This new release from pianist Cordelia Williams celebrates the notion that small is not only beautiful – but also witty, imaginative, colourful, varied, virtuosic and transcendent. The piano miniature, of which this disc is a selection of some of the best, is a genre that includes some of the most exquisite and inventive music in the piano’s repertoire, pieces which reveal their composer’s distinctive character and style in microcosm; they are exquisite musical gems in their own right.

For Williams, the appeal of this repertoire is its mercurial nature, changing in an instant, music which “gives us micro-glimpses into countless worlds – inner worlds, literal worlds, dissolving worlds, worlds of imagination – each world contained within a fragmentary passing moment” (Cordelia Williams)

The disc opens with Beethoven’s Bagatelle in C Minor, WoO56, a miniature minuet and trio which was not published until 1888. It begins as if lost in thought, suggestive of a fugue, before moving into more restless territory. With its changing moods and keys, it sets the scene for Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives, which follow.

These transient, tiny pieces (the shortest lasts a mere half a minute) display myriad characteristics – impressionistic, witty, grotesque, assertive, playful, introspective, mystical – which suggest far more than the sum of their miniature parts. Cordelia Williams presents each as a distinct and precious thing, her clarity of sound, touch and expression highlighting their individual details, quirks and moods.

Schumann’s Waldszenen (Forest Scenes) provides a neat bridge between Prokofiev and late Beethoven, and takes us into a pastoral world, whose beguiling charm is interrupted by darker, stranger forces. Like the Visions Fugitives, what lies beneath the surface of these pieces hints at the darker recesses of the imagination. This was Schumann’s last major cycle  of piano pieces; there is a wistfulness or nostalgia in almost every one of these shape-shifting miniatures, a mood which Cordelia Williams captures with sensitively sculpted phrases, subtle pacing and an appealing sense of intimacy.

Beethoven described his forays into the bagatelle genre as “kleinigkeiten”, literally “trifles”, yet these brief works demonstrate an extraordinary range of styles and emotions, from terse to serene to heroic, garrulous or angst-ridden. They seem to share the same emotional and musical landscape as Beethoven’s final three piano sonatas – the third of the set, Andante cantabile e espressivo, comes from exactly the same, other-worldly place as the slow movements of those transcendent sonatas – and indeed the entire opus points to the profundity of the late string quartets. The Op. 126 divert from strictly classical structures, suggesting improvisation and spontaneity in their concentrated design and intense moods, and Cordelia Williams highlights the individuality of each bagatelle with both precision and lyricism, revealing the extraordinary depths of expression that lie beneath the superficial simplicity of these “trifles” (which of course they are anything but!)

This is, in sum, an intriguing, thoughtfully-organised recital disc, and a wonderful introduction to the kaleidoscopic world of the piano miniature, exquisitely performed by Cordelia Williams.

Recommended

CASCADE is available on the SOMM label and via streamin

FW