G. Catoire, Quatre Morceaux, Op. 12, No. 2, "Meditation"

[rachfan]

The Quatre Morceaux, Op. 12 of the Russian late romanticist Georgy Catoire was published in 1901.  Here I’ve posted No. 2, “Meditation”.  Usually when I think of  contemplative music, Massenet’s “Meditation on Thais” or perhaps Liszt’s “Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude” come to mind.  This piece is quite different, and certainly as original.  At times the figuration reminds me of Brahms, although Brahms is never cited as an influence on Catoire’s composing idiom.  There is a plethora of intricacies involved in the execution of this piece.  I hope you’ll enjoy it.
 
Piano: Baldwin Model L Artist Grand (6’3”) with lid raised on the singer prop.
Recorder: Korg MR-1000
Mics: Matched pair of Earthworks TC20 small diaphragm, omni-directional condenser mics in A-B configuration

Comments welcome!

[daniloperusina]

Very nice and enjoyable!
Beautiful opening phrase with that soft note and the ensuing crescendo!
I think the intricasies shine through well, and the way you handle the inner voices sounds nice and interesting, I'll have to listen again to hear more of what's going on there..
One thing that struck me is, do you use the left pedal? If not, you could perhaps consider adding more left-pedal colour (it's also that personally I'm a heavy user, so I kind of like that a lot! )
Nice! Thanks!
(and the piano is definitely much better in tune nowadays )

[rachfan]

Hi danilo,

Thanks so much for your favorable response.  I'm my own very worst critic, and every time I have to post a recording I cringe.    I was always far less concerned when playing before a live audience.  As you probably recall, I refuse to edit my recordings.  So you always hear a full "take" every time.  If my playing is nothing else, it's authentic.  If there are a couple of slips present (which there are), I believe that in the over musicality, they are not that important really.  I'm delighted that you enjoyed this music of Catoire!  He deserves most of the credit.

The piece begins with two 8th note rests.  I wanted that opening to be very atmospheric and to come out of nowhere.  So I paid much attention to it.  I did use the soft pedal three or four times, mostly for very quiet places to change the timbre there more. 

The piano was last tuned right after New Years.  It was tuned slightly sharp to counteract the cold winter here with its attendant low humidity.  (All pianos in this region go flat during winter.)  It seems to have worked.  I doubt that I'd push my luck in doing a March recording though.  At the end of March it'll be tuned again, but at A440 for the coming of spring and higher indoor relative humidity.  It sounds best at that pitch.

Thanks for listening!

[horowitzian]

Downloaded and listened....you'll find my preliminary review at Piano Society.

[daniloperusina]

Musical ideas, shapes, manipulation of tempo, and what else, matters! Slips don't! They won't destroy a great performance, nor will they detract anything from a poor rendition.
Also, I love what Arrau said in "Conversations with..", that in the '20s in Berlin slips were considered signs of genius. Faultless executions made the pianist automatically be suspected as cold and mechanical.
Sometimes, when you buy a top of the class studio recording by, say, Murray Perahia, it can be nice that the recording is edited, but that's a whole other thing, of course...

I'm glad you payed much attention to that opening, it surely payed off! It sounds just like you described it, as coming out of nowhere.
Well, your playing is more than authentic, it's kind of lush and rich in the middle voices, and that's nice to hear!

[rachfan]

Hi danilo,

I agree with you.  A small slip only adds excitement to the performance when one is playing with freedom.  Back in the 19th Century Anton Rubinstein nearly always had slips during a performance, but nonetheless he was always considered (along with Liszt) as one of the two greatest pianists of his time. These days audiences are used to hearing more the genius of the recording engineer and his software edits that sanitize the pianist's performance on CD into seeming perfection.  In fact, that pianist undoubtedly wishes he could actually play like that! As artists, I believe that through practice we do all we humanly can to play the perfect rendition.  But we can never attain perfection, only approach it. Horowitz used to say that if a artist could closely approach perfection just once in a lifetime, then that was a very fortunate person indeed.  He went on to say that a perfect performance would itself be an imperfection.  

I think the reason my playing these days is more rich in the middle voices is that I have tenosynovitis in the fifth finger of my right hand, which is supposed to do most of the voicing. So it's more difficult for me to etch a line now.  A couple of cortisone injections helped for awhile, but were not a permanent solution.  I know I should do the surgery, but the recouperation is more than a month, and I have too much repertoire I want to play without a significant interruption like that.  So I just carry on doing the best I can.  

[ted]

I think my conception of meditation is much more racy of the soil than Catoire's. There is also his overarching melancholy, which seems to make its presence felt one way or another in all the works you have presented here. This is probably why I am constantly reminded of Frank Bridge. There is a numinous presence hovering about which gives me the same sort of feeling as when I read a story by M.R. James. It isn't exactly concerning, it just belongs to the world of mystical experience. Nothing wrong with that, of course, indeed what else is the point of art but to capture and communicate subjective truth ?

I would like to know Catoire's precise creative process. I wonder if he carefully worked many pieces out over a long time, a little bit each day, or are they simply recalled, spontaneous improvisations pushed into notational moulds. In a sense I suppose it doesn't matter but I am always curious about these things because I write and improvise so much myself.

