Carl Van Vechten’s 1935 portrait photograph of Leopold Godowsky (from the Van Vechten Collection at the Library of Congress, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
Yesterday evening’s Piano Break offering, live-streamed through the Ross McKee Foundation YouTube channel, presented Steinway Artist Antonio Iturrioz playing transcriptions for piano by two virtuoso performers, Franz Liszt and Leopold Godowsky. The recording of that live-stream has now been uploaded to that channel and now has its own Web page. The program was roughly 40 minutes in duration; and the second half of the program was devoted entirely to a single Liszt composition, the “grande fantasie,” which the composer entitled “Réminiscences de Norma.”
Ironically, this was not the first time that this particular display of Lisztian excess had been presented under the auspices of the Ross McKee Foundation. Back in December of 2018 (when concerts were still physical, rather than virtual), Peter Grunberg presented a Piano Talks program whose very title served as a premonition of Lisztian excess: Beyond the Piano – Before the Phonograph: Transcriptions and Paraphrases by Franz Liszt with Gratitude to Bellini, Berlioz, Schubert, Verdi, and Wagner. On that occasion the Norma offering was “paired” with Liszt’s transcription of the “Liebestod” from Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. In writing about that portion of the concert, I observed that, in transcribing Wagner, “Liszt had no need to add his own embellishments or elaborations.”
Perhaps the most memorable feature of Liszt’s approach to Norma is what is missing. There is no trace of “Casta diva,” which may be the only thing most opera-lovers know about this particular opera by Vincenzo Bellini. However, it would be unfair to say that nothing in the rest of the score is memorable. Indeed, once one gets beyond going to a performance to join the crowd in shouting “Brava!” at the diva, one may discover a generous share of orchestral and choral writing that is both dramatic and emphatic. This was the grist for Liszt’s mill; and, to mix metaphors, he definitely had no trouble overplaying his hand.
Fortunately, Iturrioz did not respond to all of that excess with further excess in his approach to execution. Instead, he made sure that those familiar with the Norma score had a clear sense of where Liszt had collected his sources. Iturrioz then wisely decided to let the music speak for itself, consistently doing justice to all those “embellishments and elaborations” without ever allowing the listener to lose track of where the themes themselves resided. Mind you, it is still hard to avoid thinking that Liszt went on much longer than his thematic sources deserved; but Iturrioz’ approach to execution put less of a strain on listener attention than might be encountered among other passionate Lisztian advocates.
The Godowsky offerings were far shorter and more diverse. The opening selection, the Prelude movement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1011 solo cello suite in C minor was particularly impressive. Godowsky labeled this as “Prelude and Fugue,” which is what it is. In many ways the transcription serves as a reflection of the many prelude-fugue couplings that Bach composed for the keyboard; but Godowsky was composing for a virtuoso piano performance, rather than for Bach’s approaches to pedagogy and interpretation.
Virtuosity was more flamboyant in the second selection. Godowsky took the sixth (in the key of E-flat minor) of the études in Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 10 collection and chose to play it on the left hand alone. Many might be inclined to dismiss this as a parlor trick. Nevertheless, Godowsky knew exactly how to give both the thematic material and the pedagogical context their proper due. In other words Godowsky never compromised the heart of the music in that particular étude; and Iturrioz never compromised Godowsky’s unconventional approach to presenting that music. This was followed by an affectionately modest approach to Henry Bishop’s “Home Sweet Home,” which suggested that Godowsky could connect with his American audiences at an expressive level, rather than just a technically flamboyant one.
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