DSCH CD Review - Twenty-four Preludes & Fugues, opus 87

DSCH Journal

DSCH CD Review

Twenty-four Preludes & Fugues, opus 87.
David Jalbert (piano).
ATMA Classique ACD22555. 2-CD Set TT 147:03.
Recorded at Salle Françoys Bernier, Domaine Forget, Saint-Irénée, Quebec, August and September 2007.

Kori Bond (piano).
Centaur CRC 2896/2897. 2-CD Set TT 143:47.
Recorded at Goranson Hall, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho, 4–6 September 2004 and 5–10 June 2006.

Two recent recordings of the complete set of Shostakovich’s Twenty-four Preludes & Fugues make valuable additions to a sparsely populated portion of the catalogue. Canadian David Jalbert and American Kori Bond, fairly new faces on the concert and recording scenes, each give cause to celebrate the diversity of interpretation that this monumental cycle invites.

Jalbert is an up and coming musical figure in the United States and Canada, where he concertises regularly. His recording debut in 2002 was followed in 2004 by his highly acclaimed first solo disc, dedicated to the works of John Corigliano and Frederic Rzewski. That was followed with equal success in 2006 by a recording of the complete Nocturnes of Gabriel Fauré. He is a pianist who is clearly inspired by challenges. It turns out that since he was a teenager he has been fascinated with Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues.

Kori Bond has been a member of the music faculty at Idaho State University since 1999. She also enjoys an active concert career, mainly in the mid-Western region of the United States. In December 2006, in celebration of the Shostakovich centenary, she gave a recital of the Twenty-four Preludes and Fugues over the course of two nights in Salt Lake City. It was perhaps the first time the complete cycle has been performed publicly, at least in America, since the death of Tatyana Nikolaeva in 1993.

Jalbert and Bond offer intelligent, sensitive, highly individual performances, though with very different points of view. Bond’s preferred rendering of the work (so she has said), by Konstantin Scherbakov (Naxos 8.55475-6; reviewed in DSCH No. 15), is an unlikely choice, given the contrast between the latter’s impersonal if technically fluent reading and Bond’s engagingly vital one. Jalbert’s crisp rhythms and pristine touch place him in the contemporary camp of interpretation, in contrast to Bond’s Romantic vision of the work with her more rubato-inflected lyricism. Their differences are already evident in the toccata-like Prelude 2, whose scurrying runs fly with exhilarating pinpoint precision in Jalbert’s hands, whereas, in Bond’s they invoke a dreamy fantasia with the help of the sustaining pedal. In Fugue 6, Jalbert’s tempo is tight, determined and gracefully prancing. Bond’s is significantly slower – compare her 5:15 to his 4:21. Nonetheless, she exhibits particularly fine voicing in a more textured reading of the peaks and troughs. In the rat-tat-tat reverberations of Fugue 5, Jalbert finds poetry in a firmly moored tempo, in contrast to the phrase-savouring approach of Bond.

Bond turns a musical phrase exceptionally well, shedding new light on the process. She gives a wonderfully heartfelt reading of Fugue 1, where each statement of the main idea unfolds as if it were a fresh discovery. Jalbert, on the other hand, does something quite different here. He is not a pianist who usually pursues extremes. Yet in Fugue 1, his timing is an astonishing 5:10, more than twice that of Bond, and by far the slowest on record. In this thoroughly probing reading he manages to hold the line and build, in a manner we’ve never heard before, a mighty fortress of a fugue.

Otherwise it is Jalbert’s rhythmic propulsion and tactile finesse that gives his pianism its charisma. His cascading arpeggiations in Fugue 7 sparkle with steely fluency, while Bond’s Mendelssohnian evocation of forest nymphs takes us into more sensuously articulated territory. Jalbert captures more of the whimsy in the twinkling grace notes of Prelude 8, and more of the impish pluck of the Prokofievan Prelude 19.
In Fugue 8, a notable point of comparison, Jalbert takes an assertive tack and turns the obsessive anapaests of the main idea into rhythmic bullets. In a less monolithic, more textured reading, Bond once again embraces individual phrases and plumbs the music’s depths with purpose and feeling.

Bond’s regard for lyrical detail yields dividends in most but not all the numbers. She pries apart the infamous thickets of Fugue 15 with uncommon clarity, yet doesn’t quite capture the broad sweep of the piece. Jalbert’s brilliant execution forms one of the highlights of his traversal.

Bond initiates the obstinate procession of parallel octaves in Prelude 3 in a manner that at first seems too shy, especially for these imperiously defiant Musorgskian tones. Unlike the uniformly assertive Jalbert, she escalates to thunderous crests in an inspired reading that is nothing less than revelatory. In the parallel octaves that begin the austere Prelude 12, we find a curious reversal of these roles. Here it is Jalbert who starts low-keyed and who amplifies as the piece progresses.
In the final entry, Jalbert carries the ruminative weight of Prelude 24 and the opening bars of the accompanying Fugue with Elgarian dignity and restraint. At the accelerando marking he shifts into high gear, dramatically so. With barely held back excitement he brings the cycle to a thrilling catch-your-breath conclusion. Bond’s interpretation again differs significantly. In the Prelude and early part of the Fugue her tone is more valedictory, her pace more measured. There is more continuity across the accelerando juncture. And yet her ascent to the final peroration conveys a titanic sense of struggle, her rubati generating waves of determination, yielding a finale of hard won victory. Both pianists bring the cycle to a majestic conclusion.

Recordings of the complete set of Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues are few and far between. Two exceptional performances arriving within days of each other makes us very lucky indeed. Both are strongly recommended.

Louis Blois
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