KATHLEEN SUPOVE
The first-generation piano, an amalgam of dulcimer and clavichord features with a four-octave range, was introduced around the time of Bach. It quickly became an all-purpose instrument and an indispensable tool for composers. Its versatility also helped usher in the age of the virtuosos. Mozart first gained fame as a keyboard prodigy. Concertgoers paid dearly to see Beethoven and Brahms pounding heroically on the most modern (and sturdy) pianos. Liszt became the first performing superstar, and Chopin even managed to make revolutionary fervor fashionable among the cultural elite. For the growing bourgeoisie in the 19th century, as Theodor Adorno pointed out, the piano was a status symbol.
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But sometime in the 1940s the piano repertoire–arguably the richest for any solo instrument–stopped growing. Bartok and Stravinsky were the last major contributors, and the great pianists of this century–Horowitz, Rubinstein, Casadesus, Schnabel–became for the most part interpreters of past glories. Presumably their fans wouldn’t sit through the atonal music served up by postwar composers, nor could they be expected to understand why modern composers like John Cage went out of their way to coax new sounds from the piano. As a consequence, present-day pianists bent on building a lucrative career shy away from 20th-century compositions, though they occasionally include a piece or two for the critics.
River of Dreams by Kathleen Ginther, a PhD candidate at Northwestern, is also a modest exercise, focusing on rhythm, register, and harmony. The short, not easy piece proceeds like ripples in a pond, with the pianist’s hands slowly working their way from the piano’s middle section outward, its cascading rhythm fluid yet unpredictable. One has the sense of listening to a composer working out a knotty compositional problem at the piano. Supove tackled the piece with lots of energy, working up to a frenzy by the end.
