Van Gilse Piano Concerto "Three Dance Sketches"

[Alan Howe]

...forthcoming from cpo:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/jan-van-gilse-klavierkonzert/hnum/5434250

[Ilja]

Ah, I've been waiting for this, but had little hope that it might see a release since it is quite a complicated piece, and written for a somewhat unusual ensemble. It sits inbetween Van Gilse's early, more 'germanic' works of the early 1900s and his final work, the opera Thijl. I guess the Fourth Symphony comes closest. But van Gilse has always written great dance tunes (try the fourth movement of the Third Symphony, for instance) so this promises to be good.

[Sharkkb8]

For downloaders, it's available as of a few days ago on iTunes (USA, anyway).  Initial reaction might be that "Three Dance Sketches" is considerably closer to the mark than "Piano Concerto"  -  more like three frisky, independent pieces quite loosely bound, as opposed to a cohesive whole subdivided into three movements.   The second piece is entitled "Homage to Johann Strauss", and as would thus be expected, is waltzy.  And perhaps it's just me (and an overly active imagination), but I heard "salon-ish" moments which sounded like Scott Joplin and Ravel's La Valse got together and had a baby.  This will likely take more than one run-through to digest properly.  But those wishing for a more formal, traditional piano concerto experience.....well, sorry, but, my guess is that this one just might disappoint.     

Gregory

[jerfilm]

It disappointed me.   It's a very mixed bag of styles and at times is not, IMHO, terribly "romantic".  Perhaps I expected too much.

Jerry

[Alan Howe]

I didn't like the sound of the excerpts when they appeared at jpc, so I decided against this one.

[Ilja]

Van Gilse experienced something of a shift away from his previous Hochromantik style after World War 1, and these pieces fall squarely in the "late" category. We can clearly hear the influence of German modernist forces (it was written in Germany) here. To me it sounds like a slightly more modernist form of 1930s Röntgen. His late opera Thijl goes even further in that direction. It is a supremely personal style, but not perhaps as attractive as his earlier work (to me, at least).

Calling this a "Piano Concerto" stretches the definition rather too far. Van Gilse never did, and spoke of "Three Dance Sketches for Piano and small Orchestra". And that is what it is: an episodic collection of dance-related music with a piano obbligato (and certainly not concertante) part. If you experience it as such, quite an enjoyable work I think.

[eschiss1]

From time to time people here explain that they don't, really, honest, equate "enjoyable" with "Romantic-style", only to belie this in practice...

[Ilja]

It's all about expectations I guess. If you buy this expecting a monumental piano concerto in the tradition of Van Gilse's turn-of-the-century symphonies, you're going to be disappointed - it's something very different. That is why I think it's not a very sensible move to market it as cpo did.


My problem is not so much with modernist influences in Van Gilse's music as with the specific direction he takes. Like other Dutch composers of his time (Andriessen, Pijper), he dives head-long into chromaticism after WW1. It takes him quite some time to get to grips with it. Thijl (1945) is magnificent in every way, but these earlier works show him very much grappling with a new stylistic choice and the results aren't always superb. In fact, I think the Drei Tanzskizzen is his best effort from this period that I've heard sofar, also because it is rhythmically very interesting.

[Ilja]

Having listened to the piece for a couple of weeks now, I must say that it has really grown on me. What helps is that Van Gilse is very good with dance rhythms, also outside of this piece; for instance, the monumental waltz in the fourth movement is probably the best piece of the third symphony. It also forces him to be more concise than usual - a bit like the way in which the use of Italian dance motifs in Castelli Romani somewhat restrains Joseph Marx from living out his usual sprawling textures.