For much of the 1980s, Keith Jarrett balanced his improvisational activities with performances of classical music and contemporary composition. On this disc, with concert recordings from 1984 and 1985, he is heard playing Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto op. 38 and Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, and rising to the challenges of these major works. The New York Times praised Jarrett’s playing of the Barber with Dennis Russell Davies in this period (“a sinewy, vigorously lyrical performance … both sensitive and strong”), and the Bartók with Kazuyoshi Akiyama was most enthusiastically received in Japan. After the Tokyo Bartók performance Jarrett returned alone to the stage of the Kan-i Hoken Hall to play a touching improvised encore, also documented on this recording. The album includes liner notes by Keith Jarrett and Paul Griffiths. (This historical album of music by Barber, Bartók and Jarrett is one of two albums issued on May 8th, Keith Jarrett’s 70th birthday, the other album being Creation with new recordings of improvised solo piano.)
Samuel Barber: Piano Concerto op. 38 - Béla Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3 - Keith Jarrett: Tokyo Encore
Keith Jarrett, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken, Dennis Russell Davies
Während eines Großteils der 1980er Jahre hielt Keith Jarrett sein Schaffen als Improvisator in bewusster Balance mit Aufführungen klassischer Musik und zeitgenössischer Komposition. Auf dem vorliegenden Album ist eindrucksvoll zu hören, wie er die Herausforderungen von Samuel Barbers Klavierkonzert op. 38 and Béla Bartóks 3. Klavierkonzert meistert. Die New York Times pries Jarretts Barber-Interpretation unter Dennis Russell Davies in dieser Ära („eine kraftvolle, leidenschaftlich lyrische Darbietung … empfindsam und stark“). Bartóks Klavierkonzert unter Kazuyoshi Akiyama wurde in Japan enthusiastisch gefeiert. Nach dem Konzert in Tokio kam Jarrett noch einmal allein auf die Bühne der Kan-i Hoken Hall zurück und spielte eine anrührende Zugabe, die auf dieser Aufnahme ebenfalls dokumentiert ist. Das CD-Booklet enthält Texte von Keith Jarrett und Paul Griffiths. (Dieses historische Album mit Musik von Barber, Bartók und Jarrett, ist eine von zwei Veröffentlichungen, die am 8. Mai, Keith Jarretts 70. Geburtstag, erscheinen. Die andere, betitelt Creation, enthält neue Aufnahmen von Solopiano-Improvisationen).
- Piano Concerto op. 38
- 1I Allegro appassionato12:32
- 2II Canzone. Moderato06:16
- 3III Allegro molto07:57
- Piano Concerto No. 3 Sz. 119
- 4I Allegretto07:42
- 5II Adagio religioso10:16
- 6III Allegro vivace09:08
- 7Tokyo Encore: Nothing But A Dream
04:52
In music, very few have been able to straddle the line between the two genres; Jarrett, Chick Corea, Andre Previn and Friedrich Gulda have done so with the most success. Barber’s ‘Piano Concerto No. 3’ composed between 1960-62 and originally intended for pianist John Browning and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, contains various dissonances and tricky rhythms which suit a jazz musician like Jarrett just fine […] Bartok’s ‘Piano Concerto No. 3’ composed in 1945 as a gift for his wife, went unfinished as he passed away. […] Again, the various harmonies heard in the piece showcase Jarrett’s abilities well as jazz is his main arena. An assured Jarrett gives a wonderful interpretation. The addition of an improvised encore at the end of the album entitled ‘Tokyo Encore: Nothing But a Dream’, is stunning in its melodic invention, giving the illusion of being through-composed. Along with its companion ‘Creation’, ‘Barber/Bartok/Jarrett’ serves as a wonderful reminder of the incredibly diverse world of Keith Jarrett.
C.J. Shearn, Blueceej.com
Völlig egal, was Jarrett spielte und spielt, stets ist da eine zutiefst ernsthafte Auseinandersetzung mit der Musik zu spüren. Jazz, Improvisation, Bach, Schostakowitsch, Standards – it’s music, stupid, könnte man diesem großen Künstler in den Mund legen. […] Wichtig ist, wie hier ein ganz Großer der Jazzszene mit großer klassischer Musik des letzten Jahrhunderts umgeht, absolut seriös und, technisch makellos, musikalisch überzeugend. Hört sie Euch an, meint Keith Jarrett, diese Musik ist es unbedingt wert.
