After those first two days of trying to play and post everything that the Sibley library scanned, they really let loose with a whole week’s worth of heavy posting – piano concerti, sonatas, heavy, time-consuming stuff. And I had other stuff to do. So forget that.
But I did end up making one more midi, and so I’m posting it. It’s a full-fledged piano quintet! Of course, I had to start and stop to play the various instruments, and to get things to line up, and to play this nasty, Brahmsian piano part, but don’t let all that fool you – this is still a devil-may-care mistake-ridden rough-through of a piece that I didn’t know. You’ll notice that my tempi are often significantly too fast the first time through a section. On the repeats I usually learn my lesson.
Obviously, all that (plus the fact that midi violins invariably sound absolutely godawful) doesn’t exactly make for much listening satisfaction, but in this case, more than with the previous entries, I actually think these files are legitimately interesting. This is an extremely rare score, never reprinted, of a piece that seems never to have been recorded and, for all I know, has not been performed for 100 years, by a fairly forgotten composer whom I had never heard of before Sibley started scanning his chamber music. And it’s a pretty damn good piece! I certainly got a kick out of it.
Paul Juon (1872-1940)
Quintett für Violine, 2 Bratschen, Violoncello und Klavier, Op.33 (1906)
I. Moderato quasi andante (14:29) · II. Molto adagio (6:42) · III. Quasi Valse (6:54) · IV. Allegro non troppo (6:59)
The piece is one of those sturdy, vigorous Late Romantic sonata-form affairs, and this sort of conservative craftsmanship always pleases me when it’s well-executed. The piece reminds me a great deal of Medtner – one of my favorites – not only in its “Russian Brahms” forms and textures, but also just in its unpretentious conviction; you get the sense that Juon knows exactly what he wants to do and how to do it. It’s the opposite of the Rebikov from the other day, which was more invention than art; there’s no experimentation here, even when the chromatic coloring becomes more “advanced.” Juon is in command of his technique and is working within it.
At some point in the past several years, I realized how much more satisfying I find art made this way – as craftsmanship and taste exercised within standard boundaries. Exploration and innovation is an important part of art, too. But art that accepts a set of terms because they offer promising potential rather than because they are interesting in themselves, and then doesn’t question them – basically, “old-fashioned” art – always leaves me feeling like I’ve encountered something done right, and I genuinely miss that feeling with art that tries to blur or erase the idea of “right,” no matter how intriguing it may manage to be. This is a much much more complicated issue, waiting for the day when I finally talk about the wildly heartfelt anti-modern manifesto I picked up in a bookstore last year, written in the 20s by an aging sculptor of kitschy Romantic monuments, bemoaning the confused mess of pretension and perversity that has killed off the natural meaning of “art.” The upsetting thing is that I think he has a point.
Anyway, there are lots of conservative pieces from the turn of the century in a similar style, but where most of them bore me, this one pleased me because it has flair and drama and a smart, sympathetic sense of what’s interesting. That right there puts it above and beyond your average forgettable Romantic-era chamber work. There’s something broad and clear-headed about the grand Romantic gestures here that puts me in mind of theater or movie music, in a good way, such that even when it’s dripping with dated sentiment, I’m happy to luxuriate in the wholesome old-fashionedness – like watching a charming black-and-white movie; somehow I’m able to genuinely enjoy the content and savor the datedness at the same time.
The first movement has a (to me) thrillingly shameless dark main theme and the whole structure plays out with satisfying strictness. It’s “motivically unified” by that descending 6-note figure, which is a scheme just simple enough to be actually audible. The second movement manages to be both nostalgic-sentimental in a sepia-tinted way and, also, truly unpredictable and odd in its harmonic choices; the overall emotional atmosphere is not what it seems at first. The third movement is a comic waltz-parody thing, with a truly unexpected trio that sounds like it might be a Russian work song. It should maybe all be slower than I played it. The effect is strangely, mysteriously dark, in that indirect “literary” way that I associate with Mahler. The fourth movement is supposed to be one of those energetic folk-tune finales but it gets completely distracted by an outlandishly lavish “love theme” that proceeds to writhe around chromatically in a 1906-ish way. This is my least favorite movement, but by this point I’ve been won over, and the coda makes amends by acknowledging the best parts of the previous movements.
The whole thing has that lovely effect that good classical music can have, of implying vaguely that there is a secret emotional life veiled behind the surface. This is to say that the overall implication of the piece is, to me, darker and more thoughtful than anything that actually happens in it. I think that’s just what good craftsmanship earns you. So maybe the piece isn’t actually the most edifying or brilliant thing out there; so maybe Brahms is more humane and profound, and maybe Medtner’s very similar works are more ambitious and tighter-built. But: it’s all so satisfying and respectable and professional! The existence of music like this, forgotten, unexceptional and also good and well-made, reminds me how high our standards, as audience, ought to be.
I also think this German construction / Russian materials thing just works particularly well for me. Does anyone have any other comparable composers to recommend?