Joseph Havlat piano
CPO 555 808-2
This is a rewarding issue on many fronts, not least as an exemplar of inspired programme-building. Lest some still blanch at the thought of encountering ‘new complexities’, it must be said at the outset that all the scores are accessible to the cautious listener, though of course they do reveal profounder depths on repeated listening.
Cassandra Miller studied with Finnissy, and the title work is a collaborative work of four variations based on the African-American spiritual, here receiving its first recording. It is an inspired choice, idiomatically cast and presented with quiet assurance.
The methods of compositional construction, transformation and deconstruction of both composers are closely aligned, although Miller’s two contributions are headed by somewhat eccentric Satie-like directions. The importance of this issue is increased by the inclusion of correspondence from 2014 between Miller and Finnissy that documents their working relationship and the creation of this tranquil set of reveries.
Its luscious sound-world, vibrant and contemplative by turns, segues absolutely naturally into Schumann’s Geistervariationen. Havlat’s account of this glorious yet frequently neglected score – the final work of the composer before his admittance into the asylum at Endinich – is warm, with sonorous tone and phrasing of subtlety, grace and insightfulness.
Finnissy’s piece (also a première recording) is based on Schumann’s: it assimilates and explores the possibilities of transcription in depth. He begins not with Schumann’s own score but with passages from its recreation for piano duet by Brahms. Commentaries in Finnissy’s own musical language punctate the discourse, and ghostly voices from at least three historical periods are thus considered, presented and blended concurrently, in multi dimensions.
Unfortunately, while not a difficult work to hear, I found Miller’s first published piece for piano, the last on the disc, to be intriguing in assembly but more abstruse and less absorbing: less than the sum of its parts. Although also indebted to the art of transcription, Philip the wanderer (named for pianist Philip Thomas who assisted in its creation through workshops) draws its material from a recording by a Mozambican musician.
A gentle meditation, it comprises a rumbling and rather extended first movement – which might be considered a natural continuation of Schumann’s own subterranean sonorities at the close of his Geistervariationen – with some whistling (required of the pianist) in the second, and a third movement that concludes with a minimalist slow ascending scale many times repeated.
Nonetheless, this CD is well worth considering. Havlat plays with great accomplishment throughout, the presentation is attractive, and the recording quality is a fine advertisement for the excellent facilities of Ayriel Studios near Whitby.
Review by Andrew Plant