Lowell Liebermann: The Devil's Lyre—Piano Music of David Hackbridge Johnson
Steinway & Sons

Lowell Liebermann: Personal Demons
Steinway & Sons

One of America's preeminent living composers, Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961) has written more than 130 works, two of which, Sonata for Flute and Piano and the piano setting Gargoyles, have been recorded over twenty times apiece. Opera treatments of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts also have been enthusiastically received, and his memorable ballet score to the stage production of Frankenstein recently appeared on Reference Recordings. These two exceptional collections from Steinway & Sons make resoundingly clear, however, that Liebermann's as formidable a pianist as he is composer. Whereas the most recent set is devoted entirely to material by David Hackbridge Johnson, his 2021 debut solo piano release augments three works by Liebermann himself with ones by Schubert, Busoni, Liszt, and Miloslav Kabelác.

Liebermann's recording debut as a pianist is distinguished by his own Gargoyles, Four Apparitions, and Nocturne No. 10 but also tremendous readings of pieces that have haunted him throughout his professional life. Noteworthy for both its thoughtful curation and inspired performances, Personal Demons is a dazzling recital that captures the composer meeting virtuosic challenges with immense poise. Interestingly, three of the four works by the composers he chose to augment his own adapt pre-existing themes: Liszt's Totentanz deploys the Gregorian chant Dies Irae as its springboard; Schubert's uses a string quartet theme by his close friend Anselm Hüttenbrenner; and Busoni's is a titanic elaboration on J. S. Bach's final fugue.

The release begins with Gargoyles, Op. 29, which premiered in 1989 and has become Liebermann's most performed work. Whereas its “grotesque and aqueous atmospheric nature” (his words) would seem to suggest the title had been in place from the work's inception and dictated its tone, it suggested itself surreptitiously when the composer, working on the final page of the fourth part, glanced under his piano and noticed three plaster reproductions of the famous Notre Dame creatures. As different as the four movements are, common to all is an opening three-note motif that surfaces throughout in various forms. After its voicing, the initiating movement dances deliriously for a captivating two minutes; the aromatic adagio that follows entrances also. If sparkling arpeggios and a flowing melody line intensify the dreamlike character of the third movement, dense chordal patterns lend the closing one the greatest drive of the four. Composed in 1985, Four Apparitions, Op. 17 perpetuates the haunting character of Gargoyles, even if its material is slightly less macabre. The title—again chosen only as the music neared completion—is in keeping with the music's pensive, mysterious, and ghostly qualities. The release ends with Nocturne No. 10, written in 2007 in memory of Gian Carlo Menotti and fittingly tender yet also, like the other Liebermann works, auspicious for its harmonic daring. In terms of time, his pieces are dwarfed by the sum-total of the others, yet the recording, just shy of two hours, strikes a balanced impression when his three leave such a lasting mark.

Of the five presented on the release, it's Czech composer Miloslav Kabelác who's the least known, in North America at least. Liebermann's observation that Eight Preludes, Op. 30 (1956) couples “ascetic economy of means with intense expressivity” is particularly astute. In terms of dynamics and style, the settings range widely, with tonal character intimated by their titles. Whereas some reference form (“Ostinato,” “Chorale”), others allude to mood (“Dreams,” “Nocturne,” “Aria”), and one is awed by Liebermann's performance and his bravura renderings of “Chorale” and “Soaring.” Completed in 1864, Liszt's solo piano transcription of his Totentanz (Dance of Death) makes good on its bewitching title and is treated to an enthralling performance. With the familiar Dies Irae theme surfacing intermittently, the sixteen-minute showstopper advances through its double set of variations and gently lyrical and thunderous episodes with focused deliberation.