Oswald Beaujean, BR-Klassik
His jazz background clearly helps when tackling these 20th-century concertos, particularly the Barber: his jazz chops bring an easy gusto to the first movement’s more animated syncopations, while the rhapsodic waves of the second movement bear the experience of Jarrett’s years of solo improvisation.
Andy Gill, The Independent
The two concertos on this new album are particularly distinguished for their lyrical qualities. Barber’s concerto was written on a commission by his publisher, G. Schirmer Inc. to honor the centenary of the company’s founding. […] the music has an energetically heartfelt expressiveness that probably owes much to the chemistry between Jarrett and Davies, a relationship they have maintained since 1974. This is definitely a concerto that deserves more concert performances; and I, for one, hope that the release of this album will encourage other ensembles and pianists to follow suit. […] Bartók was dying when he wrote his concerto. However, there is nothing funereal about it, even when the tempo marking for the second movement is Adagio religioso. Instead, the music sparkles with a soothing lyricism […] Jarrett is entirely sympathetic to Bartók’s expressiveness, this time working with Akiyama, making for a thoroughly satisfying account of one of the more ‘enduring survivors’ of twentieth-century music.
Stephen Smoliar, Examiner
For the Saarbrucken suite, Jarrett and his piano are accompanied by the Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, and it's a marvelously exciting three piece movement totaling roughly 25-minutes. Jarrett's gymnastic piano lines weave in and out of majestic, powerful swells from the orchestra, especially in the first movement, while the second takes a darker, more brooding approach, before the finale explodes with plenty of bombast. The New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Kazuyoshi Akiyama, provides a willing partner on the Tokyo recording, lending sweeping melodies alongside Jarrett on ‘Allegretto’ and ominous, almost pained teardrops on the emotional ‘Adagio Religioso’. Jarrett's deft touch is more tranquil in this set as compared to the Barber suite, but no less masterful. It all comes to a raging climax on the thrilling ‘Allegro Vivace’, the vibrant third movement, as the strings and piano reach higher and higher till they shoot into the heavens.
Pete Pardo, Seaoftranquility.org
Although many jazz pianists unquestionably play classical music well, do their performances stack up to those of world-class, full-time classical keyboard practitioners? In the case of these live archival Barber and Bartók Third concertos with Keith Jarrett, the answer is an unequivocal yes, for the pianist’s contributions alone.
Jed Distler, Gramophone
Barber’s Piano Concerto hovers between post-Romanticism and post-Serialism. In his 1984 recording of the concerto in Saarbrücken, Jarrett maintains a remarkable clarity, particularly in the unsettled first movement, and brings freshness to the second, where Barber’s lush extended tonality becomes mawkish. Jarrett’s gallop through the Allegro third movement is raucous and fun, with some excellent interplay with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. Jarrett recorded Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto a year later in Tokyo. […] Jarrett’s playing is dextrous and assured, especially in the cacophonous third movement […] An improvised encore from the Tokyo concert closes the disc – a quietly profound off-the-cuff moment reminding us precisely why Jarrett is one of our age’s greatest musicians
Samuel Johnstone, Sinfini Music
Keith Jarrett plays Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto op. 38 and Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto no. 3. These recordings, made in 1984 and 1985 in Saarbrücken and Tokyo, make a significant addition to the pianist’s discography as an interpreter of notated music. Jarrett’s recordings of classical repertoire for ECM have focused primarily on Bach and Mozart, though there are also exemplary albums of Handel’s keyboard music, and Shostakovich’s Bach-inspired Preludes and Fugues as well as a crucially important contribution to Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa. Playing Fratres alongside Gidon Kremer, Jarrett’s participation would help to bring a then little-known Estonian composer to world attention. It was a richly creative period. Jarrett had just launched the jazz group with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette that would become known as the Standards Trio and in parallel was giving classical recitals, and continuing with his solo piano improvisations. Splitting his time between jazz standards, the vast literature of classical music and free playing, Jarrett was juggling three different musical disciplines. But as Paul Griffiths points out in his liner note for Barber/Bartók/Jarrett there are some points of overlap.
The concertos of Barber and Bartók “came from a world in which Jarrett was living; in a sense, they allowed him to speak of his own epoch, even while performing a work someone else had notated in detail. That they also belonged to a world in which jazz was living was part of the deal – though it was never the ‘jazz concertos’ of Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and others that gained Jarrett’s advocacy but rather works in which the jazz presence is more subtle, part of the background against which the music is taking place.
