Three aspects of pianist Gabriela Montero's musicianship are featured on this 2015 Orchid Classics release in her roles as a virtuoso performer, budding composer, and gifted improviser. In playing the Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor of Sergey Rachmaninov, Montero manages its technical difficulties and passionate expressions with ease, yet her reason for choosing this work goes beyond mere showmanship. Montero has deep sympathy for Rachmaninov as a musician in exile, because she has been an expatriate from her native ...
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Three aspects of pianist Gabriela Montero's musicianship are featured on this 2015 Orchid Classics release in her roles as a virtuoso performer, budding composer, and gifted improviser. In playing the Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor of Sergey Rachmaninov, Montero manages its technical difficulties and passionate expressions with ease, yet her reason for choosing this work goes beyond mere showmanship. Montero has deep sympathy for Rachmaninov as a musician in exile, because she has been an expatriate from her native Venezuela, and in this regard the concerto has a personal meaning for her, evoking homesickness and loss. To the same point, she composed Ex Patria as a plangent lament for the loss of lives in Venezuela and the loss of the country she knew in her youth. This tone poem for piano and orchestra is Montero's opus 1, and she and the YOA Orchestra of the Americas give it a powerful premiere recording that communicates rage and sorrow. To round out her program, Montero has included three...
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The Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero (b. 1970) is known for the beauty of her playing and for her rare improvisatory gifts. I have heard organists in recital spontaneously improvise upon themes, but pianists do so much less frequently. Montero has recorded several CDs of Baroque, romantic, and Latin American music which showcase her improvisatory style. In this her most recent CD, Montero records with an orchestra for the first time. She performs with the YOA Orchestra of the Americas conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto. Founded in 2001, the YOA is a world-class orchestra of young musicians between 18 and 30 representing many countries in the Western hemisphere. Musicians perform in the orchestra for a one-year period following a highly competitive auditions process.
Montero's program combines the highly familiar with the new. It includes Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, op. 18 together with Montero's own composition, "Ex Patria", op. 1, and three improvisations. Each piece receives a virtuosic, highly emotive performance in a late romantic style. Montero is a beautifully expressive pianist with full mastery of the instrument.
The Rachmaninov second concerto was an excellent choice for the lead work on this CD given that the remainder of the program is unfamiliar. This widely-known, highly beloved late romantic concerto has entered the realm of popular culture. I found Montero's performance heart-tugging and convincing both in the dramatic outer movements and in the lyrical middle movement. The performance by pianist and orchestra was fresh and passionate, as if performing the music for the first time for listeners new to the piece. Montero's performance makes it easy to understand why so many people love this concerto. There are many famous recordings of this work and listeners will have their own choices. Montero and the YOA offer a moving romantic rendition for those who love this music and for those listeners who may be new to it.
The CD also includes three spontaneous improvisations for piano solo which display Montero's gifts for this form. The three improvisations each are in a late romantic style which show a great influence of Rachmaninov. Each of the three improvisations opens with a lyrical, melancholy theme which Montero expands upon over each work's brief course. I particularly enjoyed the third improvisation, the shortest of the set, which begins plaintively and includes beautiful arpeggios in its development.
The third work on the program also includes a heavy late romantic, Rachmaninov influence. Montero wrote her "Ex Patria" for piano and orchestra to highlight the current difficult, violent political situation in her native country of Venezuela. Montero has become active in Amnesty International and other movements against government terrorism and the violation of human rights. This work is of about 13 minutes duration and includes in the liner notes Montero's commentary. It ranges from the dissonant and foreboding to the romantic. It is wonderfully ambitious for a musician to attempt to excel as performer, improviser ,and composer. Although I appreciate the passion that went into the work and into Montero's performance, I reluctantly found "Ex Patria" disjointed with not especially compelling material and thus musically unconvincing.
I enjoyed listening to this CD for the beautiful performance of Rachmaninov and for Montero's improvisations. She is a rare musical talent indeed. The liner notes include an extensive essay on composers who also are performers, including Rachmaninov himself, and on composers, including Rachmaninov and Montero who are exiles from their native land. The CD is recorded on Orchid Classics, an innovative independent British company founded in 2005 by violinist Matthew Trussler with a goal of promoting artist-focused recordings. The CD is Montero's first for Orchid Classics. Naxos CD is the distributor for Orchid Classics, and Naxos kindly sent me a copy of this CD to review.
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