Gorgeous Romantic Piano Music using Baroque Dance Forms
J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 02/12/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Occasionally one hears unfamiliar music and immediately falls in love with it. That has been my experience with these eleven piano pieces by a Ukrainian composer I'd never even heard of before, Viktor Stepanovych Kosenko (1896-1938). If it weren't for the adventuresome spirit of Toccata Classics' guiding light, Martin Anderson, I certainly never would have come across this music which has been in my player almost constantly since I got this CD a week or so ago. This has so often been the case for me with Toccata Classics releases that I've recently joined their 'Toccata Discovery Club'. One can explore and hear mp3 excerpts of all the tracks on the label's CDs at www.toccataclassics.com. The label specializes in worthy music not otherwise available on disc.
Kosenko was himself a virtuoso pianist who began composing early in life. His 'Eleven Etudes in the Form of Old Dances, Op. 19', written in the late 1920s, is a collection of pieces using the dance forms familiar to us from the baroque -- gavotte, allemande, minuet, courante, sarabande, bourrée etc. They flow so nicely that one could think that they are predictable, but indeed none of them is; there are surprises, lovely ones, in every one of the études. Although they sound technically only moderately advanced, on closer listening one hears that they are not; they truly are studies that would pay the ambitious pianist's attention. They are unfailingly melodious, often with what we are told are Ukrainian folk-like melodies, sometimes making use of modal scales. The harmonic language is, for the most part, familiar from such composers as Tchaikovsky or early Scriabin, but occasionally one runs into jazz-inflected or impressionist harmonies, or Bach/Busoni baroqueries. Somehow this all fits together and sounds inevitable and 'right'.
There is not space here to describe all eleven études. Some highlights: No. 1, a gavotte, is perky, sassy, and has a particularly gorgeous set of melodies. No. 6, a bourrée in A major, is virtually a two-part invention with parallel or contrary motion in both hands, and with a folk-tinged middle section in the corresponding minor key. No. 10, a passacaglia, is the longest étude, lasting over eighteen minutes. It consists of an eight-bar ground bass followed by thirty-eight variations and a coda. This étude sounds both Bachian and Tchaikovskian. It features a dizzying array of technical challenges including trills, octaves, dynamic contrasts, challenging pedaling and variations in touch and rhythm. An impressive work. The set concludes with hyperlegato presto gigue in sonata form, a virtual perpetuum mobile.
Natalya Shkoda, the marvelous pianist on this disc, is herself a Ukrainian currently living in Texas. She makes a convincing advocate for this wonderful music. We are told this is 'Volume 1' of Kosenko's piano music and I for one am eager to hear more.
Scott Morrison"
Track Listings (11) - Disc #1