For even more Bach reviews, check out the Inkvault!
HenryCOWELL
(1897-1965)
American Piano Concertos
STEFAN LITWIN, Piano
Radio Symphony Orchestra
Saarbrücken
Michael Stern (Conductor)
Col Legno 20064 /
Full-price / TT: 73’48”
by
Chang Tou Liang
There are probably good reasons why American
Idol’s Simon Cowell is a household name instead of his namesake, the
American icon Henry Cowell. Henry Cowell (1897-1965) is often
perceived to be a “one-trick pony”, whose sole claim to fame was the
use of tone clusters (a term of his own creation) in his
compositions. Well, his other claim to fame, or infamy as it turned
out, is Jacksonian (Michael) in nature, but that is another story.
What are tone clusters? Just go to any house
party with young kids, open the keyboard lid of any piano and wait.
Soon tone clusters – those splashes of sounds created when a
keyboard is pounded with open palms, fists and forearms – will fill
the room. Many modern composers employ this technique, but Henry
Cowell was the first. Even the great Bela Bartok applied to Cowell
for permission to use tone clusters in his piano pieces (most
notably in Out of Doors). While Bartok, Charles Ives, Bright
Sheng et al used tone clusters sparingly and strategically
for special effect in their works, these are the mainstay of
Cowell’s output, almost the raison d’etre of his existence.
John Cage has been referred to as “an
inventor of genius”. The same could be said of Henry Cowell. Besides
tone clusters, Cowell was also responsible for starting the trend of
playing on the piano strings directly, a technique that John Cage
and George Crumb would later famously lay claim upon. He also
collected folk music of his ancestral homeland Ireland (like Percy
Grainger), studied Celtic folklore, and was one of the first Western
composers to embrace Oriental music, thus predating the likes of
Alan Hovhaness, Lou Harrison and Colin McPhee. So what do we have?
Keyboard music of a tonal nature employing exotic modes and scales,
with percussive effects and the ubiquitous tone clusters. (above: Henry Cowell)
I have a disc of Cowell playing his own piano music (on Smithsonian
Folkways) – fascinating stuff, but it only gets heard once in about
eight years. And why is that? There is so much one can do with tone
clusters, and the law of diminishing returns catches up almost as
soon as the ear recovers and gets accustomed to the stark and
in-your-face dissonances.
This CD release is optimistically titled
American Piano Concertos. One would expect contributions from
Copland, Barber, Ginastera, just to name a few examples that would
fit on a disc. What one gets instead are three works of Henry Cowell
for piano and orchestra, of which only two are bona fide
piano concertos, a Sinfonietta for chamber orchestra and some
solo piano music.
Try the solo music first. The Tides of
Manaunaun, the first piece in Three Legends (1922) is one
of Cowell’s best-known pieces - a plaintive ethnic melody
accompanied by large left hand chords - and a fair representative of
his output. Irish Jig (Allegro rubato) mixes
chromaticism and clusters with wild abandon into a 3/8 dance rhythm,
while Domnu, the Mother of Waters follows on the folkloric
mysticism of Tides.
Cowell orchestrated some of his piano pieces and the result is
Four Irish Tales (1940) for piano and orchestra. The Tides of
Manaunaun now enjoys a lush orchestral backing, rendering it
totally suitable as a soundtrack for a Lord of the Rings type
epic movie. The Harp of Life is similar to Tides but
twice as long, and has more broken chords and clusters. The Lilt
of the Reel, closes with a more tuneful and less chromatic
version of the Irish Jig. This concertante work serves as an
obvious entry point into Henry Cowell’s musical landscape.
Of the two formal concertos, the shorter and
folksy Concerto Piccolo (1941, arr.1945) is the more readily
accessible. The lovely slow movement dispenses with clusters
altogether; the piano plays broken chords accompanying a typically
Irish elegiac melody which Sir James Galway would have been proud to
be associated with. Clusters litter the outer movements but do
little more than spice up its melodic content and dance rhythms.
This is a curiosity that quite successfully combines dissonance and
melody.
(above: pianist Stefan Litwin)
The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
(1928) – the mother of all tone cluster concertos - is made of much
sterner stuff and should be left to the very end. The first movement
Polyharmony is a toccata of seemingly unending cluster
cascades. The slow movement Tone Cluster piles on more of the
same while the finale Counter Rhythm is a race between piano
and orchestral tone clusters.
The whole work lasts a concentrated but
grating 16 minutes, and pretty much exhausts what clusters can ever
hope achieve, besides rapidly outlasting its welcome. I’ll have to
hear this again in eight years to see if my opinion changes… Better
make that sixteen.
Pianist Stefan Litwin, well known for his interpretations of 20th
century music, deserves kudos for his ardent and full-blooded (how
else could this unusual recording otherwise be achieved?) advocacy
of this music. Despite the quirkiness and unevenness, Henry Cowell’s
music has its own rewards but ultimately remains a curious footnote
in musical history.
Given a
choice, TOU LIANG would prefer to be a Simon Cowell instead of Henry Cowell. He thinks
that bad singers have greater entertainment value than tone
clusters.
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John Cage has been referred to as “an
inventor of genius”. The same could be said of Henry Cowell. Besides
tone clusters, Cowell was also responsible for starting the trend of
playing on the piano strings directly, a technique that John Cage
and George Crumb would later famously lay claim upon. He also
collected folk music of his ancestral homeland Ireland (like Percy
Grainger), studied Celtic folklore, and was one of the first Western
composers to embrace Oriental music, thus predating the likes of
Alan Hovhaness, Lou Harrison and Colin McPhee. So what do we have?
Keyboard music of a tonal nature employing exotic modes and scales,
with percussive effects and the ubiquitous tone clusters. 
Cowell orchestrated some of his piano pieces and the result is
Four Irish Tales (1940) for piano and orchestra. The Tides of
Manaunaun now enjoys a lush orchestral backing, rendering it
totally suitable as a soundtrack for a Lord of the Rings type
epic movie. The Harp of Life is similar to Tides but
twice as long, and has more broken chords and clusters. The Lilt
of the Reel, closes with a more tuneful and less chromatic
version of the Irish Jig. This concertante work serves as an
obvious entry point into Henry Cowell’s musical landscape.