, rhythmically disciplined to irregular and wilfully dissonant. Each of these aspects is heard across the fifty-five tracks of this packed release. Several works - many in their first recordings - are presented as groupings: Fleurs de France (written in 1930), Suite dans le style Louis XV and transcriptions of works by Scarlatti, Lully, Monteverdi, etc.

Horvath delights in it all, relishing the different aspects of this music. Unsurprisingly for a pianist with a penchant for a wide repertoire - his recordings of Erik Satie's music on the Grand Piano label are noteworthy - he plays it with both awareness and a sense of wonder. The release benefits from helpfully insightful liner notes and first class recorded sound. Further volumes in this series are keenly awaited. Might those volumes even extend to her concertos? There's one for a single piano and another, dating from 1934, for two pianos, chorus, four saxophones and orchestra. When, one wonders, would an orchestra be brave enough to programme such a work today?

CD Review: George Walker Piano sonatas (Steven Beck, piano) Bridge 9554

George Walker (1922-2018) was, by any measure, a composer of stature. For that reason, I believe his music should not just be heard as being notable amongst that of his American compatriots, as the work of an African American (though that is often the reason many now giving it the time of day), or because Walker was the first black composer to receive a Pulitzer Prize in Music. Throughout his life Walker was commissioned by many prestigious ensembles and conductors to write for them. He was also a pianist of note – he studied under Rudolf Serkin no less – and some valuable archive recordings exist that reveal his significant talents. Anyone new to Walker’s music could do worse than to discover it through his five stylistically eclectic piano sonatas. Amazingly, the present release is the first recording of Walker’s piano sonata output – better now than never.

The five works are each individually rather brief, yet bold statements are made within them. The longest, No. 1 (1953) in three movements, is a shade under 14’30”; the shortest, No.5 (2003) in a single movement is under 5’ duration. The first two sonatas showcase Walker’s affection for employing a theme and variations model for one movement within a conventionally structured three or four-movement sonata. Along the way, there is strong writing mixed with that of gossamer delicacy. Walker recorded his first two sonatas, but the recordings are occasionally somewhat matter-of-fact; Steven Beck is rather more pliant, which suits the music well. As with most things though, it’s a matter of give and take – Walker finds more gravity in the second sonata’s fourth movement. By the sonata No. 3 (1975), Walker’s idiom had turned to freely expressed atonality – listen to how a bell tolls some 17 times in the middle movement to recapture a memory of hearing the bell in a distant Italian campanile. The sonata No. 4 (1984) is perhaps the only place you get an overt notice that this music by a black composer, with the oblique quotation of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” in its second movement. The sonata No.5 is reduced in form, but bears melodies of grandeur with consummate artfulness.

Pianist Steven Beck is as good a guide to George Walker’s sonatas as one could hope for; his playing possesses sensitivity of touch that illuminates the merest snatch of a phrase or differentiates the interplay between each hand, a questing sense of discovery and a keen awareness of structure. In no small part is Beck aided by the warm tone of his Steinway grand, which is faithfully recorded. As if one needs it, Ethan Iverson’s brief accompanying notes make a further heartfelt case for Walker’s music. A greater analysis of the intricacies of the structure within and influences upon the five sonatas would have been welcome in place of the thumbnail sketches that – for now – will have to suffice. That aside, the music is where it is really at. Do investigate!

CD Review: Enescu / Mussorgsky / Borodin (Alexander Krichel, piano) Berlin Classics 0302072BC

The combination of piano works by Enescu and Mussorgsky is a new one on record, though both works included here have been recorded several times before. Therefore, this recording by Hamburg-born artist Alexander Krichel faces stiff competition from the start.

Enescu’s Second Piano Suite was written in 1903 and consists of four movements. Given Enescu’s love of J. S. Bach’s music it is unsurprising that he followed the Baroque model of a dance sequence – a majestic Toccata, a noble Sarabande, a slow Pavane and a lively Bourrée.

Even though it is missing the opening Toccata and is captured in less-than-ideal sound, fans of Dinu Lipatti may still want to track town this historic recording of the suite. Lipatti’s compatriot, Aurora Ienei, recorded the suite in 1981 for the Romanian Electrecord label (it was licenced to the Olympia label and second-hand copies can be occasionally tracked down. Although Ienei’s touch is sure, the boxy acoustic does little to enhance her piano’s sound. Luiza Borac’s 2003 recording for Avie was hailed as ground-breaking at the time and followed extensive research into the autograph scores of Enescu’s piano oeuvre. This led to many errors in the printed versions being corrected; the recording very much continues to stand the test of time. Matei Varga turned in a more than creditable recording for Naxos. Christopher Falzone’s recording for the Sisyphe label rather flew under the radar and is intent on sounding more like Bach than anything else. Heard alongside the best of these alternatives (Borac and Varga), Krichel’s recording sounds somewhat cool and detached, even though it is technically very well played indeed.

Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition might be the more famous of the two works on this release, for many that might be a draw. The work might be better known in orchestral incarnations – most often Ravel’s – but the piano original is worthy of exploration. Mikhail Pletnev (Virgin Classics) gets to the heart of the work with insightful characterisation of the Promenade across its several incarnations. Krichel’s performance, although interesting, finds less variety in this connective tissue that runs through the work. Where Krichel does score though is in a few of the individual tableaux that form the exhibition. The missing element, though, is the same one missing from his Enescu: feeling for the music. With that there might be more palpable weight and Russianness in his overall conception.

The slender two minute Nocturne from Borodin’s Petite suite provides an addendum that rounds out the recording in a pleasant manner.

The recording captures the piano faithfully. The interview with Krichel, though, is maybe rather more questionable. When all is considered though, this is a recording that, although possessing positives, does not quite lead the field in this repertoire.

CD Review: London Nights (Franziska Lee, piano) Capriccio C3010

Capriccio clearly appreciate that the largely German-trained Korean pianist Franziska Lee is an artist worth nurturing. It is also evident that Franziska Lee has a particular penchant for twentieth century repertoire. Following a well-received recording of French composers, the present release sees her attention turned to five English composers. The next release will focus on Italian composers including Gian Francesco Malipiero, Luciano Berio, Luigi Dallapiccola, Bruno Bettinelli and Ildebrando Pizzetti. Certainly, this format of ‘national’ repertoire collections is distinctive. It has the potential to keep going as long as Lee has the imagination and determination to forego mainstream repertoire in favour of interesting and less travelled paths.

Someone usually very knowledgeable about music once asked me – somewhat tongue in cheek, I hope! – “Is there such a thing as English music after Purcell?” The answer, of course, is yes. Were I asked to produce a single recording to illustrate the point, then Franziska Lee’s release would do the job admirably. Even today in the UK, the keyboard music of the composers included here is too little appreciated and played.

Michael Tippett’s Sonata no.1, in the revised 1942 version of the 1935-37 composition, is played straight, without any hint of anachronism. Tippett, being Tippett, of course takes the listener on a journey that has some serious things to say. At times perhaps there might have greater economy of expression, particularly in the first movement’s flights of fancy, but it is good this was not achieved at the expense of an infusion of jazz and blues influences. Franziska Lee traverses the range of expressions easily and clearly delights in the opportunities this affords her to show her mettle. But is it a sonata I will return to often? I am not so sure I will – it just lacks enough focus to make it a really compelling experience in performance.

Arnold Bax’s single-movement Sonata no.1 in F sharp minor, if anything, has Lee taking things to another level. Her playing takes Bax’s instruction of “Not too fast and very decisive in rhythm” at its word. I have long enjoyed Ashley Wass’ playing of Bax’s piano output (Naxos), but in this sonata Lee puts up a creditable challenge, even if Wass wins the head-to-head by a whisker, as his interpretation sounds just a little more spontaneous.
There’s more humour in Benjamin Britten’s Holiday Diary, 1934, than is often the case in his music. It is a characteristic that Lee emphasises wilfully. Overtly programmatic in character, Lee’s playing captures they boyish fun in these early vignettes that take you to the Suffolk coastline.

John Ireland’s Ballad of London Nights paints the scene of a rather bawdy and occasionally discordant nocturnal stroll through England’s smog-filled capital, taking the listener from a Soho club to the rather more refined environs of Chelsea. That we have this score at all is down to a lucky find in a desk drawer after Ireland’s death.  Franziska Lee’s super-confident realisation of this 7 minute score takes it almost beyond the confines of time and a single instrument, such is the palette of colours that she employs with the deftest of touches.

The middle movement of Frank Bridge’s Three Sketches (1906), Rosemary, is the best known of the three pieces. A passable recording of it is included in Lotusland, an interesting anthology of English piano music, by pianist Kumiko Ida on the Japanese Mittenwald label. Franziska Lee plays all three sketches with moving tenderness. They fully illustrate the romantic air that pervaded Bridge’s writing before he embarked on a more radical and modernistic path.

