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Reviews
GMCD 7257 Kėngė - Albanian Piano Music
American Record Guide 04.04
These enjoyable collections are the
latest in a number of ethnic piano anthologies on CD. The Albanian program
presents music that is rarely if ever heard by Ibrahimi, Lara, Komino, Gjoni,
and other 20th Century composers. (There was apparently no earlier classical
Albanian piano music.) These tuneful, sometimes delightful pieces illustrate the
power of the creative spirit even under severe restrictions. According to
Kirsten Johnson, who plays this music with loving care and wrote the
authoritative notes, these composers were forbidden under the Communist regime
to study any music written after Stalin's (Prokofieffs) death; also outlawed was
the study of Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and all impressionist and dodecaphonic
music. So much for the 20th Century!
Don't expect innovation or even
conservative modernism, but do expect limpid melody, haunting modal harmony,
folkloric atmosphere, and rhythmic vitality. Johnson plays with nuance and color;
the recording is rich and resonant.
SUILLIVAN
Classics Today -Tuesday August 26 03
KĖNGE--ALBANIAN PIANO MUSIC
Various
composers and works
Kirsten Johnson (piano)
Guild- 7257(CD)
Reference Recording - This one
It's reasonable to
suspect that Western audiences--especially Americans--have little contact with
Albanian piano music. Pianist Kirsten Johnson has traveled to Albania to
research the repertoire, interviewing pianists, composers, and musicologists
along the way, and then performing this music in Albanian venues. Under Enver
Hoxha's communist regime (1944 through 1985), composers were forbidden to study
any music written after March 5, 1953 (the day both Stalin and Prokofiev died).
Any new piece had to be approved by the Albanian League of Artists and Writers
prior to public performance. Given such restrictions, it's not surprising how a
lot of this music draws upon Albania's folk heritage and is stylistically
accessible.
A triptych by Alberto
Paparisto includes a Song of Ancient Times (replete with tolling bass lines),
plus a modal Toccata. Neither it nor Arian Avrazi's Toccata quite matches the
sophistication and invention that Feim Ibrahimi displays in his own Toccata that
opens this disc with a bang. A suite of short pieces by Kozma Lara makes fewer
demands on both pianist and listener. Tonin Harapi's surface simplicity, though,
conceals a subtle and refined style that just might grow on you over repeated
listening. The same holds true for Pellumb Vorspi's Variations on a Popular
Theme and Ramadan Sokoli's Nocturne No. 2.
Song of Bravery, by
Simon Gjoni, creates a more ambivalent impression than the title implies in its
intentionally stilted syncopations and bleak textures. And an arrangement of the
popular song Nina-Nana by one J. Papadhimitri wouldn't be out of place among the
G. I. Gurdjieff/Thomas de Hartmann collaborations. I'm particularly taken with
the stark rhetoric, quirky harmonic language, and restrained passion of Ēesk
Zadeja's Four Pieces for Piano, which suggest a latter-day Janįcek.
Kirsten Johnson's loving
mastery of this music and skillful, nuanced pianism are a delight. What is more,
she's able to find just the right tempo, sound world, dynamic range, and
character that allows each piece to emerge as an individual entity, from her
exquisite legato in Zadeja's lyrical writing to the Ibrahimi Toccata's piquant
fingerwork. The engineering turns a bit strident in louder moments and picks up
too many pedal noises for my taste. Don't let that prevent you from hearing this
fascinating release. Does Johnson plan a sequel?
Jed Distler
TEMPO : A Quarterly
Review of Modern Music
Volume
57, July 2003
Cambridge University Press
Kenge. Albanian Piano Music by
IBRAHIMI, LARA, VORPSI, PADHIMITRI, KOMINO, PAPARISTO, GJONI, SOKOLI, ZADEJA,
HARAPI and AVRAZI. Kirsten Johnson (piano). Guild GMCD
7257.
I have to confess that I knew nothing of Albanian music until
I heard this disc and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. All the music
her dates from the 20th century and all of it shows profound folk influence, not
without good reason. This is hardly surprising when we learn that under Enver
Hoxha, whose regime lasted from 1944 to 1985, forbade the study of the music of
Shostakovich and Stravinsky; the 12-note serialists and the French
impressionists; and any music written after 5 March 1953 (the day Stalin died,
and also Prokoviev). All the music had to be approved by the League of Artists
and Writers before it could be performed and all of it had to be deemed
accessible to 'the people'. Composers could - and did - travel to other
countries to study including Soviet Russia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and
curiously Italy and France. However any new stylistic understanding could only
be incorporated into their work if it posed no threat to the state's ideas about
music, so folk material became the inevitable refuge. It was fortunate for
composers that they had such good folk material.
There are many works here that would make good encore pieces and some good music
for children to play; such as Nina-Nana by Papadhimitri. Kozma Lara (b.
1930), one of the most important of living Albanian composers, has written a
great deal of which his five pieces on this disc are charming. Not much Bartok
influence here but instead a strutting and ironic March in Soviet style.
