Following on from
Robb’s
1946 Symphony, strongly influenced by Vaughan Williams, Bartók
and Barber, which Opus One coupled with the less impressive
Viola Concerto and which I have also reviewed here (see
review),
we now have Robb’s 1950 Piano Concerto. This was written
at his summer home near New York and was premiered two years
later
with the Albuquerque Symphony under Hans Lange. The soloist
was the distinguished figure of Andor Foldes, who’d commissioned
the piece.
In
the intervening half a century without any performances,
the score has been re-edited and what we hear is not quite
what Foldes and the orchestra performed in 1952. The effect
of the revision has been in the interests of practicality
and a lot of the doubling in the heavier woodwind and brass
has been simplified. This revised, smaller version was premiered
by the present soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque
under David Oberg in 2001.
As
with the Viola Concerto, Robb used figures derived from Mexican
music, the
Ricardo, El Borreguero and
Leonore for
each of the three movements. The results are much more immediate
and enjoyable than the amorphous string concerto. When the
piano writing is chordal it’s resonant if not especially
distinctive, But there is plenty of local colour orchestrally
and a Robb songfulness that derives from the inheritance
of the composer influences noted above. He is also unafraid
to weave some neo-baroque moments into the fabric but never
enough to countenance neo-classicism. The piano’s second
movement lied is especially touching, the strings’ geniality
adding to the warmth; obscure Robb may be but he doesn’t
lack for lyricism though the idiom is old fashioned. The
finale has a convivial and conversational loquaciousness
that carries it on – there’s a touch of fugato and a compliant
piano joins in. This is good, open-hearted and un-academic
stuff.
Coupled
with the Concerto is
Hayg Boyadjian’s Second Symphony,
written expressly for this recording but I can’t quite confirm
the year because the notes, by the composer himself, don’t
tell us – about 1999/2000 I suppose. It’s cast in two movements
and makes a considerable, almost implacable, contrast to
the earlier work. Orchestral statements are granitic and
much here is densely argued with powerful chromaticism and
brusque drama. The second movement is more elusive than the
first – the composer mentions Ives’s
The Unanswered Question in
his notes as an analogue for a musical question mark – and
it’s true that the orchestra seems to be questing, unresolved,
toward something. Boyadjian is particularly effective at
setting up these questioning paragraphal passages. It’s a
tough, sinewy work and deliberately uningratiating.
Notes
are rather home-produced in Opus One’s gatefold-plus-sheath
house style. If it cuts down costs to enable these recordings
to be made then so be it – although I should say that my
notes stuck to the sheath and consequently half the type
on the back page is now stuck to the plastic. Keep your Opus
Ones somewhere cool to avoid such problems.
Jonathan Woolf
Tatiana
Vetrinskaya (piano) 
