From the early 1990s to the present, André Previn’s compositional output has become more prolific and creatively fluid than in the past. This is not to say that the piano works on this disc, all written between 1973 and 1990, hold less interest, although some succeed more than others. Previn composed The Invisible Drummer, a set of five preludes, for Vladimir Ashkenazy in response to the pianist’s interest in jazz improvisation. Each prelude emerges from the previous one in variation fashion, where a steady, unswerving tempo anchors virtuosic flourishes rooted in blues and jazz. No doubt the piano writing is idiomatic, effective, and challenging, yet I feel that the aggressive bouts of dissonance are superimposed upon rather than naturally grow from Previn’s lyrical instinct. By contrast, the Haydn Variations (inspired by the second movement of his Symphony No. 82) avoid stylistic clutter in that each of the seven sections has a specific character of mood or texture, ranging from No. 1’s acerbic rumbles to No. 4’s wistful melodicism and No. 7’s madcap marching toccata.
The Five Pages from my Calendar are less public, more introspective, and can be described as what Prokofiev’s gentler sonata movements would have sounded like rewritten by Leonard Bernstein circa 1949. The Walton Paraphrase is based on a theme from Act 2 of Troilus and Cressida, spiced up with Previn’s whimsical use of bitonality. Matthew’s Piano Book contains 10 pieces designed for advanced beginners, although it takes a seasoned pro to convey their sharp wit and sophistication. Pianist Martin David Jones is such an artist. As a composer in his own right, Jones is particularly attuned to Previn’s harmonic sleights-of-hand and has an astute ear for transitions. But I wish Jones had been able to record on an instrument boasting greater bloom and resonant “ping” in the upper register, as was the case in Wu Han’s excellent and slightly more nuanced recording of the Haydn Variations on Arabesque. In all, this is a release fans of Previn the composer won’t want to miss.
