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Seascapes / Janice Weber

Smetana / Weber,Janice Release Date: 04/28/2015
Label: Sono Luminus Catalog #: 92188
Composer:  Bedrich Smetana ,  Sergei Bortkiewicz ,  Eugene Guillaume ,  Alec Rowley  ...  Performer:  Janice Weber Number of Discs: 1
Length: 1 Hours 16 Mins.


The previous Sono Luminus release by the brilliant and (to my mind) underrated pianist Janice Weber mixed and matched familiar, rare, and unlikely piano pieces inspired by roses. She follows up with Seascapes, a collection of works by 14 composers that draw inspiration from–you guessed it–the sea. Unless you spend time in the piano repertoire’s obscure corners, you are not likely to have heard any of this music before.

Face it, only a handful of pianists have tackled (or even know about) Smetana’s tumultuous, arpeggio-ridden concert etude Am Seegestade (On the Seashore). It’s a real attention grabber, especially in Weber’s scintillating, red-blooded performance. The upbeat Read more extroversion of Sergei Bortkiewicz’s Caprices de la mer may not conjure images of a rocky coast and big waves, yet its glittering passagework represents salon music at its best. The all-but-unknown Eugène Guillaume’s three-movement suite At the Sea features tasteful impressionist touches and genuine polyphonic keyboard mastery. Alec Rowley’s Moonlight at Sea is a nocturne that shimmers with the kind of chromatic harmonic language favored by composers like Bax, Scott, and Bowen.

Liszt pupil Emil von Sauer’s charming yet bland concert study Flammes de Mer keeps both hands busy in opposite directions of the keyboard. Weber suavely navigates the gentle yet persistent left-hand arpeggios in Blumenfeld’s etude Sur Mer, while her colorful and texturally clear reading of Bloch’s Poems of the Sea almost makes you forget the composer’s brilliantly orchestrated incarnation. Conversely, Marcelle de Manziarly’s three-movement Impressions de Mer channels Debussy’s darker side with full-bodied keyboard writing that suggests an orchestra. So does Leo Sowerby’s The Shining Big Sea-Water.

As much as I love Alec Templeton’s delightful parody pieces like “Mendelssohn Mows ‘em Down” and “Bach Goes to Town”, I find his extended variations on the Scottish folk tune “The Skye Boat Song” rather facile and uneventful, despite their virtuosic razzle-dazzle. Still, Weber’s tender phrasing and staggeringly poised fingerwork are beyond praise. I’ve been an unabashed Janice Weber fan since I first heard her play Chopin/Godowsky Etudes live in the late 1970s, and her sane musicianship and unambiguously transcendental technique still operate at full capacity. I hope we won’t have to wait another five years before her next recording!

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
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