A Polish review of Bolet's Godowsky

Elżbieta Szczepańska-Malinowska: "Dyskretny zapach fermen-tacji..." ["The discreet scent of fermentation..."]:

L. Godowsky's paraphrases of Chopin's Etudes and Waltzes recorded by Jorge Bolet, L'Oiseau de Lyre

In: Rocznik Chopinowski, 13: 1981, p. 171-3.

The pianist's fantasising on the material of piano compositions whose essence—as in Chopin's etudes and waltzes—is figuration or ornamental texture, richly endowed with virtuosity by the composer himself, may seem an idea bordering on the absurd. Anyway, Godowsky's approach probably stems from very specific (and not very clear) aesthetic needs, different from those in the situation when ornaments are added to the intact structure, or when a solo instrumental idea is embedded in orchestral texture. Apparently, Godowsky is as much a child of the 19th century as of contemporary times (he died in 1938). In his rearrangements, the musician introduces the element of combination theory, alien to the 19th-century way of thinking. He penetrated deeply the musical substance of Chopin's compositions, sometimes he crumbles them into minute elements in order to rearrange them in a different manner, changes the direction of melody movement, transfers the figuration to the left and the accompaniment to the right hand, makes the structure polyphonic, extends concentrated groups of notes and vice versa, etc.

The final artistic result is very peculiar. Chopin's compositions, arranged by Godowsky, swell with added counterpoints, multiple harmonies, and doubled and tripled tunes. Godowsky uses all the "thin" places in the texture to highlight them and pump up the sound. It is not, which is worth mentioning here, a thickening; thanks to the open harmonies and slight tone, the volume is not large. Harmonic progression is treated like a loose groundwork, in which every opening must be "plugged" with a delay, alteration, or a swing to a different key. The harmonies bubble here with timid dissonances in the pre-Debussy style, and generally speaking, are hesitant. The discreet scent of fermentation hovers above them and above all paraphrases—very slightly spoiling the sweetness of the Romantic sound.

From the point of view of texture, Godowsky's paraphrases suffer from the elephantiasis of sound foam and, like foam, they rise and fall instead of gaining momentum. This applies, in particular, to etudes, in which no speed can be felt. Here Godowsky simply changes swift streams into flood waters, depriving Chopin of his dynamics and inner tensions. On this record, only seven of Godowsky's 53 fantasies on Chopin are performed, but out of these seven, the majority—in my opinion—provoke the question: "What for?" It is a pity that in etudes transcribed for the left hand alone, we cannot see with our own eyes how the pianist manages to overcome difficulties: in the recording, the effect is considerably reduced.

Waltzes, however, show coquetry full of dubious meanings. Evidently, Godowsky wanted to appear very subtle, and indeed, he managed to produce gems—sometimes resembling a film soundtrack, sometimes café music (Waltz in D flat major).

The output of the great virtuoso Godowsky was passed on to Jorge Bolet without special risk. An American of Cuban descent, one of Józef Hofmann's pupils, he possesses a phenomenal technique that nothing seems to limit. The calm and ease with which he navigates the sheer hell of difficulties, accumulated by Godowsky in the most cruel manner—examples of which can be seen in numerous figurations in parallel thirds or sixths, or frequent polyphonic structures with the volume adapted for two hands but meant for the left hand alone—confirm high mastery skills. Bolet's conscious and precise measurement of the power and intensity of sound allows us to assume that he could flawlessly perform Webern's dynamic series, i.e., determine audible boundaries between two, three, and four p's. In this case, too, one would dream of hearing him in the truly great classical-romantic repertoire.