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Simon Trpceski
BRAHMS
RAVEL
POULENC
Simon TrpčeSki playS BrahmS, ravel and poulenc
The short pieces Johannes Brahms composed first piece Brahms quotes two lines from Johann
during his final years seem permeated with Gottfried Herder’s translation of an old Scottish
forebodings of death. His last work, written in the ballad known as Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament:
wake of Clara Schumann’s funeral in 1896, was a ‘Schlaf sanft mein Kind, schlaf sanft schön! Mich
set of eleven Chorale Preludes for organ, ending dauert’s sehr, dich weinen sehn.’ (‘Baloo, my boy,
with ‘O Welt, ich muss dich lassen’ (O world, I lie still and sleep. It grieves me sore to hear thee
must leave thee). That same year Brahms had weep.’) In the minor-mode middle section of the
composed his ‘Four Serious Songs’. The penulti- piece, with its gently dropping intervals, we can
mate song sets the words ‘O Tod, wie bitter bist almost picture the tears flowing.
du’ (O death, how bitter art thou), to a descending The second piece is more agitated, though it
chain of thirds – a melodic interval which came to turns from minor to major for its middle section,
stand in Brahms’s late music almost as a symbol in a consolatory transformation of the opening
of death. The same interval is prominent in several material. As for the melancholy final number,
of the piano pieces he composed during this its slightly quicker middle section is restlessly
decade. syncopated throughout; while the reprise of the
Listening to Brahms’s late piano pieces, we opening theme is prefaced with heavy-laden
may imagine him deriving solace from them as he phrases whose falling intervals once again invoke
composed, or perhaps initially improvised, them. Brahms’s symbol of death foretold.
This was a time when he saw many of those The form of the variations and fugue was
closest to him die: his sister Elise and his long- firmly established by Beethoven, in two monu-
standing friend Elisabet von Herzogenberg in mental keyboard works – the ‘Eroica’ Variations
1892; the singer Hermine Spies (at the age of Op. 35, and the 33 Variations on a Waltz by
only 36) the following year; and in 1894 the Diabelli Op. 120. However, in both cases Beet-
Bach biographer Philipp Spitta, the pianist and hoven allowed the music to wind down following
conductor Hans von Bülow, and the eminent the fugue, in an expanded concluding variation
surgeon Theodor Billroth. of deliberate understatement. In the form as culti-
The 3 Intermezzi Op. 117 – ‘the cradle songs vated by Brahms and Reger, on the other hand,
of my sufferings’, as Brahms once called them – the fugue forms the logical culmination of the
were composed in 1892. Only the first of them is work as a whole.
an actual lullaby, though the predominant What Beethoven’s two sets of variations have
dynamic marking throughout the series is either in common is that they both create a huge edifice
piano or pianissimo, and all three pieces are quite out of trivial material. A similar challenge was taken
similar in tempo and mood. At the head of the up by Brahms in his ‘Handel’ Variations, which are
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again constructed out of a seemingly insignificant
source. Even Wagner had to concede that the
result was impressive. It showed, he reportedly
said, that something could still be done with the
older forms ‘when someone comes along who
knows how to handle them’. Brahms’s work is not
only the most ambitious of his half-dozen variation
sets for solo piano, but also the most imposing
piece of its kind composed in the four decades
that separate it from Beethoven’s ‘Diabelli’ set.
Brahms may well have come across Handel’s
little theme in the complete edition of the com-
poser’s works which Friedrich Chrysander began
to issue in the late 1850s. not only was Brahms a
subscriber, but he realised the continuo part for
the volume containing the vocal duets and trios.
The theme Brahms borrowed was also the source
of a miniature set of variations in Handel’s own
harpsichord suite in B flat major – one of a series
of such works published in 1733 by John Walsh of
London. Brahms’s interest in Handel’s piece lay
not so much in its theme, as in its bass-line. ‘In a
theme for variations’, he told the critic Adolf
Schubring on one occasion, ‘almost the only thing JOHAnnES BRAHMS
that actually has meaning for me is the bass.
But that is sacred to me, it is the firm footing shape of Handel’s theme throughout its twenty-
upon which I then build my tales … When I vary five variations, and only on one occasion – the
the melody I can hardly do more than be clever dramatic ninth variation – does it allow itself the
or charming, or lend depth to a beautiful thought, luxury of a varied, rather than literal, repeat of the
albeit with genuine feeling. On top of a given theme’s second half. (Three further variations –
bass, I truly invent the new, I invent new melodies nos. 13, 19 and 20 – have written-out repeats, but
