This is a fabulous addition to the Florence Price discography.
In his video, Fanny Clamagiraud introduces th poject along with some footage often recording sessions:
The First Violin Concerto as a first movement here is, as the excellent booklet notes vey Douglas Shadle of Vanderbilt University point out, as long as the two other movements. It is “sprawling, ” too, but at the same time not rambling. The parallel he makes between Price’s piece and Barber’s Violin Concerto hold, too: both celibrate a “Consevative Modernism”.
Fanny Clamagirand has released a sequence of recordings of Saint-Saëns for Naxos, critically well-received. And one can hear why: thee is virtuosity here in abundance (the cadenzas are electric, and the score is strewn with them). Price’s incorporation of folk melody alongside an episodic, violin-led structure is fascinating. Listen out, too, for parallels with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto first movement (blatantly a an ascending scale leading into a melodic statement):
The slow movement is lovely; I is luscious, but this performances greatest strength is that it doesn’t wallow in that gorgeousness, allowing the music to emerge more as a stream-of-consciousness:
The finale is gentle; but with aspects of a gentle perpetuum mobile for the soloist a bumble bee with no sting, perhaps. There is an inner radiance to the music, too: all credit to Clamagiraud and conductor John Jeter (who is with Clamagiaud like a limpet) here. A fine performance of a fabulous work.
While the First Concerto was tradionalist in musical language if not form, the Second is more pungent harmonically; it is also cast in one movement (of 13 tempo-differentiated sections!). The piece was premiered posthumously (just a ew short months after Price’s death). After only a handful of further performances, the score ‘slept’ in what was Price’s summer home until 2009!
The sections are clearly differentiated, and there is drama as well as lyricism here. Jeter is again perfectly with Clamagiraud when it comes to the opening of the short cadenza (about six minutes in). While the overall mood is strained, there are marked contrasts. Look at around 9″40, to effect this move, Price moves to extraordinary inner planes before the orchestra dismisses them with a marked riding forwards. Moods change on a sixpence, and the piece is all the better for it.
The Piano Concerto in One Movement in D-Minor has some significant competition: the recording on Albany by Dunner and the New Black Repertoire Ensemble; there’s also the New York Youth Symphony and Michelle Cann on Avie. In live performance news, I was absolutely knocked out by Janeba Kannel-Mason’s performance at the Proms in 2021 with Chinese! under Kalena Bovell.
The piece is in three well-defined sections, each with a brief pause in between (which in th Proms performance sadly invited applause). We are told the editors of his edition are Nick Greer and Clavis Lark. The is an expansiveness to his performance I like: the arrival of the big tune about three and a half minutes into the opening Andante is perfectly judged here, a moment of Rachmaninov-like expansionists (bu shorn of seniotnality).
Han Chen is a fine player. Born in Taiwan, Chen won the China International Piano Competition. His repertoire is wide: discs of music by Ligeti (the Etudes), Anton Rubinstein (the piano sonatas) and Louis Karchin (born 1951) have received positive critical attention, deservedly. His playing in the Price is superb: he negotiates the torrents of notes with ease, but when it comes to the simplicity of the Adagio cantabile and its Gershwin overtones, he is just as convincing. There is a real sense of grandeur as the music expands, but when the music cedes into itself, the effect is just as impactful. When it comes to the finale, Price puts her fun hat on. The dace is based on a juba; it’s toe-tapping and really quite outrageous. here’s something of a party going on with the Malmö Orchesta here. This is that finale: enjoy!
The three Dances in the Canebrakes ; this is a skilful orchestration by William Grant Still (1895-1978) of a piano piece: to hear the original, William Chapman’ Nyaho’s account on his MSR Classical disc Asa is the one to go for. Still’s orchestration is wonderful, the “Nimble Feet” fast movements full of life. If I find the Chicago Sinfonietta a bit slinkier in “Tropical Noon” (Çedille; the conductor is Mei-Ann Chen), this remains colourful. The final “Silk Hat and Walking Case” is a fine mix of orchestral discipline and good old cakewalking fun.
Tropical Noon
II: Silk Hat and Walking Cane
The Recording Producer of the whole enterprise is Sean Lewis, trained via the Tonmeister degree at the University of Surrey; the sound is excellent.
The disc is available at Amazon here; Asa is here (at around £20; it doesn’t appear to be streamamble, so is potentially deleted, hence the price), Streaming of both Naxos and Çedille releases below.
