R. Nathaniel Dett is featured at AfriClassical.com
Performing Arts Review:
Pianist Clipper Erickson has
devoted an enormous amount of thought, preparation time, energy, and
virtuoso pianism crafting this remarkable 2 CD set (over two hours of
fascinating music) comprising the complete piano works of Robert Nathaniel Dett
(1882-1943). A member of the teaching and adjunct faculties at
Westminster Conservatory in Princeton and Temple University in
Philadelphia, Erickson’s beautifully packaged and superbly performed
compilation, My Cup Runneth Over: The Complete Piano Works of R. Nathaniel Dett is offered by Navona Records (NV 6013), a PARMA Recordings company.
Exquisite
sound engineering at Reitstadel, Neumarkt in Oberpfalz, Germany under
the world-class recording supervision of Dirk Fischer ranks this set as
arguably one of the most significant releases of neglected piano
repertoire since the revelatory Nonesuch recordings in the 1970s of
Scott Joplin’s piano music. Those releases thoroughly transformed
performance practice regarding ragtime and other popular music of the
turn of the last century. This recording of Nathaniel Dett’s piano music
presents to the world for the first time, an important and essentially
fresh portfolio of major piano works by a significant North American
composer of African descent.
Nathaniel Dett is admired as the
first American composer to incorporate Negro folk music into the
European art music tradition. Born in Canada, the composer spent most of
his life and career in the United States, graduating from the Oberlin Conservatory majoring in piano and composition in 1908. His education continued at Harvard with composer Arthur Foote (1920-21) and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. He earned his Master of Music from the Eastman School of Music in 1932. Dett was a polymath; not only composer, choir leader, pianist, and teacher but recognized poet and writer. His, The Emancipation of Negro Music, won an important literary prize at Harvard in 1920 and his volume of poems, The Album of a Heart, conveys Dett’s transcendent message of human oneness – a notion revolutionary then, as now.
Unerring
prescience and stunning technical prowess are Clipper Erickson’s
interpretive tools as he unravels without fuss, the subtle mysteries of
the composer’s deep and often melancholic musings. The evocative titles
on these two discs offer a richly rewarding and audibly discernible
progression through Dett’s intellectual, moral, and musical life over
four decades, from the turn of the last century to the mid 1940s. His
piano suites Magnolia (1912), In the Bottoms (1913), Enchantment (1922) Cinnamon Grove (1928), Tropic Winter (1938), Eight Bible Vignettes (1941-43) and his other descriptive musical snapshots After the Cakewalk (1900), Cave of the Winds (1902), Inspiration Waltzes (1903), and Nepenthe and the Muse (1922)
are masterpieces of form and structure. Dett’s passionate but private
world view, which he held tightly, is discreetly channeled through
Erickson’s poignant interpretations.
The most moving and prophetic work on this one-of-a-kind collection was also Dett’s last. Eight Bible Vignettes [tracks 8-15 on disc two]
composed over a span of three years before the composer’s death in 1943
is a masterful example of compositional maturity, conflating virtuoso
writing in the tradition of Liszt or Brahms with 20th century harmony.
Erickson’s performance of each Vignette glitters with finesse and erudition. Likewise, the pianist’s approach to a much earlier suite, In the Bottoms [tracks 6-10 on disc one]. Careful stylings and cheerful panache are brought to the keyboard by Erickson for the lighter pieces After the Cakewalk and Inspiration Waltzes but
even these reveal a serious and thoughtful curation of Dett’s profound
musical mind that will satisfy scholars for years to come. My Cup Runneth Over: The Complete Piano Works of R. Nathaniel Dett
is a must own for those who love hearing the piano captured exquisitely
on disc. More importantly, this thoroughly researched set (the program
notes are fabulous) is an important reference resource for pianists and
programmers alike. Superlative performances all, pianist Clipper
Erickson has resurrected an American master.
Daniel Kepl | Performing Arts Review
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