Louisiana: A Pianist's Journey (Walter Niemann - Roy Spaulding Stoughton - John Parsons Beach)

Album review

Pianist Kenneth Boulton is a native of Seattle, but he has served a long time as a professor of piano at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond; Boulton is also director of its Community Music School. Cambria's Louisiana -- A Pianist's Journey is a handsomely illustrated and annotated two-disc set including a selection of eight pieces, most of them multi-movement suites, devoted to the subject of Louisiana. Ironically, all but two of the composers never lived in Louisiana and at least one, Englishman Albert W. Ketèlbey, never even visited. Something about the allure of Louisiana has long inspired composers, and as Louisiana -- A Pianist's Journey makes clear, that "something" doesn't always go hand in hand with Louisiana's reputation as the cradle of jazz. Louis Moreau Gottschalk composed his La Savane long before jazz emerged in New Orleans in the 1890s, and though the other pieces date from 1906 to 1948, relatively little in the way of the jazz tinge can be found even lurking in the background of these primarily classical works, apart from that in Ferde Grofé's Mississippi Suite.
Surprisingly, one place where a trace of jazz influence is slightly detectible is in John Parsons Beach's New Orleans Miniatures dating from 1906. Among all of the readily available piano music written by American composers in the twentieth century, Beach's suite is one the most significant works out there that has never been recorded in any way prior to this release. Its neglect is unfathomable, as it is a pioneering effort in many respects; although not as advanced as Charles Ives, this suite is considerably more advanced than Charles Griffes' was in 1906. New Orleans Miniatures is truly "impressionistic," rough hewn, and does not follow a linear progression of ideas, whereas by comparison, German composer Walter Niemann's Louisiana Suite is a neatly ordered bouquet of glosses on Stephen Foster melodies. Canadian-born composer Cedric Wilmont Lemont's Creole Sketches, while conceived for the lucrative intermediate piano market, is a lovely series of pastels that betray more than a subtle hint of ragtime influence. Two works better known in their orchestral garb are presented here in their more obscure piano incarnations; Grofé's Mississippi Suite and Virgil Thomson's great film score suite Louisiana Story in a piano transcription made by Andor Foldes.
At times, the music on Louisiana -- A Pianist's Journey seems no more representative to Louisiana itself than François-René de Chateaubriand's fictionalized accounts of life in the American Deep South and his notions of Native Americans as the "noble savage." Chateaubriand's fanciful notions were at least to some extent formed by his experiences in America in the last decade of the eighteenth century and may have more of an actual connection to their subject than say, Niemann's sentimental trope of "My Old Kentucky Home." However, Boulton more than has all those bases covered; the opening pages of the booklet contain an expository encapsulation of Louisiana history that renders a fine base of context from which the listener can work. His individual entries on composers and works are sufficiently detailed, and yet restrained in some ways, though he does seem to share some of Virgil Thomson's tendency toward tartness in terms of dealing with the relative musical value of the pieces in the program. Boulton's playing is top drawer throughout; the recording, made at Skywalker Sound, is a little dry and one wishes there were a bit more depth to it. At one point during the Thomson there is a rattling noise in the piano that is not too distracting, though careful ears might wonder what it is. These, nonetheless, are very minor quibbles about what otherwise is an outstanding package, Louisiana -- A Pianist's Journey is a labor of love that looks into a territory of American piano repertoire heretofore largely regarded as "terra incognita," and returns with some highly interesting and edifying treasures.

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