for it, I create.’ the changes affect little other than the music’s
not the least remarkable feature of Brahms’s register.) Moreover, even the single variation that
work is that it maintains the symmetrical 16-bar forsakes the tonality of B flat, in favour of the key
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 so much a funeral march, despite the drum-like
‘rolled’ chords in the bass, as a manifestation of
the darker side of Brahms’s gypsy style.
Following the ‘music-box’ musette of Variation
22, the music begins to build up towards the
concluding fugue via a continuous chain of in-
creasingly agitated variations. The fugue subject
itself is based on the melodic outline of the
first two bars of Handel’s theme. Here, Brahms
displays his contrapuntal skill in spectacular
fashion, with inversion, augmentation and stretto
(overlapping entries) all playing their part, and the
whole thing wound up with a conclusion in
grandiose style.
If La Valse was maurice ravel’s apocalyptic
vision of the last gasp of the Austro-German
Empire and of the Vienna of Johann Strauss – a
world that had disappeared forever in the
aftermath of the First World War – then the earlier
Valses nobles et sentimentales is his homage to
the dances of Schubert. Schubert’s set of 32
Valses sentimentales D779 and the 12 Valses
nobles D969 were both issued during his lifetime,
MAuRICE RAVEL though the titles of the two collections, as well as
Photograph (1926) by Věra Prášilova Scott
the assemblage of dances they contained, were
of G minor – no. 21 – contains a ‘hidden’ layer in almost certainly the inventions of their respective
its grace-notes, which trace the outline of the publishers, Anton Diabelli and Tobias Haslinger.
theme at its original pitch. For all Ravel’s avowed intention of writing a series
Variations 5 and 6 form a linked pair in the of waltzes in imitation of Schubert, however, there
tonic minor, the first of them presenting a smooth is little that is actually Schubertian about his
melody over a flowing accompaniment, and the piece, other than the music’s lilting rhythm. In its
second treating the same melody as an ingenious form, as a continuous chain of dances followed by
canon, given out in subdued octaves. The only a coda that revisits the material of the earlier part
remaining variation in the minor is no. 13 – not of the cycle, the Valses nobles et sentimentales
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owe rather more to such Schumann cycles as Francis poulenc seems to have had little
Carnaval (a work which Ravel orchestrated) and regard for his solo piano music, though he made
the Davidsbündlertänze, than they do to exceptions of his Improvisations, which he admit-
Schubert. ted to ‘liking very much’, and of his Trois pièces,
The mood of insouciance which Ravel which, together with the famous Mouvements
attempted to evoke in the Valses nobles et perpetuels, he ‘tolerated’. In an interview with the
sentimentales can be gauged from the motto he critic Claude Rostand, Poulenc explained:
attached to the work: ‘… le plaisir délicieux et I will no doubt seem paradoxical to you if I tell
toujours nouveau d’une occupation inutile’. The you that it’s because I’m too familiar with piano
quotation comes from the introduction to the writing that I have botched many of my pieces.
novel Les rencontres de Monsieur de Bréot by Facility, the knack, knowing the ropes often,
Henri de Régnier: ‘I should not have wished’, de alas, take the place of true musical interest. I
Régnier says, ‘to publish my Rencontres de believe in all honesty that my piano music is
Monsieur de Bréot without a word of introduction. neither as good as virtuosos think, nor as
One could have replied, it is true, that the way bad as some of your fellow-critics have said.
to eliminate the explanation would have been to The truth lies between the two. What’s strange
suppress the book. I might have done so, were I is that once the piano becomes the
not convinced that it is one of mine that best accompaniment for songs, then I innovate. My
illustrates what I have sought in writing, which is piano writing is also something quite different
nothing but the delightful and always novel with orchestra or other instruments. It’s just solo
pleasure of a useless occupation.’ piano that eludes me. There, I’m a victim of
Ravel’s piece begins in stridently dissonant pretence.
fashion, with a percussive Valse noble; while the Poulenc also expressed himself disappointed
languid nature of the following Valse sentimentale with performances of his solo keyboard pieces,
seems to anticipate the enchanted world of citing as particular bêtes noires ‘rubato, stingy
L’Enfant et les sortilèges. But to Ravel, the most pedalling, and over-articulation of certain repeated
characteristic number of the cycle was the seventh, chordal or arpeggiated patterns which should, on
which opens in sensuous style and twice reaches the contrary, be played very blurred’. The use of