The recording sound quality is excellent, with the Steingraeber instrument captured faithfully whether in the most delicate passages or in forte. It is a shame that the liner notes do not extend beyond a biography of the pianist in English, German and Korean. Given the repertoire, I suspect that many prospective listeners would find an introduction a useful addition to an otherwise excellent and most recommendable recording. Maybe Capriccio could seek to plug this gap within future releases.

CD Review: Scriabin / Langgaard: Towards the Flame (Gustav Piekut, piano) Naxos 8.574312

 Esben Tange sums up the unusual pairing of the composers on this release effectively in his liner notes:

“Both the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin and the Danish composer Rued Langgaard were ‘sun-burnt’ – musical loners who in a related way believed that through their art they could light a sacred fire and pave the way for a spiritual world revolution. […] Despite the fact that Scriabin and Langgaard aimed at the greatest possible, they are both very much masters of the intimate format. For both of them, the piano was a primary medium. Via the piano we get close to their innermost thoughts.”

The 26-year-old Danish pianist Gustav Piekut provides a recital that alternates four pieces by Scriabin with three of Langgaard’s.

A pair of works imbued with a late Romantic sensibility begin the journey this recording presents. Scriabin’s Trois morceaux, Op. 45 (1904–05), is a trio of individually slight yet atmospheric miniatures. Feuillet d’album is wistful and reflective, whereas the ensuing 26-second Poème fantasque nervously anticipates the closing Prélude, in which Scriabin discovers something of his searching mature idiom. Langgaard’s Sponsa christi taedium vitae. Fantasia virtuosa, BVN 297 (1944), speaks unforcefully of the composer’s own religious nature through the warmth of tone and texture in his writing. What is immediately impressive in Piekut’s playing, quite apart from the delicacy of his touch, is his ability to let the music breathe and, thus, register its own inner beauty.

In his single movement Piano Sonata No. 10, Op. 70 (1913), Scriabin sought to crystalise what could be achieved within a compact form whilst exploring new and daring tonalities. Piekut’s playing holds little in reserve. He conjours the misty sonorities of its opening with beguiling effect before dispatching the successive trills convincingly against the lingering shifts of Scriabin’s somewhat pensive developing musical argument. Even in the wilder passages of the movement’s second half, everything is musically and technically secure in Piekut’s hands. The irony that Scriabin arrived back at the note of C after seeking to find an alternative tonality is caught with some inevitability here.

Langgaard’s Afgrundsmusik (Music of the Abyss), BVN 169 (1921–24), written in Venice, sets an altogether more destructive path that is merciless in its power. Cast in two parts, Langgaard pits a theme extracted from Liszt’s B-minor sonata against a chorale of his own devising. Initially the writing is demonstrative, rising to unremitting raw savagery that almost cannibalises itself by the conclusion of the Frenetico second part. Piekut’s playing meets the demands made at every turn to make a convincing case for this music. He’s aided in no small part by the ambient warmth of the recorded acoustic. You begin to realise just why the Danes long considered Langgaard something of a musical outsider.

Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 9, Op. 68 ‘Messe noire’ (1912–13), perfectly partners the preceding Langgaard work. Although Scriabin claimed it amongst his most depraved works, this comes through only gradually. Again, I am drawn in by the innate sense of touch that Piekut brings to proceedings. He captures the mystérieusement murmuré (in mysteriously murmuring fashion) fingerings wonderfully so the music does indeed almost seem to foreshadow itself. Quite apart from that, listen to how he skilfully integrates the sonata’s secondary material without disrupting the flow of main ideas.

A pair of works exploring the semitone round out this voyage of musical discovery. Despite this similarity, there’s a contrasting approach to be explored and enjoyed, thanks to Piekut’s thoughtful programming. Lannggard’s The Flame Chambers, inspired by Dante, draws the listener downwards to the flames of hell. Whereas in Scriabin’s Vers la flamme, to quote Esben Tange again, “we encounter aspiring music full of sweetness, which with an increasingly feverish nerve accumulates energy before, striving towards the sun, it culminates in a heavenly explosion.” As elsewhere on this disc, I can find no argument with Piekut’s enviable pianistic gifts: in this music he is a heavenly guide.

Only one fly in the ointment: coming in at a shade over 56 minutes the playing time is disappointingly short. Particularly so given that there’s plenty more piano repertoire from both composers an artist of Piekut’s quality could have usefully explored. More please, and soon!