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| Michael Tsalka, Alon Sariel © Viktória Fűrjes |
“Bach in the White City” is a disc in which pianist Michael Tsalka and
mandolin artist Alon Sariel bring together an unusual set of connections. The
two Israeli-born artists have dedicated their recording of music of Johann
Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and Yehezkel Braun (1922-2014) to the Bauhaus
movement, in particular, to its strong influence on the architecture of Tel
Aviv.
Arguably the most influential modernist art school of the 20th century, the
Bauhaus movement was founded in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, by a group of young,
visionary students who wanted to change the face of architecture through a new,
avant-garde yet rational attitude to design. Their approach to teaching, and to
the relationship between art, society and technology, was highly influential
both in Europe and in the United States long after its closure under Nazi
pressure in 1933. Due to large waves of immigration from Germany to Israel in
the 1930s, including seventeen former Bauhaus students, the German style of
Bauhaus architecture subsequently transformed Tel Aviv into the
UNESCO-recognized “White City”.
So why Bach and Braun? The disc’s liner notes point out that “Bach, a
symbol of Weimar and a pillar of classical music was, of course, an essential
part of the cultural heritage which Jewish immigrants brought from Europe.
Yehezkel Braun...was born in Breslau...at the same time as the Bauhaus
movement...immigrated with his family to the British Mandate of Palestine...and
received his musical education in Tel Aviv.”
Arrangements of the works on the recording are all by Sariel and Tsalka;
Tsalka plays on a Mason & Hamlin piano (1960, USA) and Sariel on mandolins
built by Tel Aviv luthier Arik Kerman. In writing the Concerto in Italian Style
BWV 971 for the two-manual keyboard, J.S.Bach skilfully manages to recreate in
miniature the Italian “concerto grosso” effect between a full instrumental
ensemble and a soloist, allowing for clear delineation between the solo line on
one manual and the orchestral textures on the other. In their setting, Sariel
and Tsalka address this issue; the dynamic inequality of the instruments,
however, somewhat limits the artists when engaging in the fuller more resonant,
“orchestral” textures of the outer movements. More balanced is the Andante movement,
emerging poignant with its austere accompaniment inviting Bach’s elegant, long,
ornamented strands of melody to sing on the mandolin. Preserved in a manuscript in the hand of C P
E Bach, dating from the early 1730s, and in which Emanuel Bach attributes the
piece to his father, the origins of J.S.Bach’s Sonata in C major BWV 1033
remain unclear. Bach scholar Robert
Marshall has even suggested that the existing score might be C.P.E.Bach’s
effort to compose a continuo line to an unaccompanied flute sonata written by
his father. The existing score - that of a chamber sonata for flute and basso
continuo - is an easier proposition for piano and mandolin than the Italian
Concerto, due to the less “provocative” nature of its content and to the fact that, as a continuo sonata,
the score provides the keyboard player with a skeletal figured bass line from
which he fills in harmonies and rhythms
extemporaneously and in textures accommodating to the timbre of the second instrument.
Sariel and Tsalka give it a sunny, elegant, at times, gently-swayed reading,
with Sariel’s playing offering some attractive ornamentation. In what is,
indeed, a group of miniatures, Tsalka and Sariel present what is substantive in
each movement, with Tsalka’s understated, refined playing outlining the
harmonic plan of each and interlacing some melodic material into the weave. It
is supposed that J.S.Bach’s Partita in A minor BWV 1013 was written for solo
flute, but what remains unclear is whether this is the original form in which
Bach wrote it. What is clear is that it has lent itself to many transcriptions
- for harpsichord, violin, viola, guitar, lute, bassoon, double bass and
even tuba. Alon Sariel’s performance of
it is exquisite, capturing the elegance of each courtly dance, of dialogue
between voices and the subtle fantasy of inferred harmony. His playing is
contrasted, its rhythms “breathe” and repeated sections emerge splendidly
embellished. He takes the listener into the delicate, expressive world of
mandolin timbres, especially poignant in the Sarabande, as he furnishes it with
a sense of mystery and occasional spreads, to be followed by spontaneity and
energy in the final Bourrée Angloise.
Michael Tsalka’s performance of Yehezkel Braun’s “Four Keyboard Pieces”
(1992) gives expression to the delicate, positive, breezy textures of these
four miniatures as well as to Braun’s anti avant-garde style with its mix of
influences, in which modality, tonality and atonality coexist naturally. Tsalka’s
playing is personal and delightfully transparent, abounding in colour,
dialogue, lush pianistic textures and imagination. Sariel and Tsalka’s
rendition of Braun’s “Mesembrianthema” (Midday Flowers), Five Bagatelles for
Violin and Piano (1985), is strikingly beautiful, giving consummate expression
to the composer’s profuse and richly integrated instrumental language. The
artists navigate the replete canvas - with its exotic, magical moments, its
mystery and oriental references, its forays into wild, insistent and
vibrantly-coloured intensity, its long, winding melodies and its almost pointillistic
whimsy - with eloquence, prudent timing and fine-spun balance.
Michael Tsalka and Alon Sariel pull together the threads of their unique
project in playing that is meticulous in detail, informed, polished and of
superior taste. Alongside photos of Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv, the liner
notes show some paintings of the same houses by Shalom Flash. Recorded in
October 2018 at the Pianola Museum-Geelvinck Music Museums, Amsterdam for the
Sheva Collection LTD, London, the sound quality of “Bach in the White City” is
true and alive. A delightful disc.
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