a passionate climax that offers a clear pre-echo of the pedals was, he told Rostand, ‘the great secret
La Valse. Following this piece, the epilogue offers of my piano music. The pedal can never be used
a skilfully woven assemblage of the preceding enough, do you hear! never enough! Sometimes
numbers (the galumphing fifth waltz is the only when I hear certain pianists playing my music I
absentee), with the music being heard from afar, want to shout at them: “Put some butter in the
as though through a filter of nostalgia. sauce! What’s this diet you’re on?”’
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 number he kept only the beginning and end,
turning the remainder into a ‘Toccata’; while the
final piece was replaced with a ‘Hymne’ in the
style of Poulenc’s Concert champêtre, as he said.
When he revised the pieces yet again in 1953, he
reversed the order of the last two of them, so that
the ‘Toccata’ could form a brilliant conclusion. The
piece was made famous by Horowitz.
The first half-dozen of Poulenc’s Improvisa-
tions were composed in 1932, and a further piece
followed early in the next year. By 1934 Poulenc
had added three more pieces to the collection,
and it was further expanded in 1941, when he
wrote the Improvisations nos. 11 and 12. The final
three pieces date from 1958–9.
Poulenc’s exhortation to pianists to make
liberal use of the pedals is one that can hardly
have applied to the toccata-like outer sections of
the first Improvisation, for instance, or the start
and end of the rapid-fire no. 3, both of which carry
the same marking of ‘très sec’. More smooth and
lyrical is the middle section of no. 1, in Poulenc’s
characteristic bitter-sweet style. On the other
FRAnCIS POuLEnC hand, his mistrust of rubato can be gauged
from the sixth Improvisation, dedicated to his
Poulenc’s Trois pièces had their origin in a set longstanding pianist friend Jacques Février, where
of three ‘pastorales’ he composed in 1918 for the the pianist is instructed to play ‘sans céder’,
Catalan pianist Ricardo Viñes. The pieces were ‘strictement en mesure’, and, at the end, ‘sans
never published, but ten years or so later the ralentir’. The entire piece, a sort of toy soldiers’
Italian composer Alfredo Casella asked Poulenc march, shows the influence of Prokofiev.
what had happened to them, as they had appealed The melancholy, and at times impassioned,
to him. Casella’s interest prompted Poulenc to Improvisation no. 13 in A minor is essentially
revise the pieces. He left the first of them more or a song without words, its exquisite harmony
less untouched, but in the case of the middle characteristically replete with major and minor
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sevenths. As for the last piece in the series, middle section in the minor), and in insouciantly
composed in 1959, it is a homage to Edith Piaf, neoclassical style. More forthright is the second
who in the following year made her famous piece of the pair, in a percussive B flat minor. The
recording of ‘non, je ne regrette rien’. Poulenc’s music comes to a strident close with a perfect
piece may be a touch less languorous and more cadence into the home key, but Poulenc cannot
capricious than its association with the singer resist adding a single octave on a ‘foreign’ D flat,
might have suggested, but its melody captures leaving the music hanging in mid-air in quizzical,
the intensity of expression that she brought to her but forceful, fashion.
unmatched cabaret performances. Twice, the In 1959 the managing director of the London-
melody rises to a passionate climax, before the based music publishers Chester & Co., Robert
music eventually fades away into the distance. Douglas Gibson, made plans to celebrate the
The entire piece may be regarded as an example firm’s centenary with a collaborative series of
of what Poulenc referred to as ‘l’adorable variations by Arthur Bliss, Lennox Berkeley,
mauvaise musique’. Stravinsky, Malipiero and Poulenc – a group of
In november 1927 Poulenc reported that he composers which Poulenc thought too disparate
had written three in a projected series of five or six to appeal to pianists. ‘If I were you’, he told
Novelettes which he planned to introduce at a Gibson, ‘I would ask each of us for a piece of our
concert of music by himself and Georges Auric. choice, to provide a sort of keepsake.’ Poulenc
However, only two of the pieces survive, and did, however, approve of Gibson’s idea of bringing
Poulenc gave the manuscript of the first of the pair in the name of Falla, who had died some fifteen
to Horowitz – presumably in the hope that he years earlier, and who had had a close association
would popularise it, just as he was to do with the with Chester. Poulenc had known Falla well, and
‘Toccata’ from the Trois pièces. The following year, had dedicated his Trio for piano, oboe and
when he visited the Prince and Princesse de bassoon to him in 1926. For Chester’s centenary
Polignac at their Breton estate, Poulenc presented album he decided to compose a Novelette based

