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Steven Spooner’s recital of piano works by Franz Liszt sought to showcase the various aspects of the composer throughout his life. His selections were well picked from Liszt’s oeuvre while avoiding the exceedingly popular works. That being said and this being a Liszt recital, all the requisite Lisztian trademarks were present: parallel octaves, extravagant ornamentation, dexterity, and endurance.

Opening with Liszt’s second version of Eduard Lassen’s Löse, Himmel, meine Seele, Spooner showcased his knack for voicing the different strata of melodies; his middle range was robust and his upper was diaphanous. This was a great opener as the repeated eighth notes gradually blossomed out into full keyboard eruptions of arpeggios, a form that would return later in the program. 

A new work by twenty-five-year-old Mohammed Fairouz was specially commissioned for Spooner for this festival by Reach Out Kansas, Inc. Entitled The Last Resistance, it is his second piano sonata and his second work based on the writings of Jacqueline Rose. Cast in four movements, Fairouz captured the virtuosity of Liszt in that it is a demanding piece for the piano, but the similarities stopped there.

The first movement, “Last Resistance,” had some nicely orchestrated, but wicked to perform, multi-note tremolos that gradually reduced into two-note trills. The melodic material was underdeveloped however, and the preponderance of octave doublings made the piece ring hollow. “Retro Recollections on 21st and 8th” channeled Gershwin between spacious sforzando chords. The referential nature of the piece could have been modernized by tempering the overt “jazziness,” a technique in which one of Fairouz's teachers, Gunther Schuller, excels. The third movement, “Freud Goes to Abu Ghraib,” was gutsy in that it was an unadorned, melancholic, monophonic melody. Finally, “Men and Women in Dark Times” was an allegro furioso with an ominous descending three-note motive. Spooner played the piece with commitment to technique but little artistic subtly.

Spooner’s second half was very strong and opened with his most convincing performance, Liszt’s St. François de Paule merchant sur les flot. His left-hand music was extremely clean and articulate even in the more rollicking sections depicting stormy waves. He was also light on the pedal, allowing for such moments to be just watery enough without becoming murky. The solemn melody in the right hand also contained great shape and sense of line.

Of the two Schubert transcriptions, “Ständchen” was brilliant. Spooner floated the upper melody in duet with the more prominent mid-range all over the guitar-like accompaniment. This work became the serenade it was intended to be in Spooner’s capable hands. Erlkönig was less clean as was to be expected due to this piece having the highest level of difficulty on the program. His parallel octaves were executed very crisply, though in the upper range Spooner backed off, causing some note flubs in the arpeggios—but what a fantastic piece and an endurance nightmare. Though his nerves may have slacked, his energy never faltered.

Closing with Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 was a great change of pace. Spooner capitalized on the rhapsodic character of the first section; it was as if he were improvising on the spot, as all the gestures were well-conceived nuggets of sonic bliss. The blazingly fast Vivace had deftly executed, single-note tremolos and oomph in spades.

Though Spooner did not play a full multi-movement Liszt work, this was an enjoyable sampler of the rich variety of Liszt’s output.

REVIEW:
University of Kansas Liszt Odyssey
Aspects of Liszt: A Piano Recital Celebrating the Music and Legacy of Franz Liszt
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
University of Kansas
Lied Center of Kansas
1600 Stewart Drive, Lawrence, KS
For more information visit music.ku.edu

Top Photo: Steven Spooner 

By Lee Hartman

Editor-in-Chief; Traditional and New Classical Contributor

Lee Hartman holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (D.M.A., M.M.) and the University of Delaware (B.M.). At the University of Delaware, he received a Dean's Scholar position enabling him to pursue an individually designed academic program combining music education and composition. At the University of Missouri-Kansas City he served for three years as the Assistant Director to Musica Nova, the conservatory's new music ensemble, while teaching a variety of composition classes.

In 2007 he was invited to both the Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavík, Iceland and the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China to give lectures and master classes in composition. In the summer of 2009, Hartman served as an orchestra manager for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and Aspen Opera Theater Center for various performances. He serves on the National Executive Committee of the Society of Composers, Inc. as Submissions Coordinator. His primary composition instructors include James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Paul Rudy, John Beall, and Jennifer Margaret Barker. He currently teaches music theory at the University of Central Missouri and general music classes at Park University having previously taught at UD (2007–08) and UMKC (2006–07).

His compositions can be found at http://www.leehartmanmusic.com