Holzman pairs music of Ricci and Schönberg on new CD

Giorgio Koukl | 18 OCT 2021

Juxtaposing the music of James Ricci and Arnold Schönberg, while understandably quite stylistically appropriate and musically intriguing, is at the same time a little reductive. Declaring himself as a modernist composer, Mr. Ricci at least deserves comparison to many other composers of the period of modernism, like Arthur Louriè, the silver age composers of Leningrad, Viktor Ullman, and many others.

Everybody certainly has the right to write in the style he feels is the most adequate to express himself, but in other forms of art, this is politely called d’apres. So if we had one Caravaggio, who created an entirely new painting style, we then had the scuola Caravaggesca, with hundreds of painters copying this style until rendering it pale and insignificant.

There is a risk of using a twelve-tone, dodecaphonic technique nearly one hundred years after its invention — a way of composing largely abandoned by today’s composers.

Still, this music has a charm of its own because what was once called “modernist” is today perceived as extremely “old school,” and maybe through this acquires a flair in itself.

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The lucky combination of finding in Mr. Holzman an ideal interpreter who can deliver these steel-like cascades of cold notes, wholly deprived of any sentiment or romantic expressiveness, mixed with the fantastic work of the sound engineers, is a winning one.

This disc seems to be recorded in two different locations in three sessions and with two different sound engineers.

Typically, such a product pays a high price in sound quality and significant difference in the sonic landscape.

Not so this time. Despite years of difference between the takes, there is virtually no gap in sound quality and concept. For this reason, I would like to express a big laudatio to anybody involved in this production.

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As I suppose the pianos were different in single sessions, I have to admire the technical background that contributed to this CD’s high quality once again. Unfortunately, there is no mention in the booklet of the instruments used, not to speak the person who tuned and prepared them — data that, today, should never be missing from a solo piano recording.

The slightly dry but equilibrated piano sound is excellent for the music played. The technique of Mr. Holzman is extremely steel-like, even if not always clean. Probably this is a choice because today, correcting a glitch is a matter of minutes.

Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951) wrote his Five Pieces for Piano, Op. 23 in the first phase of dodecaphonic experimentation 1920-23. Despite never being a pianist himself, he liked developing his new ideas using piano solo. Well-known is his phrase: “while writing for piano, we always have to keep in mind that even the best pianist has only two hands… so keeping the score light, with not so many notes, is the best way to proceed.“

In reality, most of Schönberg’s scores for piano, while being a nightmare in rhythmical complexities, are never technically challenging.

The rendering of Mr. Holzman is mostly a traditional one, with the bright array of dynamics being the only notable detail. This 12 minutes work with five movements (“Sehr langsam,“ “Sehr rasch,“ “Langsam,“ “Schwungvoll,“ “Walzer“) alternates slow movements with rather energetic parts.

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The other nine works are written by Mr. Ricci and have a very similar way of procedure as Schönberg’s oeuvre. It is challenging to analyze the single compositions, which are very similar to another, with two exceptions.

Track 10, Waltz, which follows the Schönberg similarly named work, has a certain ironic quality and is certainly much different from the rest of the CD.

Track 14, Boogie Woogie, is a nice example of a jazzy, tongue-in-cheek dodecaphonic dance piece, forming a pleasant ending for this CD.

While it is clear that this music will remain of interest only for a narrow group of listeners, it is anyway a good presentation for the musical capacities of both pianist and composer. ■

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