Pellumb Vorpsi's (b.1957) Variations on a Popular Theme (1978) is the
most substantial virtuoso piece on the disc and contains stylistic references to
Schumann, Liszt, Chopinesque bravura and a habanera ( a reference to Cuba?) but
hardly a note that sounds as if it was written in the latter part of the 20th
century. There is evidence of French neo- classicism in Cesk Zadeja (1927-1997),
whose urbane Four Pieces had a distinctly Poulenc-esque atmosphere. The
French influence was also very apparent in the Satiesque Song of Ancient
Times of Alberto Paparisto (b.1925) that seems to owe something to French
interest in ancient Greek music at the beginning of the 20th century. Arian
Avrazi's brilliant Tokkata comprising bravura passage work with almost
Rachmaninoff-like chords was a highlight of the disc. All these are real
composers working the 'system', but despite much bravura and subtle melodies, I
was left feeling somehow unengaged. I think this may be attributed to the lack
of any sense of conflict and resolution in the harmony. But all these pieces are
superbly played by Kirsten Johnson and well recorded: this is a repertoire well
worth exploring.
Raymond Head
BBC Music Magazine June 2003
Albanian piano music by Ibrahimi, Lara, Vorpsi, Zadeja, Harapi, etc Kirsten
Johnson (piano) Guild GMCD 7257 73:04 mins
Of all the old Stalinist dictatorships, Albania has a reputation as the most
'backward'.
Enver Hoxha forbade study of any music written after 5 March 1953 (when Stalin
and Prokofiev both expired).
Unsurprisingly, the music on this disc sounds a couple of generations behind
itstimes. It tills a narrow plot, its boundaries defined by early Bartok,
Prokofiev, Khachaturian, constant reference to folk intonations and a mildly
exotic, 'oriental' melos.
The repertoire recycles percussive ostinato writing, children's songs and
dances, ballades, marches and folksong settings.
No strong individual personality is likely to emerge from such restrictions,
yetthis is a surprisingly enjoyable collection. Albania's composers turn out to
have been a capable and thoroughly musicianly lot who turned limitation to
advantage and worked within their narrow confines with skill and grace and
inventiveness.
Nothing here is epoch-making, but nor is anything clumsy or ineffective either.
The toccatas of Feim Ibrahimi and Arian Avrazi are invigorating works, much
elsehas charm or carries elegiac conviction, and the haunting and impressive
Four Piano Pieces of cesk Zadeja (1927-97), at least, introduce a composer I'd
like to hear more of. Kirsten Johnson, who has made an intensive study of
Albania's music over the past decade, expounds all this repertoire with manifest
sympathy and skill. An unexpected delight. BBC Music Magazine Direct call for
price
CD Review BBC Radio 3 of Wednesday 30 April 03 by Andrew McGregor
Nina-nana,
a lullaby from....Albania!
It's by J.
Papadhimitri, and it's an example of what happened to Albanian music under Enver
Hoxha's rule. Classical music was encouraged, but everything written after
Stalin's death was forbidden, so composers had to become creative with Albanian
folk music to get past the official censors. The pianist Kirsten Johnson has
spent years studying Albanian piano music, and she's gathered some of the fruits
of her knowledge onto this single disc. There's some really charming music here,
which you won't find anywhere else.
Kėngė - Albanian Piano Music,
new this month from Guild...and if that simple lullaby felt good, then don't
miss my Disc of the Week at 1135: a beautiful CD of lullabies from many
traditions and over five centuries, performed by Montserrat Figueras. You'll
hear an extended excerpt in just over two hours from now."
MusicWeb Wednesday April 30 03
Kėngė Albanian Piano Music
Feim IBRAHIMI (1935-1997)
Tokatė pėr piano (1963) [4:20]
Kozma LARA (b. 1930)
Kėngė [2:07]
March [1:58]
Ballade no. 4, Pastorale [4:10]
Valle: moderato [1:20]
Valle: allegro [2:01]
Pellumb VORPSI (b. 1957)
Variations for Piano (Ballad) on a Popular Theme (1978) [9:29]
J. PAPADHIMITRI
Nina-Nana (1983) [1:57]
A. KOMINO
Vallja e fatosave (Childrens Dance) (1983) [1:28]
Alberto PAPARISTO (b. 1925)
Ēiftelia (1967) [2:15]
Kėngė e lashte (Song of Ancient Times) (1964) [3:16]
Humoreska (1976) [2:17]
Simon GJONI (1926-1991)
Kėngė trimėrie (Song of Bravery) (1983) [2:17]
Ramadan SOKOLI (b. 1920)
Nocturne no. 2 [3:37]
Ēesk ZADEJA (1927-1997)
Four Pieces for Piano (1986, 1966, 1989, 1986)
Improvizim [2:38]
Humoreska [2:06]
Prelud [2:16]
Tokata [4:27]
Tonin HARAPI (1928-1992)
Romance in A b major [3:55]
Valle: andante con moto [1:21]
Nji dhimb je e vogėl (A Little Pain) [1:10]
Valle: allegro vivo [0:47]
Romanze in A minor [1:09]
Moll e kuqe top sheqere (A Candied Apple) [1:03]
Waltz on a Popular Theme [2:22]
Arian AVRAZI
Tokkata (1979) [5:20]
 Kirsten
Johnson (piano)
Rec. Exeter College, Oxford, 13-15 March 2002 DDD
GUILD
GMCD 7257 [64:47]
Kėngė
is the Albanian for 'song'. This gives the clue to this selection of pleasing
folk-accented solo piano pieces. Dissonance plays only a bit part here and
there. Otherwise the emphasis is on 'singing' melodic material sometimes with a
subtle Middle Eastern flavour. Before we become too superior about these
products of Enver Hoxha's regime (1944-1985) we should reflect on the strengths
of E.J. Moeran's solo piano music (well taken by Una Hunt on ASV), Peter Maxwell
Davies' Farewell to Stromness, Ronald Stevenson's folk pieces, the piano
music of Lionel Sainsbury, the phenomenal success of Gurdjieff and de Hartmann
and of Alan Hovhaness. These Albanian pieces were written under an oppressive
regime that forbade the study of music written after the deaths of Stalin and
Prokofiev (1953). Confinement to folk roots must not condemn this always
attractive and rarely anodyne material.