Barber’s concerto of 1960-62 exemplifies this, not only in its melodic-harmonic language but also in how it often grows through varied repetitions and partial repetitions of a tune. This happens right from the unaccompanied solo at the start, where Jarrett is able to work with the ideas as if pushing them around, seeing where they will go and how they relate.”
“I loved this piece when I first heard it in the 1960s,” says Jarrett of the Barber concerto in his performer’s note in the CD booklet, and The New York Times acknowledged the quality of his affection in a 1983 concert review: “Here was an accomplished jazz pianist who gave Barber’s piano concerto a performance that was both sensitive and strong. Barber, of course, exhibited some influence of American rhythms and song; Mr Jarrett closed the circle. His seriousness showed how the crossing of aesthetic lines can be more than merely condescending or entertaining.”
The Barber performance also draws strength from Jarrett’s association with Dennis Russell Davies. Pianist and conductor had been friends since 1974 when they first collaborated in a performance of Carla Bley’s piece 3/4. Davies would subsequently conduct Jarrett’s Arbour Zena music on tour, record Jarrett’s solo piano composition Ritual and (in the 1990s) direct the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra in Jarrett’s acclaimed recordings of the Mozart concertos.
Jazz musicians have long admired Bartók, and indeed Bartók expressed interest in jazz. Jarrett, a musician with Hungarian family roots, born in the year of Bartók’s death, had the Mikrokosmos amongst his earliest childhood musical studies and was all but predestined to address the Bartók concertos. Paul Griffths: “The first movement of the third concerto is an emigré’s dream, treating a Hungarian melody with some of the looseness of improvisation. Jarrett of course understands this well…” And in the last movement, “the two big fugal episodes, which include some of Bartók’s most Bach-like writing, benefit from this pianist’s ability to make canon seem spontaneous – as spontaneous as the surrounding, bounding Hungarian jazz that this performance equally brings to life.”
After the Bartók performance in Tokyo, Jarrett returned to the stage of the Kan’i Hoken Hall to play an improvised solo piece, now titled “Tokyo Encore – Nothing But A Dream.”
The concertos of Barber and Bartók “came from a world in which Jarrett was living; in a sense, they allowed him to speak of his own epoch, even while performing a work someone else had notated in detail. That they also belonged to a world in which jazz was living was part of the deal – though it was never the ‘jazz concertos’ of Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and others that gained Jarrett’s advocacy but rather works in which the jazz presence is more subtle, part of the background against which the music is taking place.
Barber’s concerto of 1960-62 exemplifies this, not only in its melodic-harmonic language but also in how it often grows through varied repetitions and partial repetitions of a tune. This happens right from the unaccompanied solo at the start, where Jarrett is able to work with the ideas as if pushing them around, seeing where they will go and how they relate.”
“I loved this piece when I first heard it in the 1960s,” says Jarrett of the Barber concerto in his performer’s note in the CD booklet, and The New York Times acknowledged the quality of his affection in a 1983 concert review: “Here was an accomplished jazz pianist who gave Barber’s piano concerto a performance that was both sensitive and strong. Barber, of course, exhibited some influence of American rhythms and song; Mr Jarrett closed the circle. His seriousness showed how the crossing of aesthetic lines can be more than merely condescending or entertaining.”
The Barber performance also draws strength from Jarrett’s association with Dennis Russell Davies. Pianist and conductor had been friends since 1974 when they first collaborated in a performance of Carla Bley’s piece 3/4. Davies would subsequently conduct Jarrett’s Arbour Zena music on tour, record Jarrett’s solo piano composition Ritual and (in the 1990s) direct the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra in Jarrett’s acclaimed recordings of the Mozart concertos.
Jazz musicians have long admired Bartók, and indeed Bartók expressed interest in jazz. Jarrett, a musician with Hungarian family roots, born in the year of Bartók’s death, had the Mikrokosmos amongst his earliest childhood musical studies and was all but predestined to address the Bartók concertos. Paul Griffths: “The first movement of the third concerto is an emigré’s dream, treating a Hungarian melody with some of the looseness of improvisation. Jarrett of course understands this well…” And in the last movement, “the two big fugal episodes, which include some of Bartók’s most Bach-like writing, benefit from this pianist’s ability to make canon seem spontaneous – as spontaneous as the surrounding, bounding Hungarian jazz that this performance equally brings to life.”
After the Bartók performance in Tokyo, Jarrett returned to the stage of the Kan’i Hoken Hall to play an improvised solo piece, now titled “Tokyo Encore – Nothing But A Dream.”
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