A New Schulhoff Album from Los Angeles

courtesy of Delos Productions

Listening to violinist Susan Freier and cellist Stephen Harrison play Erwin Schulhoff’s 1925 duo for violin and cello this past Monday evening reminded me of the moderately generous number of recordings of Schulhoff’s music that I have accumulated. That number increased by one this past Friday with the release of a new album entitled Shapeshifter: Music of Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942). The recordings on this album were made possible by the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices, named after philanthropist Marilyn Ziering and conductor James Conlon, which was established at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2013.

Conlon appears only on the opening track of the album, Schulhoff’s Opus 43, his second piano concerto, which he described as a “concerto for piano and small orchestra.” Conlon conducts the RVC (Recovered Voices at Colburn) Ensemble; and the soloist is pianist Dominic Cheli. Cheli also gives solo performances of a five-movement suite for the left hand and a brief song entitled “Susi,” which Schulhoff composed while he was part of a jazz piano duo. Cheli also joins violinist Adam Millstein for the recording of Schulhoff’s second sonata for violin and piano. The remaining selection on the album is a set of five pieces for string quartet, each in a different characteristic style. Millstein plays second violin in a quartet, whose other members are violinist Gallia Kastner, violist Cara Pogossian, and cellist Ben Solomonow.

Given the extent of my collection of Schulhoff recordings, none of these were “first contact” selections. Nevertheless, it was still a pleasure to listen to how a new set of performers would bring their own interpretations to these compositions. More important was that the content of this album emerged from the RVC commitment to encourage greater awareness and more frequent performances of music by composers whose careers and lives were disrupted or ended during the years of the Nazi regime in Europe. One might say that, on the basis of past recordings, Schulhoff’s voice has already been “recovered;” but the expressiveness brought to the five selections on this album make for an engaging listening experience while establishing the context in which Schulhoff’s compositions were created.