Samson Tsoy's "debut" recording, "Inmost Heart: Bach, Brahms, Busoni & Reger" (Linn Records) is far more than a calling card. Where many artists issuing first recordings content themselves with sampler programs that show off their versatility, Tsoy has weighed in with a program that takes a compelling view of a central aspect of the music of Johannes Brahms.
His program considers both Brahms' deep devotion to the music of the Baroque and his successors' artistic debt to Brahms. Even the "pure" Brahms on his program —that is, Brahms without commentary by other composers— nods to Baroque music at its greatest.
The tribute is clear in Brahms' "Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel." It's paired with Brahms' transcription of the towering Chaconne from Bach's second solo-violin partita, which Brahms tailored for the left hand alone.
Max Reger's transformation of Brahms' aptly named "Four Serious Songs," Op. 121, weaves the vocal line into significantly enhanced keyboard accompaniments. Finally, Brahms' all too seldom heard final collection, the "Eleven Chorale Preludes" of Op. 122, is represented by the six that were arranged for piano by Ferruccio Busoni. They infiltrate the recording, serving as markers and intermezzos for the other pieces.
Throughout, what listeners experience, beyond Tsoy's virtuosity at age 36, is his full maturity as a musician. His steady focus and unflagging concentration pay off in a program that richly rewards repeated listening.
Stepping out
At a more sentimental level, "Inmost Heart" proves conclusively that musically Tsoy is his own man. The Kazakh, London-based pianist ("soy" is a close pronunciation of his name) met fellow pianist Pavel Kolesnikov when both were students at the Moscow Conservatory. Now life partners as well as regular musical collaborators, both men have individual careers balanced by playing as a duo.
To date, Kolesnikov has had the flashier career, with numerous, critically acclaimed recordings and a roster of appearances including his celebrated performance of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" in the cavernous Royal Albert Hall for a spellbound audience at the BBC Proms.
For his part, Tsoy now enjoys his own vigorous concert schedule, with appearances as attention-getting as performing both Brahms piano concertos on the same program. The two regularly perform and record as a piano duo, as seen in their much-lauded recent recording of Schubert duets.
But at least in the US, Tsoy's reputation has been somewhat eclipsed by Kolesnikov's. Fame has had its way of suggesting, erroneously, that Kolesnikov has been the star musician and Samson an also-ran. But "Inmost Heart" is not a debut CD in the usual sense, and it may need saying that it is a first solo recording and not a calling card. The album declares not only that Samson is musically his own man but also that he has a remarkable artistic profile all his own.
Little music made big
The central piece on Tsoy's program is the Bach-Brahms' transcription of Bach's famous Chaconne from his second solo partita for solo violin. Using only the notes of the original "note-to-note tracking" in Tsoy's words, it tracks Bach's towering, quarter-hour tour de force with music confined to the pianist's left hand. Stripped of exhibitionism for its own sake, Tsoy's astonishing performance capitalizes on the piece's fundamental austerity, making its journey to musical high drama seem as inevitable as it is right.
Brahms' "Handel Variations" salute the Baroque master in an absorbing series of variations that seem to toggle between the 18th and 19th centuries. It's bright, engaging music that balances the two aesthetics with fidelity to their native idioms. There's a fine filagree in the earlier music, and Tsoy dispatches it with unerring precision and unflagging energy. The thunderous fugue that concludes the variations is Brahmsian as much as Bachian, and Tsoy adds to that a clear-minded exuberance all his own.
Along the way he proves himself a wizard of the diabolical repeated note and the weight of what is too often passed off as mere ornament. Throughout this disc Tsoy displays a keen sense of period styles matched with an unmistakable lust to entertain in the fullest sense.
Transformations
The "Four Serious Songs," Brahms' penultimate work, would not seem ripe for translation into solo-piano music, but against the odds Max Reger's arrangements locate the new in the old. The solemnity of the death-drenched texts Brahms set is offset by music of sometimes wild invention. Tsoy's recognition of the songs' essential Brahms-ness makes Reger's flights of fancy all the more involving.
Brahms last opus, the "Eleven Chorale Preludes" for organ, is similarly absorbed with imminent death, but in the place of drama in the usual sense is an austerity of means all its own. The likelihood that you'll hear these pieces live is close to nil, but pianists have long treasured the six that Busoni arranged for the piano keyboard. Together, these chorale preludes, with their clear debt to Bach, ache with quiet transcendence.
Tsoy begins with "Hertzlich tut mich verlangen," arguably the best known of Busoni's arrangements, and what immediately catches the ear is the pianist's mastery at sounding out the inner voices, so conspicuous and vital in the Bach originals. The overlay of Brahms on Bach produces moving but often technically hazardous cross-rhythms, to which Tsoy responds with an inwardness all his own.
With deceptive simplicity, the chorale preludes, resurface throughout Tsoy's program, introducing and summarizing it as a whole and setting off the individual works with music of longing and quiet terror.
For its part, Linn Recordings has wrapped the package with an exemplary capture of the piano sound, no mean achievement ever. No mere debut album, "Inmost Heart" is a keeper.
"Inmost Heart: Bach Brahms Busoni & Reger," Samson Tsoy, pianist, CD and streaming. www.linnrecords.com
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