Ullmann: Piano Concerto, Piano Sonata no.7, Variations...

Album review

Viktor Ullmann’s output may be classified in two parts : works composed during his Prague years between 1920 and 1942 – many, tragically many of which have disappeared during the Nazi occupation of the country –; and those written during his deportation in Theresienstadt, from September 1942 to October 16th, 1944, when he was transferred to Auschwitz where his life did not last more than two days… The Piano Concerto Op. 25 was finished December 1936, nine months after the Nazi’s entrance in Prague. At that time Ullmann had already shed his earlier language inherited from Schönberg, and returned to a considerable dose of tonality reminding the listener much more of Poulenc and Zemlinsky, as well as Mahler from time to time. As for his Seventh Piano Sonata, dated 22 August 1944 (hence less than two months before his transportation to Auschwitz), it does under no circumstance sound like whjat the listener might imagine as a work written in a concentration camp. Once again, Poulenc and even Satie might be some of the pillars of his compositional process, and if the third movement does rely on some Schönbergian mists and the scherzo remind of the existence of Pierrot Lunaire, the fifth and last uses a Hebraic folksong as a basis for some ultimate variations. And speaking of variations, the last item on this album signed Moritz Ernst – who leads a successful double career as both pianist and harpsichordist, with a marked preference for the 20th and 21st Century music for both instruments – is a set of Variations followed by a double fugue, on a theme by Schönberg, written 1933. Here Ullmann’s inspiration does still hark back to the atonal teachings of his mentor, very far indeed from the music written later on. © SM/Qobuz