William Bolcom - Music for Two Pianos (Elizabeth & Marcel Bergmann)

Information

Composer: William Bolcom

• Recuerdos
• Frescoes, for two pianos, harmonium and harpsichord
• Sonata for Two Pianos in One Movement
• Interlude
• The Serpent's Kiss (Ragtime)
• Through Eden's Gates (Cakewalk)

Elizabeth Bergmann & Marcel Bergmann, pianos

Date: 2005

Label: Naxos

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Review

William Bolcom’s two-piano oeuvre fully reveals his uncanny facility for assimilating the nuts and bolts of any musical style or genre that crosses his composing table. The three Recuerdos respectively filter Nazareth, Gottschalk, and the lesser-known Ramón Delgado Palacios through a modernist vantagepoint. For example, the Palacios homage begins with gothic C major chords in the manner of Bach/Busoni that slip into Palacios’ tuneful idiom, only for the two pianos to splinter off into more foreboding, dissonant territory. By contrast, Frescoes’ bold, bleak canvas purports to musically mirror the apocalyptic war descriptions from the Book of Revelation, the Aeneid, and Paradise Lost, as Bolcom wrings every ounce of textural and expressive variety from his unprecedented two pianos, harmonium, and harpsichord aggregation.

The 1993 Sonata for Two Pianos harks back to the tough, dissonant, and arguably academic style that typifies some of Bolcom’s “pre-ragtime” pieces, including the shorter 1963 Interlude recorded here. Lastly, the two-piano duo rag arrangements markedly flesh out Bolcom’s solo originals in terms of keyboard color and dynamic intensity. I’m not certain that Bolcom supervised or coached these recordings, but I can’t imagine he’d be less than ecstatic over the Bergmann duo’s caring, refined, and meticulously worked-out interpretations. While the excellent engineering conveys a realistic concert hall perspective, added amplitude and detail would have been welcome. For this reason I hope Nonesuch will reissue Bruce Mather and Pierrette LePage’s fiery, hard-hitting premiere recording of Frescoes, recorded in the early 1970s.

— Jed Distler

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William Bolcom (born 26 May 1938) is an American composer and pianist known for bridging popular and classical music traditions. Educated at the University of Washington, Mills College, the Paris Conservatory and Stanford University, he later served as professor of composition at the University of Michigan. A prolific composer, Bolcom wrote works across genres, including piano études, operas, orchestral music and song cycles, and showed a particular affinity for ragtime. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and multiple Grammy Awards in 2006. Bolcom has also been active as a performer, writer, editor and educator.

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Elizabeth and Marcel Bergmann have performed as a piano duo since 1989, following studies in Hannover and Montréal. Prizewinners at major international chamber music and two-piano competitions, they have appeared extensively across Europe and North America at leading festivals and with prominent orchestras. Their discography includes recordings for CBC, ARD, NPR and multiple labels. Active educators at Mount Royal Conservatory and the University of Calgary, they are dedicated advocates of contemporary Canadian music, and performers with a repertoire spanning Baroque to modern works.

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