the Princesse with another autograph of the piece. on a theme from the Spanish composer’s El amor
‘I shall bring my swimming costume,’ he told the brujo. The theme, in its original  notation, is
Polignacs, ‘and as far as tennis is concerned, if quoted at the head of Poulenc’s score, though its
you want to die laughing you can lend me a quirky rhythm finds itself ironed out in the gentle
racquet for ten minutes’. piano piece (here, at last, we find the instruction
The Novelette which Poulenc presented to ‘baigné de pédales’), which disappears at the end
both Horowitz and the Princesse de Polignac is in in a haze of nostalgia.
a bright C major (though there is a more whimsical Notes by Misha Donat © 2016

7
Simon TrpčeSki
Born in Macedonia in 1979, pianist Simon greatest orchestras and captivating audiences
Trpčeski has established himself as one of the worldwide.  Trpčeski is praised not only for his
most remarkable musicians to have emerged in impeccable technique and delicate expression,
recent years, performing with many of the world’s but also for his warm personality and commitment
8
to strengthening Macedonia’s cultural image. listed as no. 10 in Classic FM’s Albums of the Year
Trpčeski has worked with a prominent list of 2014, was released on the Onyx Classics label. A
conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Lionel superb recitalist, Trpčeski has received wide-
Bringuier, Andrew Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, spread acclaim for his recital recordings on the
Charles Dutoit, Vladimir Jurowski, Lorin Maazel, EMI and Wigmore Hall Live labels.
Antonio Pappano, Vasily Petrenko, Robin Ticciati, Trpčeski also performs chamber music as
Yan Pascal Tortelier, David Zinman, Marin Alsop often as possible, including at the Aspen, Verbier
and Gianandrea noseda. and Risør festivals. He has a regular duo
The 2015/16 Season sees Trpčeski continuing partnership with cellist Daniel Müller-Schott, and
to perform at the highest level around the world. enjoys performing with a variety of other soloists.
As always, he makes regular visits to the uK, In summer 2011 Trpčeski preformed works by
giving performances with the London, Bourne- Chopin in Seduction, Smoke and Music, The Love
mouth and City of Birmingham Symphony and Story of Chopin and George Sand, featuring
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras. Else- renowned actor Jeremy Irons, at the Tuscan Sun
where, he returns to play with the San Francisco, Festival in Cortona, Italy.
Atlanta, Detroit and Vancouver Symphony Trpčeski has been awarded prizes at inter-
orchestras, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra national piano competitions in the uK, Italy and
and Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa. He also the Czech Republic. From 2001 to 2003, he was
undertakes a tour of Spain with the Helsinki a member of the BBC new Generation Artists
Philharmonic Orchestra, and the united Kingdom scheme, and was awarded the 2002 RPS Young
with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Artist Award.
Simon Trpčeski’s debut recording, released in With the special support of KulturOp –
2002, featuring works by Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Macedonia’s leading cultural and arts organi-
Stravinsky and Prokofiev, received both the zation and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic
‘Editor’s Choice’ and ‘Debut Album’ awards at the of Macedonia, Trpčeski works regularly with young
Gramophone Awards. Trpčeski has made two musicians in Macedonia to cultivate the talent of
award-winning recordings of works by Rach- his country’s next generation of artists. As a
maninov on the Avie label with Vasily Petrenko result, he was awarded the Presidential Order of
and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Merit and the first-ever title of ‘national Artist of
with whom his latest recording, featuring Macedonia’. Simon Trpčeski lives in Skopje with
Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concertos nos. 1 and 2 and his family.