The more I hear of Catoire, the more it becomes apparent that his pieces are held together by successions of melodic phrases. They might not be of fixed, traditional type or proportion or in any particular register, and often they overlap, but they are there. In other words he doesn't just think in terms of a series of chords, however interesting. Some notes are always more important than others and the listener feels (or at least I do) that there exists a definite thread which the ear latches onto - a quiet little voice which is telling a story.

Over the period you have been playing Catoire for us, it seems to me that one reason you are getting so good at it is that you have learned to perceive this thread from what is background and state it in a way which sounds spontaneous. Having looked at the scores, I can see that this is not a straightforward exercise.

[rachfan]

Hi Ted,

Thanks so much for listening and kind comments.  

I agree with you on that overarching melancholy that so often imbues Catoire's music. In one way it's like Frank Bridge, although Bridge's seems to presage something untoward and lurking that cannot be seen.  With Catoire, I believe it's more an ultra-romantic feeling.  I would be willing to bet that during his youth, he became a man of the world rather quickly.  Further, I believe he suffered a great disappointment in love during that time.  I get the sense that the lush melancholy themes do not stem from passion in the moment, but rather from the vivid and intense nostalgia of a lost love perhaps.  That's the essence that I try to bring into my interpretations of his music.  I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think so.

It's hard to know the intensity of Catoire's composing efforts and the exact way he worked. As for the piano works, for some we do know the year they were written, for others only an approximate year, and still for others, only the year of publication, this Op. 12 for example. And between these piano works he was also composing in other genres--concertos, chamber works, sonatas, music for voice, etc.  Where he was teaching composition at the Moscow Conservatory, I would assume too that he was bifurcating his efforts and time between his teaching responsibilities and composing.  Had the music circles in Moscow and the Soviets treated him more kindly so that his works could have become far better known, that fame would have resulted in accounts, letters, interviews, a biography, published recollections of his students, etc. giving us a better window into his life, habits and times.  Unfortunately, we can only speculate on these things.  But in a way, it makes him all the more fascinating as a composer.

I agree about that melodic thread you mention.  It's often impressionist or expressionistic.  It's strange because in the moment the thread exudes such a ravishing beauty.  But some have remarked that although they love his music, they can never quite remember the melody--it's fleeting, or ephemeral.  I understand that, as whenever I open a score to practice this music, it's as if I'm seeing it for the first time, every time!  But there is a wonderful consequence of that.  People, because they cannot remember it, play it many times!  For that reason, Catoire's pieces are never stale to the listener.  This quality of his music is mysterious indeed, yet forever enchanting.

And you're right again.  When I'm starting a new Catoire piece, I alway sit away from the piano and examine the score at length, analyzing it in detail, annotating it, etc.  And after that study, once I get to the piano I'm astounded at how little I know about the music! And its surprises don't jump off the pages, but rather must be discovered in the playing over time. Thus, practicing Catoire requires a lot of patience so that he can reveal the secrets of his music.  If I play Rachmaninoff, or Debussy, or Chopin, things are far more readily apparent. Catoire is more complex and deep in his ways.

I have to say, I've never encountered a composer quite like this before.

[goldentone]

Hi Rachfan,

This is a difficult piece to get a handle on, but I do like it.  You can't accuse Catoire of being dull.  The section beginning at 1:00 to about 1:15 I savor, as it reminds me of Barber's Interlude No. 1.  The paltry Gershwinesque ending mystifies me too.  It almost desanctifies the piece and repudiates it, but I feel it reveals something, as with a wave of the hand he says, "But this was only a dream."  You play it beautifully and sensitively.  Great work!

[emill]

we, ordinary mortals know and feel when we are listening to something
really nice and NICELY played.....  thanks!!

[rachfan]

Hi emill,

Thanks!  I really appreciate that praise and am happy that you enjoyed this piece so much.  Of course, everything is relative.  Although I'm a serious pianist, nevertheless I'm an amateur, so I'm definitely a mortal too.  I just do the best I can in playing the piano.  It brings me a lot of joy these days to be presenting the music of Catoire in this forum.  He was a wonderful and very original composer.

Thanks for listening!

David

[rachfan]

Hi goldentone,

At first I was put off by the last measure too.  In the score (in 6/8 time), you have a broken chord on the downbeat with rests filling out the rest of the measure.  There is that rule, of course, that one is not supposed to pedal through rests, although there are exceptions.  As you know, I more often than not do prefer a prolonged fade-out of a coda if possible.  So out of curiosity I put on the CD to see how Marc Hamelin plays it.  His last chord was even briefer than mine!  So I decided to respect the notation of the score rather than take a large liberty with it.  As I continued to think about it, it made more sense to me.  Here you have this meditation with its reflections, revelations and inspirations, and in the end I believe that Catoire wanted it all to disappear suddenly in one sparkling instant--like "poof".  So now when I listen to my playing there, it sounds more natural to me than it did at first.

I'll have to listen to that Barber piece, as I haven't heard if for a very long time.

Thanks for your kind words on my playing.