Krieger Piano Sonatina. Nina. Piano Sonatas: No. 1; No. 2. Prelúdio e Fuga. Choro manhoso. Estudo seresteiro. Estudos intervalares Ÿ

Alexandre Dossin (pn) BLUE GRIFFIN BGR125 (64:22)

Brazilian composer Edino Krieger, according to a biography provided by his publisher, was born in Brusque, Santa Catarina, in 1928. He began to study violin with his father and was granted a scholarship at age 15 to study violin and composition at the Conservatório Brasileiro de Música in Rio de Janeiro. In 1948 he won a contest to study with Aaron Copland at the Berkshire Music Center, and afterward with Peter Mennin at Juilliard. Further tutelage came from Ernst Krenek and Lennox Berkeley. In addition to his composing career, Krieger has been active as a conductor, music critic, and music administrator, and has apparently been a calming influence in Brazil’s fractious music world. He is the president of the Academia Brasileira de Música, and the organizer and director of the Bienal de Música Contemporânea Brasileira, a festival that was launched in 1975.

In the notes accompanying his new recording of apparently the complete Krieger works for piano (to date), Alexandre Dossin provides this apt travel guide to the composer’s keyboard œ uvre: “In it we travel from an original native-Brazilian melody to polytonal clusters, passing through an elegant salon waltz, a lazy choro and a melancholic seresta—all enhanced by a neoclassical-modal flavor and polyphonic textures.”

Very little of this music sounds Brazilian in the way that Villa-Lobos does; it’s more likely to call to mind Samuel Barber, sometimes the light Barber of Excursions, and sometimes the tough Barber of the piano sonata. Most of these pieces employ syncopation and have a strong rhythmic drive. Krieger is more likely than Barber to indulge in glittering passagework, but not to a Lisztian extent; poetic expression is more important here than showmanship. You’d definitely peg Krieger as Brazilian upon hearing his 1955 Prelúdio e Fuga or his 1956 Choro manhoso, but his two sonatas (1954 and 1956) and sonatina (1957) offer neo-Classicism without folklore. Nina (1997) is a pleasant salon waltz; the remaining items are etudes from 1956 and 2000, the latter set holding up particularly well as music to hear rather than play.

Pianist Dossin serves on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire; he has degrees from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the University of Texas at Austin; he took first prize at the 2003 Martha Argerich International Piano Competition in Buenos Aires. He first encountered Krieger’s music in 1987 while preparing for a competition celebrating the composer’s 60th birthday. The music stuck with him, and he seems to play it with both devotion and delight; Krieger, at least, has lavished praise upon these performances, and I hear no reason to dispute the composer’s seal of approval.

A Touch of Brazil. Piano Music of Edino Krieger

$14.99

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