The titular motif in Schubert's Variations on a theme by Anselm Hüttenbrenner (1817) is, in Liebermann's estimation, unmistakably similar to the one in the second movement of Beethoven's seventh symphony. No matter: the material seduces when the pianist illuminates the material with a superb rendition marked by clarity of phrasing and articulation. As impressive as the performances of the Liszt and Schubert works are, they're surpassed by the breathtaking one given Busoni's Fantasia Contrappuntistica (1910). The detailed structural notes Liebermann provides about the travelogue are entirely worth digesting; however, the thirty-two-minute ride is so scenic, absorbing, probing, and panoramic that experiencing the performance in all its visceral glory sans the supplemental info is plentifully rewarding on its own.

For his follow-up to Personal Demons, Liebermann initially planned to again feature works by multiple figures but ultimately decided to focus exclusively on contemporary British composer David Hackbridge Johnson (b. 1963). After a friend brought him to Liebermann's attention, contact was made, an online friendship developed, and months later Hackbridge Johnson, after expressing admiration for Personal Demons, informed the pianist that the recording had inspired him to write a brand new piece, Nocturne No. 7, “The Devil's Lyre.” After falling under its spell, Liebermann directed his attention to the composer's other piano works and quickly decided that the multi-composer project he'd been considering would instead be a collection featuring Hackbridge Johnson only.

Issued under the eye-catching title The Devil's Lyre, the album's world premiere recordings provide a stellar introduction to Hackbridge Johnson's idiosyncratic soundworld. Liebermann smartly describes his counterpart's music as “difficult to categorize, as it subscribes to no compositional dogmas.” In the pianist's view, Hackbridge Johnson is neither a tonal nor atonal composer; instead, he goes where his musical curiosity leads and never fails to imprint his personal stamp upon the result. Adding to the composer's mystique, while he's created over 400 works (including three operas, fifteen symphonies, ten string quartets, nineteen piano sonatas, and over 100 songs), much of it remains unpublished and unperformed; three volumes of orchestral music (on Toccata Classics) and The Devil's Lyre are the sole recordings to date to document his work.

The album opens with seven nocturnes, which encompass a tonal universe so expansive it could be regarded as a microcosm of the composer's monumental world. The first in the series is an explicit Chopin homage, with Hackbridge Johnson noting as well that several direct Chopin references emerge, albeit given a ghostly treatment through the application of pedal effects and reharmonisation. True enough, there is a deeply brooding, even nightmarish quality to the piece that perhaps reflects the composer's fondness for the writings of M. R. James and H. P. Lovecraft. That subtly macabre tone carries over into the atmospheric second nocturne, this one including “Notturno Misterioso: From an occult notebook” in its title. At ten minutes-plus the longest piece on the sixty-nine-minute recording, the oft-majestic third feels positively life-affirming by comparison in the way its lyrical expressions breathe fresh, noxious-free air into the exploration. The bell-like character that's often cited in reference to Hackbridge Johnson's work surfaces here too, though it's far from being the only time that happens on the release. Whereas the largely gentle fourth resonates as a moving lament, the lilting fifth finds the composer delving into a serenading salon music style and the sixth gravitating in a Chopin-esque direction. Closing the circle, the eerie seventh returns us to the ominous realm inhabited by the first two in the series.

In keeping with its title, the intricate study Bell-Fanfare, Op. 369 reverberates with clangorous chords and chiming patterns. Of the two Barcarolle-Elegies, Op. 160, Liebermann writes that the tone of the first might be traced to the death of the composer's spouse in 2004, which exerted a profound impact on his life and work, and in fact the composer acknowledges that the two elegies “came out of bereavement for my first wife, Carol Fine.” Rage, unapologetic and defiant, comes through in the first; if the bell-toned second is less violent, it still conveys the sadness that lingers long after the fact of the actual event. An inscription on the score of Calligraphic Poems, Op. 224 clarifies that its six parts were inspired by Japanese calligraphy and Asian culture in general. Naturally, such inclinations are refracted through the prism of Hackbridge Johnson's sensibility, and consequently the evocative suite registers as a fully authentic creation by the composer as opposed to an exercise in imitation. That said, there are intimations of an Asian influence, with the composer himself likening pauses in the fourth to moments when the calligrapher raises the brush before making a stroke.

March 2022