A release like this has critics at a terrible disadvantage. Even if it would have been possible to obtain a score and study a work as difficult as Nikos Skalkottas’ extraordinary Third Piano Concerto prior to auditioning the disc at hand, this particular performance works from specially corrected and prepared parts–so that exercise would have had only a limited value. But even if I grant that pianist Geoffrey Douglas Madge and the Caput Ensemble hit all the right notes (and there’s no obvious way to tell), I would have some problems with the interpretation on offer. So let me do my best to explain why this is so.
In this performance the Third Piano Concerto lasts some 65 minutes. Its three movements are well contrasted in theory, but less so in practice. In fact, Skalkottas has set himself an all-but-impossible task. In the first place, the entire work is based on a couple of 12-tone series. These are used melodically: in other words, you can detect tunes, and some of the more rhythmically regular accompaniments (as at the start of the finale) convey a humorous or dance-like quality. There are moments of bittersweet lyricism in the huge central Andante, and the first movement, which purports to be in “sonata form” (even though without a clear tonal foundation the form is essentially purposeless), builds to an effective climax over its more than 20-minute length. But it’s very difficult to follow any logical progress in the musical argument, nor does the contrast in melody, rhythm, and texture guarantee any correspondence between these differences and discernible expressive or emotional qualities.
To make matters even more complicated, Skalkottas has scored the work for 10 wind instruments (and sparingly used percussion), with a particular emphasis on the most cranky and flatulent members of the family. The wind ensemble consists of flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, and tuba. So any possibility of blend goes out the window, a situation exacerbated by the relentlessly contrapuntal style. In short, this is one tough nut: austere, uncompromising, monstrously long, and monotonous in terms of melody, harmony, and timbre. These are not problems that the performance at hand minimizes. The wind players make some amazingly ugly sounds, particularly the horn and low brass (though this may be largely the composer’s doing), and Madge, for all his gamesmanship, offers playing of relatively undifferentiated sameness, lacking variety of dynamics, articulation, and touch.
I can grant, for example, that the opening of the finale is “giocoso”, but is it “Allegro”? The whole thing sounds strikingly under tempo, but I can’t say for sure if this interpretation reflects the composer’s intentions, and in a sense it doesn’t matter because we aren’t likely to see anything better come along for purposes of comparison. It’s therefore practically impossible to get a sense of the music’s expressive possibilities and potential, or to determine how these players rate in realizing them–whether the perceived defects result from the music itself or this particular realization of it. Adding insult to injury, given the current direction that music has taken since the composer’s death in 1949, there’s a faded quality to Skalkottas’ style, which now lacks even the virtue (if such it is) of radicalism, and that makes listening more an arduous duty, a tipping of the hat to an unjustly neglected creative figure rather than a gratifying musical experience.
Turning to the Gnomes is like entering another world. This tiny ballet (14 minutes long) consists mostly of arrangements of movements from Bartók’s For Children piano miniatures, along with a touch of Baroque music, a bit of Stravinsky, and a couple of original numbers by Skalkottas himself. It’s brilliantly scored and delightful, a fact that only serves to point up the failings of the so much more ambitious but so much less musically ear-catching Piano Concerto No. 3. Typically excellent sound leaves no musical line obscured. I want to be more positive about this enterprising release, but it really does beg the question of how much work a listener should invest in getting to know unfamiliar music, and if the expressive returns are really there.
