Another Disappointing Stepanova Project

Born in Belarus and now living in the United States, pianist Liza Stepanova made her recording debut in January of 2018 with the release of her solo album Tones & Colors. In writing about that offering, I described it as a “concept project,” whose “concept” involved an exploration of “the intersection of art and music” (that quotation taken from the Web page she created for this album). After reading everything she had written about her project, I found listening to her tracks more than a little disappointing and had no qualms in writing about my disappointment.

courtesy of Naxos of America

One week from today Navona Records will release Stepanova’s second album, entitled E Pluribus Unum. As usual, Amazon.com has created a Web page for processing pre-orders, which also includes a useful summary description of the album. It will not take long for those taking the trouble to read that description to recognize that this is another concept project. Here are the key sentences from that Amazon.com Web page:

Born out of the political climate of 2017, E PLURIBUS UNUM is an artistic response to the immigration policies implemented by the American government around that time. Stepanova devised a program featuring American composers with immigrant backgrounds, and by doing so she offers a small glimpse of the immense contributions they make to American musical life. The colorful mosaic of E PLURIBUS UNUM does just that, in music that reflects the composers roots and is an embodiment of the motto E Pluribus Unum Out of many, one.

The album comes with extensive program notes. Stepanova presents the works of nine composers (see the above image of the album cover), eight of whom provided one-paragraph accounts of the ideas behind their respective efforts. (The one exception is the composer Lera Auerbach, whose paragraph is written by Stepanova herself.) I found myself reflecting on my favorite couplet from the libretto by Eric Crozier for Benjamin Britten’s opera Albert Herring:

Country virgins, if there be such,
Think too little and see too much.

This is a case of composers saying too much in the paragraphs they provided for music that gives the impression of having little more than superficial thought behind it.

The opening Auerbach track emerges as the best exception to that rule. “An Old Photograph from the Grandparents’ Childhood” is a movement from her cycle Scenes from Childhood, which is less than 90 seconds in duration. Yet her sensitivity to sonority transforms simple melodic material into an intensely personal reflection. If that reflection resonated with Stepanova’s own thoughts, then more power to both of them.

Similar impact is not encountered on this album until the final track (a little over six minutes in duration) by Gabriela Lena Frank, the first of the pieces entitled “Karnavalito.” In her paragraph for the program notes, Frank acknowledges “stylistic nods to the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, a music hero of mine.” Frank’s ability to harness Bartók’s techniques and apply them to the spirit (if not the flesh) of Peruvian sources is engagingly impressive, leaving me curious about any other “Karnavalito” compositions.

Another quote comes to mind that may summarize my overall impressions of Stepanova’s project-based approaches. Back when I was in high school, the CBS television network gave the green light to a ballet-for-television project. The title of the ballet was “The Flood.” George Balanchine created the choreography, and the music was composed by Igor Stravinsky. Robert Craft compiled an English-language libretto that interleaved the Book of Genesis with texts from the English mystery plays associated with both York and Chester. (The score also included a choral setting of the “Te Deum” hymn.) Before the performance (which was broadcast on “live” television), Stravinsky addressed the audience in halting English, concluding with the sentence:

I do not want to tell you more, I only want to play you more.

For all of Stepanova’s impressive keyboard technique, her new album serves up too much telling and not enough playing.