Eugen D'Albert - Piano Concertos 1 & 2; Overture: Esther

Eugen D'ALBERT (1864-1932)

Overture : Esther

Piano Concerto No.1 in B Mainor Op.2

Piano Concerto No.2 In E Major Op.12

Joseph Banowetz (Piano)

Moscow Symphony Orchestra

Dimitry Yablonsky 

D'Albert's Piano Concerto in A minor, heard during Richter's London season on 1881, has not survived. The Piano Concerto No.1 in B minor, Opus 2, appeared three years later, with a dedication to Franz Liszt, whose innovations of thematic metamorphosis and cyclic form appealed powerfully to d'Albert. Early critics noted an understandable predisposition towards virtuosity, but, while d'Albert intended the work as a vehicle for his own bravura technique, the concerto displays remarkable creative refinement. Cast in cyclic bi-partite form, the work revolves around a poignantly reflective slow movement, a second episode, marked Langsam, mit Empfindung (Slow, with feeling), framed by substantial episodes built around the concerto's elegiac opening section. Both are developed fully, the solo part incorporating an armoury of virtuoso devices in the Lisztian manner. An ingenious fugal cadenza follows the repetition of the first episode, leading to a dazzling Scherzo in 6/8 time, in which the sombre opening motif of the concerto is subject to a Lisztian metamorphosis, emerging in brilliant primary colours. The work ends, fittingly, with spectacular and emphatic brilliance.

Eugen d' Albert's Piano Concerto No.2 in E major, Opus 12, is, by contrast, the work of a mature and accompli shed composer, now able to achieve a judicious balance between form and content, without compromising virtuoso interests. Written in 1893, the concerto is contemporaneous with the earliest of d'Albert's operas, Der Rubin (The Ruby). That it met with limited success suggests the composer's waning interest in a form to which he never returned. Again in freely adapted cyclic form, the work is more concise than its predecessor; three principal sections are again discernible within the overall structure, with a scherzo episode, marked Sehr lebhaft (very lively), between the slow movement and the finale. Whereas the first of the two concertos begins introspectively, in the second a robust, declamatory mood is instantly proclaimed. The opening section, marked Maßig bewegt (moderato) features an expansive heroic motif, rich in pianistic possibilities. The development, with interjections from the solo cello and dialogues between soloist and wind instruments of almost Straussian radiance, affords effective contrast. The slow movement begins with a lengthy solo passage for the piano, the principal idea being taken up by the strings. A brief section interpolated before the finale, with its expected transformation of the first episode in altered metre, crotchet to dotted crotchet, fulfils the rôle of a scherzo. The mercurial piano figurations and delicate woodwind writing impart a mood of puckish, Mendelssohnian lightness, in anticipation of the triumphant finale.

The concerto ends with the customary grandiloquence expected of virtuoso concertos of the period.

D'Albert's overture to Grillparzer's Esther was completed in 1888, testimony to the composer's skill as an orchestrator. This elegantly descriptive work, a symphonic poem in all but name, also betrays indebtedness to both Wagner and Liszt. Strong, authoritatively sculpted themes and assured but never bombastic orchestration reveal it as more than just the sum of combined influences. Like his piano concertos, his superb Cello Concerto in C major and many other neglected works, this fine overture suggests that widespread re-appraisal of Eugen d'Albert's music is now long overdue.