Génia - Unveiled

What are we supposed to make of this title, "Génia: Unveiled", for a CD devoted to the piano music of four Russian female composers, spanning four generations, all trained, at least initially, under the former Soviet regime? Is it a feminisation and pluralization of "genius"? But, though the credentials of these composers as geniuses (or genia?) may be open to debate, other than the youngest of these four, Lena Langer (born in 1974), this would be no "unveiling": all have been recorded before and at least two, Gubaidulina and Ustvolskaya, are well represented on easy-to-find CDs - including the compositions on this disc.

Or is it a feminisation of "genus"? Are we to understand that women - or maybe Soviet women composers - are a particular genus within the Homo Sapiens (or Homo Sovieticus) species? That would indeed be a ground breaking advance in the science of Taxonomy - but not easy to substantiate. Do they reproduce with each other?

Well, none of it. "Genia" is the name assumed by the young pianist who conceived this program and plays these works. A quick search on the web yields that she was born a more banal Evgenia Chudinovich in Ukraine in 1972, and taught there first by her great grand mother Regina Horowitz - and if you wonder, yes! that is the sister of Vladimir, which makes Genia the great grand niece of the famous genius pianist, doesn't it? Hopefully she inherited some of her great grand uncle's genes - or should I feminise it to "genias"? She then pursued her studies at the Guildhall School in London, and thought fit to take on this stage name of Génia. Among her many activities, she holds yearly "Mind, Body and Piano Series" that are based on her "unique Piano-Yoga teaching and playing system". The disc comes with recherché photographic art (all filtered in magenta) and an artist's photo likening her to some teen-age rock star, pimples and all.

All that would be laughable hype - if the music and playing weren't so good.

My first reaction to the concept underlying this disc was rather negative - attributing to these composers' gender, and to "the hidden policy [of the Soviet regime] of suppression toward women in any profession, including music", the fact that "unlike many of their male counterparts, these women tried to sever their connections with Soviet ideologies and have chosen a radically different way of expressing themselves in music". As if these ladies had been the only original composers voices during the Soviet era! Not very kind to Schnittke, Denisov, Smirnov (who happens to be madame Firsova's husband in civilian life) and others... But after all, it is true that, in the older generation, Ustvolskaya (born 1919) and Gubaidulina (born 1931) both developed a strikingly personal voice and compositional styles of radical originality, while so many male composers were content to remain in a safe, Soviet sanctioned academism. So maybe it had something to do with gender after all, and having to overcome occult hurdles placed against it. The extraordinary enigma remains that the Soviet system could, if not produce and nurture (Ustvolskaya lived in near complete seclusion for a good part of her life, was neither published nor performed for twenty years), at least harbor and not stifle the hatching of such original voices - and maybe having to develop against the system did contribute to produce and nurture such originality.

Sofia Gubaidulina is the better known of these composers. With Schnittke and Denisov she was part of the Triumvirat of cutting edge composers who emerged at the end of the 70s, defying the stultified Soviet academism. It is not so much with the massive, stark and virtuosic 1962 Chaconne, Imposing as it may be with its anguished, agitated Shostakovichian fugue, that she is at her most personal and original, as with her 1985 Sonata, a masterpiece of original invention, full of wild Boogie-Woogies and mesmerizing coloristic effects produced by unusual playing techniques. This is as inventive and haunting in its sonic invention as the piano music of Crumb or Nancarrow.

Galina Ustvolskaya is now well represented on CD. A pupil of Shostakovich who recognized her genius, defended her against the Party cronies and even acknowledged her influence upon some of his works, she was re-discovered in the 90s and died a few months ago. Though her output was very small (21 opuses), she wrote music like no one else in the Western, classical music tradition, and both her sonatas (the 2nd from 1949 and 6th from 1988) are fine examples: their terse and lean textures (as in the 2nd sonata's first movement) recall Shostakovitch at his most austere - the piano quintet, the prelude and fugues, the violin and viola sonatas -, while the extremes of dynamics, the doggedly forward-moving ostinato figures with their relentlessly, violently and angrily pounding chords bring to mind Boulez' 1975 "Rituel" and attain devastating intensity.

In her "Hymn to Spring ", Firsova (born 1950) runs flurry of notes, sometimes reminiscent of the music for player piano of Conlon Nancarrow, over a bass chorale, the effect of which also brings to mind some of Messiaen's bird music in Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus. Both Langer's "Reflection" and Firsova's "Elegy" share a mysterious and enigmatic language, maintained in hushed dynamics with occasional and fugitive outbursts of violence and with, in the case of Langer, the memory of a Bach prelude emerging from the hazy halo of the piano harmonies.

Génia plays with fluency, conviction, the required blend of subtlety and power. She is entirely up to the daunting demands and challenges, both technical and musical, of these works.