courtesy of Jensen Artists
Many readers probably know by now that I have taken interest in the imaginatively diverse approaches that pianist Igor Levit has taken to repertoire, particularly in preparing albums for Sony Classical. His latest album, On DSCH, was released a little over a month ago. It is a three-CD album presenting only two compositions; but there is just as much diversity in the scope of those works as there has been in Levit’s previous albums.
The first two CDs are devoted entirely to the Opus 87 collection of 24 preludes and fugues that Dmitri Shostakovich composed in 1951. I have been interested in this undertaking for quite some time; and, thanks to San Francisco Performances, I had the good fortune to listen to a concert of the entire cycle performed by pianist Alexander Melnikov in November of 2011. The third CD is devoted entirely to “Passacaglia on DSCH,” which the Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson completed in 1962.
Those familiar with Shostakovich know that those four letters serve as an abbreviation of his name. However, they also spell out a sequence of pitches under the German conventions of naming the notes: D, E-flat, C, B natural. That motif appeared in many of the works that Shostakovich composed, probably beginning when he was enduring the hardships of World War II. Its best known use can be found in the Opus 110 (eighth) string quartet in C minor, where it appears in all of the movements. Ironically, it appears only once in Opus 87 in the stretto of the fugue in D-flat major.
Stevenson seems to have been inspired by the many ways in which Shostakovich used that motif, and that inspiration resulted in the “Passacaglia on DSCH.” Stevenson did not try to hide the source of his inspiration, and he dedicated the composition to Shostakovich. He then presented a copy of the score to Shostakovich when they were both attending the 1962 Edinburgh Festival. The piece has its own Wikipedia page, which observes that it “takes more than an hour and a quarter to perform and may be the longest unbroken single movement composed for piano.”
Opus 87 also has its own Wikipedia page. As might be expected, it includes a comparison with Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. Indeed, there are a generous number of instances in which Shostakovich explicitly acknowledged his debt to Bach. However, there is probably a good chance that Shostakovich intended Opus 87 to be performed in its entirety as a concert offering, which is what happened for the first time in December of 1952, when the music was premiered by Tatiana Nikolayeva.
On the other hand I have long held to the proposition that Bach was more interested in pedagogy, rather than expecting a keyboardist to play either of the two books as a concert offering. Nevertheless, I can admit that I found the experience of listening to András Schiff playing both of those collections (at two different concerts) as satisfying as my encounter with Melnikov playing Shostakovich. The fact is that I have multiple recordings of both the Bach and the Shostakovich collections. I enjoy listening to the diverse approaches taken in performing the individual preludes and fugues, and I am more than happy to add Levit’s performances to my collection.
The Stevenson passacaglia, on the other hand, is a tougher nut to crack. All I know about how often it has been performed or who the performers were can be found on the composition’s Wikipedia page. I am not surprised that John Ogdon was on that list, since he also recorded Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji’s “Opus clavicembalisticum, a twelve-movement composition, whose recording required five CDs. However, I am not particularly interested in such marathon undertakings. I suspect that I would appreciate the opportunity to listen to the more amenable duration of a recital performance of “Passacaglia on DSCH,” particularly now that I can prepare myself by listening to Levit’s recording prior to attending that performance.
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