Elie Siegmeister: Piano Music (1999)

Modern Americana For The Piano

Elie Siegmeister (1909 - 1991) grew up in New York City and studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in the 1920s. He returned to New York City and enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a composer. His music, alas, is not well-known today. The Naxos "American Classics" series has made a noteworthy attempt to rectify this situation by issuing two albums of Elie Siegmiester's solo piano music. The music is beautifully performed by pianist Kenneth Bolton, a specialist in modern American music. Mr. Bolton also wrote the program notes which, on both albums, are highly informative. These albums will repay the attention of any listener interested in modern American music or in modern piano music.

Early in his career, Siegmeister incorporated elements of American folk culture and song into his compositions. These compositions are tonal, lyrical, jazzy, and accessible. In the 1960's, Siegmeister's style changed. Although still greatly influenced by folk music, ragtime, jazz, and the blues, his style became atonal and increasingly hermetic. With all that, the music has a distinctive lilt to it and an American feel. It deserves a hearing.

Siegmeister reminds me a great deal of Charles Ives and, to a lesser extent Aaron Copland. Like Ives, Siegmeister wanted to create an American music and was deeply influenced by American folk song and jazz. Ives frequently incorporated large elements of folk songs in his work while Siegmeister did so only rarely. Siegmeister's work reflects folk and jazz influences but rarely borrows themes from existing works. Ives and Siegmeister are also alike in that both composers moved from a style of Americana to a more demanding and difficult atonal idiom.

Volume I of the Naxos albums opens with Siegmeister's "American Sonata" of 1944. This is a three movement work with brash, boogie-woogie themes in the two outer movements and a slow bluesy middle movement. This music is engaging.

The next work on the CD is a five movement suite "On this Ground." For me, this work is the highlight of the collection. This piece consists of short music in an atonal, difficult style that still capture, as the title indicates, something of the American experience. The movements are title "Dream Freely", "Where", "Ariel" "Summer" and "Mr. Henry's (Monday Night".) For all its difficulty, something of America and of joy come through here. The interested listener might want to compare this work with Siegmeister's 1985 suite "From These Shores" which appears in volume 2 of the Naxos compilation.

There are two late sonatas on this CD. Siegmeister's Piano Sonata number 4, Prelude, Blues and Toccata (1980) was commissioned by the American University in Washington, D.C. Although the work is highly atonal, it too features the sound of American jazz, particularly in the slow blues of the middle movement.

Siegmeister's Piano Sonata No. 5 (1987) is his final work for solo piano and is much more abstruse than its predecessor. Yet it too has a blues-like slow second movement.

There is a great deal of outstanding American art music waiting to be discovered. Although our country has produced composers of worth, such as Siegmeister, it perhaps has not accorded them the recognition they deserve. This album will introduce the listener to a composer who, as did Charles Ives, captured much of himself and of the American spirit in a difficult, modern musical idiom.

Robin Friedman