9
Also available on Wigmore Hall Live
from all good record shops and from www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/live

Simon TrpčeSki piano

Schubert, Bach, Liszt
WHLive0058
‘A proper piano recital – a varied, thoughtfully
chosen programme, a rewarding musical and
pianistic experience one wants to return to, superbly
recorded, classily presented and featuring the
playing of a master pianist.’ (Gramophone)
‘A thoughtfully structured programme, with the
16 German Dances followed by a commanding
performance of the Wanderer Fantasy, underpinned
by the mix of rhythmic buoyancy and security that
seems to come so naturally to Trpčeski and deploying
a remarkably vivifying spectrum of tonal colour.
Architecturally Trpčeski tackles the Fantasy with
absolute assurance.’ (The Daily Telegraph)

www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/live

10
This CD is dedicated to Simon Trpčeski’s mother netka Trpčeska, for her sincere love, support
and endless energy. Also with grateful thanks to Simon Trpčeski’s friend and colleague the
sculptor Slavčo Spirovski, Art Director – KulturOP, for his assistance with this release.

Engineered by Steve Portnoi www.outhouseaudio.com

Produced by Jeremy Hayes
Recorded live at Wigmore Hall, London, on 19 July 2014
Director: John Gilhooly
Wigmore Hall Live — General Manager: Darius Weinberg
Photography by Benjamin Ealovega
Manufactured by Repeat Performance Multimedia, London

11
 ^ WHLive0081
Simon Trpceski piano Made & Printed in England

Recorded live at Wigmore Hall, London, on 19 July 2014

JohanneS BrahmS (1833–1897)

3 Intermezzi Op. 117 18.00
01 Andante moderato 05.52
02 Andante non troppo e con molto espressione 04.46
03 Andante con moto 07.08

04 Variations and Fugue on a theme by handel Op. 24 25.58

maurIce raVeL (1875–1937)

Valses nobles et sentimentales 16.23
05 Modéré, très franc 01.11
06 Assez lent, avec une expression intense 02.51
07 Modéré 01.40
08 Assez animé 01.18
09 Presque lent, dans un sentiment intime 01.32
10 Vif 00.35
11 Moins vif 02.35
12 Epilogue: Lent 04.21

FrancIS pouLenc (1899–1963)

13 novelette no. 1 in C major: Modéré sans lenteur 02.26
14 novelette no. 2 in B flat minor: Très rapide et rythmé 01.38
15 novelette no. 3 sur un thème de Manuel de Falla: Andantino tranquillo 02.22
16 Improvisation no. 1 in B minor: Presto ritmico 01.20
17 Improvisation no. 3 in B minor: Presto très sec 01.16
18 Improvisation no. 6 in B flat major: A toute vitesse 01.26
19 Improvisation no. 13 in A minor: Allegretto commodo 02.38
20 Improvisation no. 15 in C minor ‘Hommage à Edith Piaf’: Très vite 03.04
21 Toccata: Très animé from Trois pièces 02.08

Total time: 79.50