Ibrahimi's
Tokatė (1963) and Avrai's Tokkata (1979) are whirling Dervish
dances dusted with Bartókian dissonance - more in the Ibrahimi than in the
Avrazi. Dissonance is banished for Lara's gently rocking Kėngė (rather
Nyman-like I thought) and a delightful folksy Pastoral with that Eastern
tang. It is no surprise that Kenge comes from a suite called Joyful
Days. The Lara pieces are from the 1970s. Vorpsi's hypnotic Variations on
a Popular Theme (1978) is based on the folksong Why does the blackbird
sing? It is cut from the same cloth as the Lara pieces. Nina-Nana, a
gentle lullaby, again with that exotic eastern flavour (a touch of Borodin), is
by J. Papdhimitri. The glinting and smiling Children's Dance is by A
Komino. Alberto Paparisto's three pieces are by turns motoric (Ēiftelia
is a chicane ride evocative of the folk instrument of the same name),
dissonantly reflective and sardonic (the seas of Prokofiev being plied in
Humoreska). Gjoni's Song of Bravery is not your standard fare -
nothing of the stand and bawl about this. Instead we get a noble, sometimes
slightly dissonant and fiercely declamatory hymn-cortčge using the apparatus
provided by the Liszt piano sonata. The Dies Irae is woven into this
music. Sokoli's Nocturne has a quiet Beethovenian air about it - rising
from lament toward indomitable major key optimism. Zadeja's Four Pieces
from the 1980s are subdued (tr.15), Shostakovich-like in places (tr.16), starry
in the manner of Sisask (tr.17), idyllic and quietly nervous. Harapi's tranquil,
folk-like and Chopin-spirited Romance, Valle, Nji Dhimb,
Moll'e Kuqe and Romanze contrast with the spirited toccata-like
allegro vivo (tr. 22) and the nostalgic Waltz on a Popular Theme.
These Harapi pieces are from the period 1966 to 1987. They recall the sincere
pastiche piano solos of Valentin Silvestrov and the Schumann inflections of the
Swiss composer Richard Flury.
Without
denying its individuality this music will appeal to you if you have already
discovered and remained loyal to the Gurdjieff/Hartmann series on Auvidis Naive
or the Hovhaness piano discs on Koch.
This
folk-exotica is sympathetically played by Kirsten Johnson who also wrote the
excellent notes. I wonder if she is planning a second Albanian volume. If not
perhaps she and Guild might consider doing the same for the piano music of
Bulgaria and Rumania.
This disc
has the potential to become extremely popular. I hope that the likes of Classic
FM in the UK will do more than take note of it.
Rob Barnett
THE TIMES (LONDON) Tuesday March 25 03
Not all composers have
enjoyed Beethoven's freedom, especially those in totalitarian regimes. Consider
Kirsten Johnson's album Kenge, devoted to 20th-century Albanian piano music
(Guild GMCD 7257).
I know. I smiled at the
prospect too. Then I played the title track the word means song - and felt the
old stone heart softening at a rippling folk-song setting from the pen of Kozma
Lara. Simplicity of thought dominates. Time seems not so much to stand still as
to move in reverse - Tonin Harapi's Romance, published in 1987, belongs more to
1887. The explanation lies in another name: Enver Hoxha. Johnson's notes explain
that his communist regime instituted a cut-off point for the study of classical
music, March 5, 1953, the day Stalin died.
Atonality was forbidden, plus the renegade Russkies Shostakovich and Stravinsky.
Safety for composers lay in folk song, pedagogical trifles, or silence.
The
pieces by Cesk Zadeja have more substance and grit than most. Throughout the
disc you can feel a kinship with Bartok, though none of the music can survive
his competition, and in bulk its triviality fatigues. But I was glad to have a
door opened, and Johnson's performances, warmly recorded, offer their own
attractions.
Page revised 14 6 04
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